No-brainer signups for a college student?
 

Hi, all!

I’m Alec, am new here, and am now flummoxed by the cornucopia of great information here. I am graduating from college a week from today, and hope to start traveling as soon as possible.

I received a $1200 grant from my school to go to Brazil (and, for a time, Buenos Aires) for the summer (departing in early July), and am currently trying to find a smart deal on a ticket to there. I also intend to visit Europe (Holland, Scotland, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece), sometime in the next year future. I'm not sure if it's at all discussed here, but I am also interested in cultural/historical/scenic/two-lane highway road trips.

I have a bank account with National City, and their card (Visa) is the only one I currently use. At the moment, I make and spend very little money. I live in South Bend, Indiana, which is 90-120 minutes from the Chicago airports.

I will be absorbing the wealth of information here over the next few weeks, but in the meantime, can anyone suggest any no-brainers for me to do relating to credit cards and other frequent flyer programs while I’m still in the blank slate stage? I just signed up for the Southwest student rapid rewards program (should I now sign up for THEIR credit card for 8 credits?), and am about to sign up for the United Mileage Plus student program (when I graduate in a week I should immediately get 10k miles, correct? Is now the best time to do it?).

Thank you, and looking forward to learning much here!

Alec

Welcome to FT!

You'll want to register for United's College Plus program before your graduation.
Sign up for a United account if you don't have one, then register for the College Plus bonus.
http://www.united.com/page/middlepag...3,1271,00.html

You will find the Student Programs page of my website below to be useful.

Ditto !!!

You won't get the miles immediately, but you'll get them within a week or two of sending in a copy of the final transcript. I bet they'll compare the signup date and the graduation date, so do it today if you haven't already.

And if you go to grad school or professional school, you can do it again!

Thanks, guys!

Just did all of this. Should I also sign up for this Mileage Plus Visa and then cut it up and throw it away for 21k bonus miles?

Thank you!

Alec

...hmm, I tried to sign up for the Mileage Plus Visa, and after I filled everything out, it said it was unavailable...

There are a variety of bonus mile offers which come and go, and there is a forum to discuss that. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forum...ysprune=&f=599

There is a program associated with the United College Plus program. It is a no-fee VISA and I'm not aware that there was ever a bonus.
http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6722,3101,00.html

The experience of my two daughters is that they can keep the no-fee VISA
indefinitely.

Not go too OT here, and if you can get 10K for free that's a smart deal... but just wanted to mention that I used to live in AZO and there were always a lot of great deals on airfare out of SBN, particularly on NW more often than any other carrier. So just a little food for thought in picking a program.

South America
 

If you're going to South America, American Airlines and its partners have a large part of the market, and I'd focus on them. For a credit card, I'd get a Starwood American Express card if you're dedicated to earning miles. If you also get a Citibank Visa card for the places that don't take Amex, you'll fill out the miles earnings possibilities. If you combine the three and use them for several years, it'll be relatively easy to get elite status on AA. Of course it helps to pursue all the other miles earning opportunities, like those on pgary's website.

Southwest has bonus Rapid Rewards points/extra credits if you sign up for RR while you are a college student. Search "college" in the Southwest thread for details.

Also, when I signed up a couple of months ago, NOT as a college student, Southwest was offering 16 credits plus up to 8 more for balance transfers. I'd check out the Rapid Rewards forum to see if the offer's still good.

Sign up for United's Mileage Plus FF Program
 

As far as lessons learned, here's one thing I wish I had done differently. I'll suggest United's FF program as being "better" than American's, where I have the bulk of my miles.

My latest example is a trip to Europe I'm planning for the off season. I really wanted to use my AA miles, but all flights to my destination from ORD required change of planes (and often airports) in London. The fees that must be paid on free tickets are much higher, in my case double, if you have to go thru the UK. AA has it over United (Star Alliance) for off-peak travel to Europe as the mileage requirements are 40K vs 50K for coach, but the airlines choices are more extensive on United's Star Alliance and (I've read) better in terms of in flight service and amenitites.

Just MHO as someone who has to save for years to get a couple of free tickets.