The Best Airline Miles Credit Card Offers For Frequent Flyers

By MoneyBlueBook

Airline Credit Card Rewards and Offers

I have a friend who is absolutely nutty about frequent flyer miles. Because he has family and relatives who live all over the place - in New York, Chicago, India, and England to name a few, he travels by airplane quite frequently. It's not just him either. His new wife and immediate family members always seem to be on the go, and over time they've become quite the experts at taking advantage of discount airline tickets and cheap airfare deals. One of their smartest moves was to make sure that they always purchase their airline tickets using an airline miles credit card - to leverage the cumulative cost-saving power of frequent flyer miles. Not only does this have the added benefit of protection against airline bankruptcy risk (a real possibility these days), it also affords them the opportunity to earn substantial amounts of frequent flier miles redeemable for future free flights. By focusing their ordinary credit card purchases to earn airline miles, they've been able to fly for free many times - both domestically and internationally. These international airline reservations to fly across the oceanic pond definitely don't come cheap either - each coach class international flight can cost in excess of $1,000 - so getting some of the airline tickets by redeeming earned reward points or miles has definitely been a nice bonus.

Despite The Common Annual Fee and High Interest Rates Involved, Frequent Flyers Who Pay Off Their Credit Card Balance Every Month Will Benefit Greatly From

By MoneyBlueBook

The scenario I am about to paint is very real. Let's say you are planning for a dream vacation. Or maybe it's your honeymoon and you are eager to fly somewhere romantic and spend a week at some remote tropical destination. Or maybe you are splurging for an exciting few days on a luxury cruise ship. Either way, rather than booking your travel reservations through a traditional travel agent, you decide to do it yourself through an online discount travel broker such as Expedia, Travelocity, or Orbitz. You don't like to use credit cards so you decide to pay your reservations using a debit card or even by check. A month passes and now it's only a week before your scheduled trip. Suddenly you get a phone call or an email advising you that your travel plans have been halted indefinitely because the travel agency that scheduled your itinerary has declared bankruptcy or gone out of business. Maybe it's not the travel agent but the airline or cruise ship company that has gone bankrupt. The chances of that happening may be slight, but the consequences can be financially disastrous. That's why it's important to protect your upfront reservation money by using credit card payment. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA), credit card consumers who purchase with a Visa, Mastercard, or American Express card are afforded substantially more purchase protections then those who make payment using cash, money orders, or debit cards. These days, airline credit cards also offer a wide variety of

By MoneyBlueBook

Not too long ago I went on vacation in East Asia. While I was there I had the fortune to be accompanied by local friends who could spot me so I didn't need to convert my American dollars into local currency. However there were at least two occasions when I glanced upon several beautiful small wooden art pieces that I wanted to buy. While I had a few local currency bills on me, it wasn't enough to buy the slightly expensive art pieces. So I had to resort to what I ordinarily would do back home in the United States - pull out my trusty cash back credit card. Fortunately, I had the foresight prior to traveling to another country, to research and familiarize myself with credit card foreign currency exchange fees.

Watch Out For Hidden International Credit Card Foreign Currency Exchange Charges

While foreign currency exchange fees are now generally listed and disclosed by credit card companies, card issuers rarely publicize these hidden charges, preferring to leave them in the fine print. While some complain that the majority of these interchange fees are not used to process the actual currency exchange, but rather used to fund credit card reward programs and other direct advertising campaigns, the real concern is the lack of education when it comes to incurring these fees. Frequently, consumers who use their credit cards overseas come home to the unwelcome surprise of costly fees on their billing statement.

The foreign currency transaction fee for credit card purchases is comprised of two parts -

By MoneyBlueBook

Well a year has passed since I started earning and accumulating Citi ThankYou Reward Points using my squadron of Citibank credit cards, and now it's time to redeem them for some well deserved purchase rewards. I own three of them myself, and here are the top Citibank cards when it comes to earning ThankYou reward points:

By MoneyBlueBook

I'm a frequent road warrior. I don't fly that often, but I do take frequent long road trips out of state for personal and business purposes. Every time I travel I frequently spend a few nights at a hotel. It doesn't matter whether I stay at an inexpensive motel or whether I stay at a higher end place, I always make sure I maximize my money by earning reward points for every night's stay. If you travel a lot, being a member of multiple hotel reward programs can help you save money and earn reward points for wherever you may choose to stay on a whim.

Joining hotel reward clubs and programs is one of the easiest way to effortlessly accumulate loyalty points for complimentary stays in the future. Many programs even offer frequent flyer miles as a reward option in addition to hotel points. The overwhelming majority of programs are free to join with easy online enrollment and management. Each hotel reward program covers a family line ranging from low cost budget chains to more expensive luxury brands. Many programs also offer upgrade opportunities and additional perks like complimentary newspapers, drinks, and meals. Just register via the program's website and report your assigned membership number everytime you book a hotel stay. Even if you forget to use your membership card at the time of reservation, you can always go back later to report the missing hotel stay. I've done it a few times myself.

Here Are The Most Popular Hotel Reward Programs (Sorted Alphabetically):

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By MoneyBlueBook

I think I am secretly a big government, socialist type person (go communism...just kidding). I like freedom of choice but sometimes having too many options can get cumbersome and mind boggling. Frequently, it's good to just have a handful of recommended choices.

When it comes to picking the best travel website to do your airfare or hotel research, there are so many to choose from it can be overwhelming. Many popular news sites like CNN have provided their own top travel website lists, but I think they list way too many. I love lists but I'm not a fan of long lists containing too many choices. Too many choices means I need to take extra time to sort the diamonds from the rough. Just give me the best choice I always say. So that's what I'll do.

Bottom line, after comparing ease of use and prices among the numerous travel websites, my overall favorite is SideStep. The site consistently gave me the most competitive search results. I use it in conjunction with my other two favorites, Expediaand Travelocity. These three sites will give you the best search and pricing results.

Compare Prices Using Sidestep With Expedia and Travelocity

SideStep is what they call a meta search engine because it aggregates and consolidates search results from a wide variety of travel sites. The service pulls airfare and hotel information from more than 150,000 hotels and 600 airlines to give you pricing information based on your search criteria.