With the increased gas prices, flying has become an expensive way to travel. What if you could be able to fly for free? Well you can with an airline mileage credit card. These credit cards allow you to use purchases on your credit to earn airline miles. Most major airlines currently have these credit cards available.
The only drawbacks of airline mileage credit cards are that they tend to have a higher APR then a traditional credit card and/or an annual fee. Due to the High APR, it is imperative that you pay off your airline mile credit card on a monthly basis. Otherwise, those airline mile rewards will just go to waste because you will be paying more in interest then the rewards that you receive.
Consider getting an airline mileage credit card only if you're a frequent customer of a certain airline and can rack up points quickly to trade in for airline tickets. Airlines mileage credit cards can carry steep annual fees of $39 to $135. So unless you charge at least $9,000 a year, they don't really pay.
For example, the Citi Platinum Select AAdvantage World MasterCard charges $85 annually and gives you one mile per dollar for every charge. But if it takes you three years to earn a free ticket -- 25,000 miles for a domestic flight -- the $255 you shelled out in annual fees on your airline mileage credit card could have bought a ticket on a discount airline.
Airline mileage credit cards can be great for getting free tickets but could also be pointless unless you getting something out of it. Do your homework before you get an airline mileage credit card.
