Best credit card for travel benefits (rentals, hotel, hotels, reservations)

[Raven1976]

I want to apply for a credit card that will give me miles. What are the best ones out there?/ Do you really need to spend thousands before even getting one ticket?

[from PA]

The quickest way to get free flights is to join a frequent flyers program, fly on that airline and use that credit card to purchase those tickets and all of your other purchases.
My husband flies frequently on Southwest and they are great when it comes to available free flights. Their customer service is friendly and hassle free. If you need to change a flight for some reason, there is usually no fee attached.
He was in the mid west and changed his return flight to an earlier one and the total charge was $2.50 because it involved a stop. If they have seats available they will release them to the frequent flyers.

We both have mega miles with United but have difficulty using them for the flights we want.

[momof2dfw]

There are several. You can google and there are sites that compare each one side by side. We actually got two. One is American Express and the other thru Capital One. I found these two to give the best "points" AND NO BLACK OUT DATES! These two also had the lower interest rates, low or no annual fee, etc. All I have to do is simply make the reservations be it for air, travel agency, hotel, etc and use that credit card to pay for it. Then call the credit card company and they reimburse my account for the amount I've gotten in benefits. This way the airlines, hotels, car rentals, etc have no idea your traveling on a "freebie". You still get your miles for the airlines mileage program as well since you did not "redeem" any mileage thru them. You don't have to charge a TON to get rewards either. What you need to do is get in a habit of using that card to pay for EVERYTHING (utilities, car payments, dining out, shopping, etc) and then pay it off every month. Anything you normally pay cash for - use the travel rewards card instead. I don't care for the airlines credit card as that limits you to just THAT airline. We can't always fly on the same airline all the time. I like having options when it comes to fares, times, number of connections (prefer nonstops), etc. With the reward cards that are not linked to an airline you can use ANY airline, rental car company, hotel company, etc.

The site to look on is creditcards.com Search "reward credit cards" and the top two are Capital One's No Hassles and Blue Sky from American Express - these are the two we have.

[$DFW8$]

Originally Posted by Raven1976

I want to apply for a credit card that will give me miles. What are the best ones out there?/ Do you really need to spend thousands before even getting one ticket?

I have an American Express Card and an American Airlines Citi Mastercard and they both give good benefits, but you can't use American Express in every country and some places even in the US don't accept it. We travel all the time, so we love getting all the benefits and airline miles.