A brand new, best-ever bonus for signing up for the Starwood American Express. Up to 10,000 bonus miles in the first year of card membership — 4k with your first purchase, 1k for your first hotel stay at a Starwood property, and 500 bonus points for each of the next 10 stays in the first year. First year of card membership remains free, with a $30 fee thereafter. This is a richer offer than the old offer, which didn’t include the 4000 points for making a first purchase.

This is the best mileage-earning card. First, because Starwood (W, Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis) is a great hotel program and there are no capacity controls on awards — if there’s a hotel room open, it’s yours. Second, because your points convert 1:1 (as opposed to 5:1 with Hilton) to airline miles in almost any program you choose. Plus, since there’s a 5000 mile bonus for converting 20000 points, you are in essence earning 1.25 miles per dollar spent on the card, compared to only one mile with every other card. Not to mention that you can convert points into Qantas at 1:2 — and with the conversion bonus, it only takes 50,000 Starwood points for a first-class ticket to Australia. That’s less than half the miles it would normally take…

You mean you don’t have this card yet?