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the littlest prince posted:Credit karma has a bunch of reviews saying those 50,000 miles are basically worthless. Well, it's more like one review that says they are worthless, and a bunch of folks that didn't understand the companion ticket. I read all the reviews a day or two ago when I started seriously thinking about this card. I don't put a lot of weight in them, but obviously everyone here needs to make their own decision. The reason I don't really care about those reviews is because they seem to be written by folks that don't know what the rules for redeeming miles are. I get the distinct impression that folks were expecting to use miles to book a flight for next week and get a great deal. I'm perfectly okay to take lovely dates a year in advance, so I'm good with it. They will be AAdvantage miles in a few months, and those might not be the absolute best out there, but they're not bad either. Anyway, everyone considering applying for it should read the reviews on Credit Karma, and of course, read the fine print. To me, the folks on Credit Karma basically seemed like jackasses that didn't actually understand what they were getting, so I pulled the trigger. YMMV.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:24
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It's also an opportunity to get 100k AA miles since US and AA are merging. You can get 50k AA points through CiTi for 3k spend in 3 months with the annual fee waived and then the Barclays US card is 50k miles when you pay the annual fee, $89, and make a purchase. A 100k miles is a round trip business class ticket to Europe as an example so it's pretty ridiculous value, though having to pay an annual fee is a minor downside.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:27
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I don't understand the US Airways card. Sure it's 50k miles but that's not really THAT much in terms of airplane tickets. And if you're going to lose out on the companion ticket discount and unless you're literally flying US Airways CONSTANTLY I don't see how you'd make up the $89 annual fee regardless. And looking on Google at the various guides on how to redeem those miles, why bother? I understand the hotel credit cards (annual free nights that offset the annual fee and/or opportunity to book low cost rooms) that tie you to a specific brand (there's always a Hilton/Hyatt/Marriott in a city), but in this day and age who flies exclusively with one airline for domestic travel? Odds are that yeah you can use say 25k points on a plane ticket but then there's a JetBlue/Southwest discounted flight for $199.... so you're actually shooting yourself in the foot by being tied to one airline. It's not like hotels where you can go "hmm, there's the nice Hilton but there's also the cheaper Hilton and my card benefits apply to both!" Edit: The miles are "useless" in the sense that you can't use them freely, whereas hotel points and stuff like Chase Sapphire/Barclay Arrival+ can be used anytime you drat well want to.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:32
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Insane Totoro posted:I don't understand the US Airways card. Sure it's 50k miles but that's not really THAT much in terms of airplane tickets. And if you're going to lose out on the companion ticket discount and unless you're literally flying US Airways CONSTANTLY I don't see how you'd make up the $89 annual fee regardless. And looking on Google at the various guides on how to redeem those miles, why bother? I think you're looking at is as "Is this a card I want to have for years?" I am looking at it as "Is this a card I am willing to try out for a year, given that I get 50,000 miles for paying the annual fee?" Round-trip CONUS travel is 25,000 miles, so it's two tickets. I can't fly to Chicago twice for $89 any other way, so I'm down with it. If the card doesn't justify the annual fee in year two, I'll ask Barclaycard to move the limit to my Arrival+ and cancel it. For sure, it is not as good a card as the CSP or Arrival+, but for someone that's willing to fly US Airways twice (I am), I don't know a quicker/cheaper/easier way to get 50,000 miles. Put another way: do I expect that I will still have this card when summer 2016 rolls around? I do not, but I am willing to give it a shot and see, considering how much they are giving me to try it.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:46
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A business class ticket to Europe isn't worth $89? I'm skeptical that you can't find flights in the US where 50k miles would be worth more than $89, but international flights are where miles payoff. Cards like Barclay Arrival+ are good if you want flexibility and basically straight cash, but if you want to fly internationally and are willing to work around award redemption limitations then miles are a significantly better value. This is doubly true if you want to fly business or first class. You aren't really tied to the airline either, you're making a couple of flights and you have a couple years to do it in. I don't think I'd recommend signing up for credit card bonuses without a plan, but miles can significantly reduce the cost of travel.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:47
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Fair point. I think it depends on your willingness to expend effort and time on something if you want to try the card out and then potentially cancel/dodge the annual fee later on. And 50k points isn't that much of a savings if you have to eat the annual fee multiple times but if we're working under the assumption that the card will pay off for you over time (since you use that airline so often) or that you're going to just churn the points.... I agree that is completely different. It's also true I hadn't considered that if you want to fly internationally then it's worth the effort. I was just noting that for domestic flights the payoff is kinda minimal. But I guess that I don't like to fly international THAT much and I'm more a domestic travel kind of guy. So I'll amend my opinion to "okay it pays off for international flights but not domestic" and "you really might not like the idea of being tied down to one airline." TL;DR the value of each and every one of these credit cards depends on your lifestyle
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Mar 20, 2015 16:51
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So I'm trying to get into is whole miles thing (always had rewards cards before) and I'm getting confused with all these weird names and different flavored cards. Is there like a go-to For Dummies thing you guys use? If I got for the 100k miles with Barclays & Citi AA cards, is it really just applying for the "US Airways Premier World MasterCard" (like this), paying the 89 bucks then getting the "Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard" (like this) and getting 3k spend on it? Then ditching both and going back to the Chase Sapphire Preferred or whatever?
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Mar 20, 2015 19:41
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SuperSpiff posted:So I'm trying to get into is whole miles thing (always had rewards cards before) and I'm getting confused with all these weird names and different flavored cards. Is there like a go-to For Dummies thing you guys use? Pretty much, yeah. You'll have points in your US Airways account and points in your AAdvantage account, and when those merge, your points will merge. You'll be left with 100,000 AAdvantage miles that will need to be spent within the next few years, before they expire. Generally it is considered wise to have a plan for the miles before you earn them. I am going to Europe at least twice this year and probably also to Chicago, Atlanta, and Sioux Falls, so I've got a plan to use my miles. If you're doing it just because "hey miles" then it might not make as much sense.
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Mar 20, 2015 20:19
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TraderStav posted:What is the reason for the urgency to get in on the card before it closes? A lost opportunity to get the sign on bonus since there'll be one less card in the mix? I don't generally use AA or USA so not sure if I should be interested/concerned. You can use them on codeshare/partner airlines as well. I used AA miles to fly Qantas to Australia last month, was 37.5k miles (one way). So for the guy asking about why you'd bother, uh, yeah. 100k miles is a round trip to Australia, plus an RT Australia-New Zealand leg while you're over there (AA counts Australia and NZ as the same country, so it's only a 10k "domestic" hop each way).
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Mar 20, 2015 21:14
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Yeah if you think 50,000 miles is useless, you're doing it wrong. Also the reason to get the US Barclaycard before it goes away is because that'll be combined with American Airlines miles soon. AA is partnered with Citi, so you can get a second card through them for AA miles. So basically you've got the opportunity to get 100,000 miles in one go, instead of getting 50,000 and then waiting a period of time (I think 18 months with Citi, if that's still timeline) to re-apply for the card to get another bonus. I managed to get in on the US Airways card a year or so ago where the first year fee was waived, so I actually pocketed 50,000 after one purchase, then never used the card again. They actually gave me a retention bonus when I called to cancel a couple of months ago for some reason(I think just a fee waiver and some bonus points if I spent $XXXX in a month, which I didn't do).
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Mar 21, 2015 03:34
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Figured I'd qualify my first statement real quick: OK, you're saying 50,000 for an $89 signup fee is mostly worthless for domestic travel because it ties you to an airline and it doesn't get you much. My local airport is Detroit, which is more or less a Delta hub. Let's say I want to fly to Atlanta (THE Detla hub) for some sweet sweet Cinco De Mayo action on May 2nd and come back May 9th. I'm just using an arbitrary date, but a near one (since people always bitch that FF miles are useless unless you book them way ahead of time). I'm SPECIFICALLY using a competitor's hub so I can show you how tying yourself to one airline is rarely a thing. Priceline tells me that the cheapest paid ticket I'll get for that (on an airline I'd fly, IE NOT Spirit) is $228, from Delta. Trying to book that same flight with AA miles, its... 25K miles for a round trip. So this is how you'd think about whether you book with miles or points there: Paid is $228. If I pay in miles, that's a redemption value of .912 cents/mile. That's not a great mile redemption rate, so if I had some Barclay Arrival points (1 whole cent per point), it would be smarter to pay with cash and erase that with 22,800 points. If you have several different kinds of points, you can always do this math to figure out which one is the smarter option. Or you can do what some people discussed above and save your miles for international travel, the best value, and use cash for the cheaper domestic flights. But to the "what's the point of 50K miles for $89????" crowd: You can take this round trip, twice, for $89 dollars, even if you're "hub captive" to a competitive airline. It's obviously not always going to work out like that, but who in the world said you HAD to sign up for any of these cards before you did a cursory search for what and where you'd want to use the miles/points?
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Mar 21, 2015 03:54
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What is the timeline like on the merger? I'm currently spending on the CSP to get the 50k bonus and need another month or two. I'd like to get the 100k from these two cards if I can...
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Mar 21, 2015 04:02
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khysanth posted:What is the timeline like on the merger? I'm currently spending on the CSP to get the 50k bonus and need another month or two. I'd like to get the 100k from these two cards if I can... You're probably good on the Citi for a while, which has a $3k spend for 50k points. The Barclaycard US Airways MC is going away very soon - I'm reading April 12, April 17, and today (March 20), so who knows. On the plus side with that one, the spend is literally "one transaction plus the $89 annual fee", so go buy a candy bar, pay the first bill, and you have 50k miles. I don't know your finances but I'd wager you could swing that. Edit - Barclaycard has removed it from their site as of two days ago. I'm not sure what that means, except "we are getting closer to its death". You can still apply through US Airways. http://www.usairways.com/en-US/dividendmiles/creditcards/default.html?re=1 becoming fucked around with this message at 04:31 on Mar 21, 2015 |
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Mar 21, 2015 04:28
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Brian Fellows posted:Figured I'd qualify my first statement real quick: Sup Delta Detroit buddy,  love your username too by the way.
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Mar 21, 2015 04:55
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I'm going to be traveling to London (or having my London friend come to DC) a bunch. It looks like purchasing a coach fare is ~$1k. Using AA miles, however, I can get there for 40k round trip. Which credit cards would be best for me to churn to get miles that will help me get to an from UK frequently? I've already got the Barclays US Air, Citi American and Amex Starwood cards, so those are probably off limits for now. Thanks!
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Mar 22, 2015 05:34
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Brian Fellows posted:Yeah if you think 50,000 miles is useless, you're doing it wrong. This, a thousand times. I have some friends who are a couple and have a system figured out to put all of their expenses on their AA cards and fly free, first class, all over the world, all the time. They live in Dallas which is AA's primary global hub, which helps a lot too. If you live out on the east coast you might want to invest in Delta miles, and (I guess?) United for west coast miles. Once you hit a certain tier, you qualify for free upgrades to business on non-full flights, then first class, and access to special lobbies where they have free soda and rub your feet (or something, never been in one). American does a really good job of taking care of their top 5% spenders. I dated a girl going to vet school in the Caribbean and her dad flew me round trip business class to Grenada to see her on spare airline miles he had saved up from XYZ, and he didn't even like me that much. If you work the airline miles program at all, it returns pretty good dividends, if you like to travel.
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Mar 22, 2015 06:51
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dexter6 posted:I'm going to be traveling to London (or having my London friend come to DC) a bunch. It looks like purchasing a coach fare is ~$1k. Using AA miles, however, I can get there for 40k round trip. You're probably going to have to fly a different airline or book via a partner. I'd look into United Mileage Explorer, Delta Gold Skymiles, the BA card, and Chase Sapphire Preffered.
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Mar 22, 2015 08:28
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Also don't assume just because there are 40k mile tickets available that you'll be able to get 40k mile tickets on the dates/flights you want.
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Mar 22, 2015 15:52
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Thoguh posted:Also don't assume just because there are 40k mile tickets available that you'll be able to get 40k mile tickets on the dates/flights you want.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:09
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Some people have really strict vacation schedules and those miles tend to not work out well. (waifu and I are both educators)
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Mar 22, 2015 16:11
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Lets say I end up getting 40k chase miles, 40k BA miles and I have 100k AA miles... am I able to combine those in any way, or are they all used on their own?
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Mar 22, 2015 16:23
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dexter6 posted:Lets say I end up getting 40k chase miles, 40k BA miles and I have 100k AA miles... am I able to combine those in any way, or are they all used on their own? Ultimate Rewards points can transfer to BA Avios. You can book AA flights with Avios. So yeah, you can kinda sorta combine them. All of those points/miles can be used to fly AA.
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Mar 22, 2015 16:39
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I'm less concerned about which airline I fly and more concerned about having enough miles. So lets say I want a 50k flight and only have 40k BA miles, I can't dip into the 100k I have for AA to book the flight, right?
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Mar 22, 2015 16:45
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dexter6 posted:I'm less concerned about which airline I fly and more concerned about having enough miles. So lets say I want a 50k flight and only have 40k BA miles, I can't dip into the 100k I have for AA to book the flight, right? Correct. As far as I know there are no airline miles that can be transferred into another mileage program or used in a combined booking. The only points that can be transferred into something else are Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, and Starwood Starpoints.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:04
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pig slut lisa posted:Correct. As far as I know there are no airline miles that can be transferred into another mileage program or used in a combined booking. The only points that can be transferred into something else are Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, and Starwood Starpoints.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:09
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dexter6 posted:I'm less concerned about which airline I fly and more concerned about having enough miles. So lets say I want a 50k flight and only have 40k BA miles, I can't dip into the 100k I have for AA to book the flight, right? From the previous post though, it sounds like you can book the 50k BA flight with the 100k AA miles though, correct? If so, I may be getting the BA card next.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:14
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Cacafuego posted:From the previous post though, it sounds like you can book the 50k BA flight with the 100k AA miles though, correct? If so, I may be getting the BA card next.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:15
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dexter6 posted:Interesting - so maybe I hold CUR, Amex and Starwood points in their own buckets and transfer them in as needed. Yeah. AA points are also good to earn because they are pretty good for international travel on partner airlines, especially in premium cabins. For example, let's say you wanted to fly from Chicago to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. Cathay is a OneWorld alliance member, so you could book with Cathay Asia Miles, AAdvantage Miles, or any other partner's miles. Again, you can't combine partner miles for this; you need to have enough points in one of your "buckets" to make a booking. This flight is roughly 7,800 miles long, which puts you into Category E for Cathay's reward chart. Accordingly, you would need 55,000 Asia Miles for one way economy, 85,000 for one way business, and 130,000 for one way first. Meanwhile, American Airlines uses a zone based chart, counting Hong Kong as "Asia 2". To fly between North America and Asia 2 on Cathay Pacific booked through American's reservation system, you would only need 35,000 AAdvantage Miles for one way economy, 55,000 for one way business, and 67,500 for one way first.
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Mar 22, 2015 17:29
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Does Amex only let you get one signup bonus ever from any of their cards? I recently opened my first card with them and got a $250 bonus (blue cash preferred). Now, when I go to their site while logged in, all of the signup bonuses disappear for all cards. When I open a new browser and visit anonymously, I see signup bonus offers for all their cards. I'm not talking about churning the same card, it looks like they just wont ever give you any signup bonus for any of their cards again once you get one.
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Mar 22, 2015 18:27
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Swingline posted:Does Amex only let you get one signup bonus ever from any of their cards? I recently opened my first card with them and got a $250 bonus (blue cash preferred). Now, when I go to their site while logged in, all of the signup bonuses disappear for all cards. When I open a new browser and visit anonymously, I see signup bonus offers for all their cards. I'm not talking about churning the same card, it looks like they just wont ever give you any signup bonus for any of their cards again once you get one. No, you can get multiple sign-up bonuses. I got the same $250 for BCP, as well as 50,000 MR points for the PRG, at the beginning of the month.
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Mar 22, 2015 18:39
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Sign up bonuses are to entice you to become a customer and spend money with their cards. If you're already a customer they don't need to advertise the sign up bonuses. You can still receive them if you sign up for the card under an offer that gives one.
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Mar 22, 2015 18:46
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Amex's website actually will hide signup bonuses for other cards if you're logged in and have an existing card. Seriously. It's bullshit. Log off, clear your cookies and temporary internet files, THEN go to their site to get around it.
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Mar 22, 2015 20:44
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pig slut lisa posted:Correct. As far as I know there are no airline miles that can be transferred into another mileage program or used in a combined booking. The only points that can be transferred into something else are Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, and Starwood Starpoints. There's one more program I forgot. Citi ThankYou Rewards can be transferred to Hilton HHonors and a variety of airline programs.
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Mar 22, 2015 22:36
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Insane Totoro posted:Some people have really strict vacation schedules and those miles tend to not work out well. FWIW, I think airlines are moving out from hard blackout dates. For example, I got an email recently from... I think it was BA, they guarantee at least two rewards seats on every flight they offer, just a matter of booking early enough. becoming posted:Ultimate Rewards points can transfer to BA Avios. You can book AA flights with Avios. So yeah, you can kinda sorta combine them. All of those points/miles can be used to fly AA. One thing to be aware of is each account needing to be 90 days old to transfer Avios. Got a note on my calendar in late April to transfer the Avios I got at Iberian over to BA. Speaking of BA's fees and surcharges, you can get around that by booking on one of their partner airlines with Avios, right? Once I've got all my Avios together I was going to give them a call (sigh) and try to book something for early next year.
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Mar 22, 2015 23:13
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If I was an authorized user on an Amex card years ago (account closed last year - a joint card with my now ex-wife), can I have the date on my current card change to reflect that? Will that help increase my AAoA with Amex?
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Mar 23, 2015 02:02
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Hadlock posted:This, a thousand times. I have some friends who are a couple and have a system figured out to put all of their expenses on their AA cards and fly free, first class, all over the world, all the time. They live in Dallas which is AA's primary global hub, which helps a lot too. If you live out on the east coast you might want to invest in Delta miles, and (I guess?) United for west coast miles. Wait, how do you "work" a miles program? Is there a good source that has everything I need to know in one place?
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Mar 23, 2015 02:50
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dexter6 posted:Yes, I can book AA with BA miles and BA with AA miles, however from reading blogs, it seems you should almost never book BA flights because of the fuel surcharges they put on. I priced out a flight that was 40k miles but $800 in fees/taxes. However, a lot of domestic flights (both on BA and partners) do not have any such charges. So, using them for a coach flight within the US, for example. I've booked a short (~500 hop) flight for my family that cost $176 for 4500 Avios. Do be aware that BA points can only be redeemed for low-level awards on partners (for instance, MilesAAver on AA). So check availability BEFORE you transfer points to BA.
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Mar 23, 2015 06:31
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EB Nulshit posted:Wait, how do you "work" a miles program? Is there a good source that has everything I need to know in one place? There are a bunch of advanced methods, one of them involves going through a hub airport as a layover to somewhere else, but you can have up to two weeks layover, they call this an "open jaw" ticket. This guy has a whole website about neat stuff. My friend's partner apparently knows the AA ticketing system really well and books all his flights over the phone as there's a bunch of secret options  I just fly normal and use my miles once a year like a normal person, but you can kind of turn it in to a high stakes game with the reward of traveling everywhere for nearly free.http://thepointsguy.com/2014/08/maximizing-stopovers-and-open-jaws-on-award-tickets/ edit: here is an explaination from another site, If I am reading this correctly, he's doing one round trip ticket from London to Paris, but stopping off in New York. And since you go through a third country you get a free "domestic" trip for whatever reason. With really clever scheduling you can do all kinds of wacky things in a one year time limit period. extrapackofpeanuts.com posted:You can still use your first open jaw in Europe, as you originally planned, so let’s continue with our original itinerary. I'm kind of surprised we don't have an airlines mile thread, you can game the system at least as hard as the Steam summer sales, and with greater tangible benefits. Hadlock fucked around with this message at 07:26 on Mar 23, 2015 |
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Mar 23, 2015 07:14
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Is there a no fee card better than the Amazon Chase card for dining out?
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Mar 23, 2015 08:38
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EB Nulshit posted:Wait, how do you "work" a miles program? Is there a good source that has everything I need to know in one place? Most of these people either have their own business and put all the expenses through a rewards card, or they fly a ton for work.
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Mar 23, 2015 12:36
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