Wendy Perrin’s Conde Nast column this month is all about credit cards. While it draws heavily on my advice, Wendy does a great job of making really complex topics accessible and useful to large numbers of travelers.
She begins talking signup bonuses, it’s one of the few times I’ve seen credit card churning discussed in a major publication, so there’s something fun about that. Plus I managed to convince Wendy (and by extension, Wendy’s husband) to sign up for American AAdvantage credit cards from Citi, three cards at 75,000 bonus miles apiece, and for British Airways Visas at 100,000 miles apiece.
The main article lays out some basic tips. Don’t overlook hotel credit cards. Wendy mentions at the top of the piece that she uses a Starwood Amex for its flexibility for hotel stays and points transfers, and that with the transfer bonuses it’s a better mileage earning card than most airline’s main co-branded partner card. Getting lounge access and also perks – at both hotels and at airports and onboard – just through your card membership. Choosing a card that avoids foreign currency transaction fees. Avoid proprietary bank programs (like Capital One, Wells Fargo Rewards, etc) if you want premium cabin international travel. Beware of fuel surcharges on awards (such as via the British Airways program – but reference is also made to Aeroplan on Air Canada metal and also Delta on several partners – but also how to minimize them).
Unfortunately the piece was written months ago, and even then pushed from the May issue to July in order to give it more space, and it talks about one of my favorite benefits which is double miles with the Continental Mastercard for online shopping through their portal — a benefit that goes away next month.
There’s an accompanying sidebar (that they’ve generously given me the byline on, which I didn’t expect) which makes the point that the kind of miles you want to accrue depends on your award goals. While I’m not a fan of Delta miles, they happen to be the best-positioned for the two toughest awards, Australia and French Polynesia. American offers the best award space domestically. Star Alliance is generally the best to the US and Asia, but oneworld for South America (and I take another dig at British Airways fuel surcharges).
Another sidebar bylining me offers specific card recommendations based on your earnings and perks preferences. The first and most general recommendation is for the Starwood Amex (and mentions transfers to ANA for Virgin Atlantic business class redemption). I also offer a shout out to Amex Membership Rewards, while Starwood has more transfer partners and more regular transfer bonuses I do love that Membership Rewards is ‘live’ with several of their partners and transfer points instantly to Delta, Continental, Aeroplan, and some others. That’s far better when it comes time to redeeming than waiting for Starwood to transfer, which can take from 5 to 7 days and even weeks depending on the partner. I highlight the British Airways card for the companion award ticket, and also the Hyatt card (like the BA card) which waives foreign currency transaction fees. Yesterday Ben at One Mile at a Time posted a link to a best-ever signup offer for the Alaska Airlines Visa, 40,000 miles on approval. The benefit I like most about that card is the annual $99 companion ticket that books into any revenue seat. It’s best-used in my view when buying a first class ticket to Hawaii, Alaska, or Mexico and getting the second first class ticket for $99+tax.
The final sidebar highlights websites Award Wallet, my award booking service, Gary Steiger’s FreeFrequentFlyerMiles.com, EV Reward, The Points Guy, and Webflyer.
I’ve got to say, and I don’t think this is just because I’ve been invited to contribute thoughts to some of their pieces on occasion, that Conde Nast has been doing a pretty good job ‘telling it like it is’ and cutting through the clutter of what’s actually valuable and what works in travel, most pieces on credit cards for instance are full of misinformation, half truths, and bad recommendations. Wendy Perrin really has a knack for breaking down complex topics making them easy to follow for the non-expert while communicating key elements.
Now I just need to go pick up a hard copy of the article..
Thanks for the heads-up. I’m going to go and buy the June edition of Conde Nast right NOW!
@Darius, it’s the July edition! 🙂
Thanks for the info on the article. I’m looking forward to reading it.
One thing that no reviews seems to discuss is that some of the bank sponsored cards which accumulate points, like Barclay’s Travelocity AMEX, while free for the first year, charge for subsequent years,
If you haven’t redeemed your points before the renewal date, you either have to pay for the credit card renewal, or forfeit your points.
This does not happen with airline cards, where the points are transfered to your mileage account where they remain, even if you cancel the card after the first – free – year.
@Gary – Thanks. I still haven’t got used to the way magazines publish issues months in advance!
Wow the Alaska companion offer is truly good on any revenue seat (assuming Alaska metal only, no codeshares)? I had no idea.
@Nun ding ding ding! That’s why it’s one of the most underappreciated benefits out there, people see ‘companion ticket’ and assume it’s highly restricted/not very useful. In truth any revenue seat, the companion books into the same fare class as the paid ticket, first class is eligible and it’s upgradable. Incredibly sweet.
Barclays has also upped their 1st purchase bonus on the US Air card to 40K. May be a trend with Barclays.
I like the US cc because you get 5K off redemptions and preferred boarding.
it’s a good read
YOU persuaded Wendy and her husband to sign up for Citi AA and BA cards and then SHE turns around and becomes the ‘Credit Card Expert’ and writes a column? 🙂
@tasso, Any post about a CC from Barclays should come with a caveat: they ‘tempt’ you with a high bonus offer, but most times they will approve you for the lower bonus offer. This is because when they look at the CC application profile of us, card churners, they downgrade our credit worthiness and approve us for only a 2K credit line, which translates to a 10K bonus, instead of the 30K or 40K reserved for folks who may have very few hard pulls on their records. Just another data. Cheers.
IMO by you helping out mainstream media with information on credit card churning, mileage earning & redemption it is only a matter of time that many of the tips & tricks we use will become unavailable as has the opportunity to buy coins in large quantities. I would really like to hear what your rationale is for giving advise to mainstream media journalists on credit card mileage earning, redemption & special perks.
@Ken what I want is to help people understand the benefits that are available to them. “Churning” is meaningfully dead, you can’t just sign up for bonuses over and over (which is what churning was all about, I did it for years and years). Most cards are now one-shot deals. Because the card issuers figured it out, it became too costly for them to let it go unchanged. Nothing ‘secret’ has been ‘disclosed’. But we all learned of these things somewhere, that someone who already knew them could have said shouldn’t have been posted, thus keeping us in the dark.
@Ram I wasn’t looking for credit but got more than my share of credit in the piece, I think 🙂
@Gary Although “Nothing ‘secret’ has been ‘disclosed'” the vast majority of people do not know (until now) the finer details and IMO what you have done by helping this reporter will effectively make airline and hotel award availability potentially much, much more difficult to find.
Gary – what do you mean by “…to sign up for American AAdvantage credit cards from Citi, three cards at 75,000 bonus miles apiece”
I thought there was only ONE AA card available? Not three? Did i miss something?
@Manny I meant one personal + one business for one person, the other person did one personal.
@Ken What’s wroing with other people learning about FF miles? You don’t want anyone else to be able to join your exclusive club? Aren’t you being selfish here?
@Brian – it’s not a matter of “being selfish” but realistic. On many routes it is already difficult to find award availability. A case in point about killing the goose is the US Mint program. For example flyerTalk has a thread of 1008 pages and almost every mileage blog has something as well as mainstream news media articles on how the mint program works in the WSJ & Newsweek.
What are your thoughts on points accumulated through credit cards verses cash back? I did the points via credit card a few years back and got a ton of points, but I am already getting tons of points and don’t need more! What I need is $$$ for mileage runs\matress runs so I can lock in my status if I need to. Thoughts?
Wendy’s article was 2 min past the timer if you ask me. I sub to Traveler magazine and when I read her article–nothing was new to me; of course being an active participant on FT and FW, I knew about those cards she had mentioned. Ken does have a good point though on killing the goose…the mint deal took a hit as a result of media coverage..I guess the flip side is, if no one talks about these…then no one would know and its back to secret handshakes and smoke signals to decode credit card offers out there.
You will see more and bigger credit card offers coming and soon, this article didn’t kill anything. Just wait, and think “Chase.”
@Gary – It won’t matter how big the credit card offers are because mileage & hotel award availability will be extremely hard to find because of increased coverage in mainstream media. I will just have to come to your award booking service for help.