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Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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I’m looking at either getting a delta airlines credit card or a hotel credit card like Hilton or Marriott to earn milage or points. I plan on increasing my travel now that covid seems to have calmed down. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this? For the first time my credit score which sat in the 700s for a long time finally crossed into the 800 territory
There's lots of well researched articles online on airline/travel cards. You're going to get subpar info on this forum. At best, someone might share a link.
Airline credit cards are good for perks like free checked bags and earlier boarding, but they are generally NOT the best way to earn airline miles. Those are usually best earned via a bank card that offers points that can be converted to miles. If you want Delta miles, consider the American Express Everyday (no annual fee) or Everyday Preferred ($95 annual fee). They earn points convertible to Delta miles, and at a much faster rate than the American Express Delta card does, provided you use it enough to get the monthly point bonus (which requires 20 purchases/month on the Everyday card, or 30/month on the Everyday Preferred card). You can also transfer the points to other airlines to redeem on Oneworld or Star Alliance partners, or transfer them to the Marriot Bonvoy hotel program, or use them to book flights and hotels through the American Express travel portal, or use them to pay for purchases, so they are more flexible than Delta Skymiles. Here's the current list of their travel transfer partners: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-g...ravel/airlines
There's lots of well researched articles online on airline/travel cards. You're going to get subpar info on this forum. At best, someone might share a link.
Just do a google search for articles and be done.
^ This.
The points guy, nerdwallet, flyer talk, etc, all are good resources to start, they will likely lead to other areas. Reddit also has some healthy groups like credit cards and branded groups like American Express, Chase, etc.
What works for you will depend on your travel frequency and spending habits.
In some cases, you may be better off just getting no fee cash back cards. In other cases, it make make sense for you spend hundreds of dollars on multiple fee cards specific to travel as you'll get more than what those fees will cost you.
For travel, a good place to start is look at Chase, American Express and Capital One. Those are the three top (as in most popular, not necessarily best in value) "families" that people look at. They have their own points/travel program that you can transfer to various airline/hotel partners. And many of the airline/hotel cards are often co-branded with these three institutions.
DW and I fly Delta a lot and we get great value out of our Delta Reserve cards. The sign up bonuses were great, we use the Sky Clubs and Centurion lounges frequently, and we've used companion tickets very successfully. To us, the companion ticket alone more than justifies the annual fees. We also have great Delta connections from our home airport.
We love our Delta cards but for earning miles/points, as others have said, there may be better options. The Points Guy is where I first learned about transferrable points. This article gives a pretty good summary of how to get great value out of your credit card spending. Good luck!
I’m looking at either getting a delta airlines credit card or a hotel credit card like Hilton or Marriott to earn milage or points. I plan on increasing my travel now that covid seems to have calmed down. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this? For the first time my credit score which sat in the 700s for a long time finally crossed into the 800 territory
I have Lifetime Platinum Elite status with Marriott, and also have a Marriott branded Visa Signature card through Chase. However, I only use the card when I'm staying at Marriott properties and earning 10x for every dollar spent. It is pretty worthless for everyday spending at 1 point per $1 spent given how they've devalued the Bonvoy program to where it can cost 40,000 points just to stay at a Marriott Courtyard or Sheraton Four Points property. You'd be much better off using an airline card and earning FF miles where you could get a r/t domestic ticket for only 25k miles.
For everyday spending, my wife and I usually alternate signing up for United Visa cards and/or American Airlines branded Mastercards. We will sign up for one annually, get the significant sign-up bonus of 40k-60k miles, and then cancel it when the first year fee-free period expires. Between the two of us, we can rotate cards through a 48-month period before starting over and thus earning the sign-up bonuses again and again. For most other T&E expenses, I use my AmEx Platinum Card, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you plan to do a lot of traveling.
For travel, a good place to start is look at Chase, American Express and Capital One. Those are the three top (as in most popular, not necessarily best in value) "families" that people look at. They have their own points/travel program that you can transfer to various airline/hotel partners.
As far as I know, Capitol One doesn't have any domestic airline transfer partners (although their Venture and Venture X cards to have international transfer partners). Miles with those international partners CAN be used to purchase domestic flights on US airlines in the same alliance, but it can be a bit of a pain to do, especially for a newbie to the game. Their other travel cards award non-transferable "miles" which you can use to pay for flights booked via their credit cards (which, if you fly domestic only, may be all you need).
As for the others: Chase's main domestic airline transfer partners are United (Star Alliance) and Southwest. American Express has Delta (Sky Team). Citibank and Barclay's have American (OneWorld).
So the first thing the OP needs to do is look at his/her travel patterns. Which airlines are used most frequently, and are the flights purely domestic or does he/she do international travel as well?
Hotel loyalty programs generally offer less value than airline loyalty programs do (although both have declined significantly in both value and usability over the past decade or so). They are easier to use, though, as date restrictions are rare.
OP, be aware that good frequent flyer tickets on airlines other than Southwest can be hard to find. The more flexible you can be on travel dates, airports, and destinations, the more usable you'll find airline miles. The more restrictions you have on those (particularly dates), the harder it will be to find a good frequent flyer ticket, and the more likely it is you'll get more value from a 2% cash back card or a Capital One card that offers cash-back that can be applied only to travel purchases.
OP, be aware that good frequent flyer tickets on airlines other than Southwest can be hard to find. The more flexible you can be on travel dates, airports, and destinations, the more usable you'll find airline miles. The more restrictions you have on those (particularly dates), the harder it will be to find a good frequent flyer ticket, and the more likely it is you'll get more value from a 2% cash back card or a Capital One card that offers cash-back that can be applied only to travel purchases.
Generally excellent info in your complete post, however, the highlighted portion above is not usually a problem these days. UAL & AA for example, have eliminated blackout dates; if there is a seat available on the aircraft, they claim that you can get it with FF miles. They just jack up the "price" by requiring up to double (and perhaps more) the amount of points normally required.
Generally excellent info in your complete post, however, the highlighted portion above is not usually a problem these days. UAL & AA for example, have eliminated blackout dates; if there is a seat available on the aircraft, they claim that you can get it with FF miles. They just jack up the "price" by requiring up to double (and perhaps more) the amount of points normally required.
Very true, but that's a problem because the jacked-up price often amounts to a return of less than 2 cents/mile. And at less than 2cents/mile, you're underperforming a 2% cash-back card, which makes collecting airline miles hard to justify.
The no annual fee AmEx Hilton usually has a nice sign up bonus, especially for a no annual fee card, and gets you comped Silver Elite status in that program and has no forex fee if you travel outside the USA. It’s also got gas stations as a bonus category, which a lot of cards don’t in addition to grocery store and restaurant bonus categories. (Due to Hilton points being the peso of hotel loyalty programs, the 5x for those ends up being about 2% back) Since you can have four different AmEx credit cards at one time, it can be useful to have as a secondary card even if you primarily throw spend on other cards.
AmEx Everyday- another good card for ‘everyday’ spend with the 2x on groceries that turns into unrestricted AmEx Member Rewards points. You can also link it to your Rakuten shopping portal account (you can with any AmEx cards that earn unrestricted MR points) and get a bunch of bonus points that way even if you pay with a different credit card. Does not get a ton of love in the travel blogging world because it typically has a low sign up bonus but the point of the card is that you hold onto it rather than churning.
The Delta cards. A lot of that comes down to just how much you fly every year and whether you have date flexibility in your travel to maximize the BOGO companion certificate you get once a year after the first year.
AmEx Delta SkyMiles Gold- best for the 2-3 times a year flyer who likes to check bags. The $95/year fee if effectively prepaying your bag benefit at a deep discount.
AmEx Delta SkyMiles Platinum- this is actually a better earner than the SkyMiles Reserve card with 2x on groceries and restaurants. It is a good card for the middle class sort who flies 4-8 times a year who will take advantage of both the ‘baked in’ card benefits like the Companion Certificate as well as the chance to partially spend your way toward elite status- Spend 25K on the card and you get 10K of bonus Medallion-Qualifying Miles toward elite status as well as a waiver for the Medallion-Qualifying Dollar requirements for most Delta Elite statuses and if you spend 50K on the card in a year, you get another 10K toward elite status. (25K Medallion-Qualifying Miles in the year get you Silver Medallion status) Annual fee of $250/year but the companion certificate-good for a round trip domestic coach ticket- can more than cover that.
AmEx SkyMiles Reserve- the card for the even more frequent flyer who places a higher value on benefits than on miles or points earned per dollar spent. The big benefit is airport lounge access. No good everyday bonus categories. Annual fee of $550 includes a companion certificate good for a domestic round trip in first class.
I go with a Skymiles Platinum, no annual fee Hilton card, Everyday card trio with most spend on the SkyMiles card to help keep my Medallion status.
If you have one of the AmEx Delta cards, even the no annual fee SkyMiles Blue card, you can use the ‘pay with miles’ option for tickets on Delta and Delta Connection planes for a penny a mile, which is a floor on the value of a SkyMile.
If you go over into the Case ecosystem, they also have the $95/year annual fee Sapphire Preferred card as a better everyday earner than the $500/year Sapphire Reserve card, which is a benefits-geared card.
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