I'm going to be travelling to Asia in a couple of months and to Europe about three times a year and these plane tickets can cost me an arm and a leg. Are credit card airline miles programs really worth it? I was on Amex's site (www.americanexpress.com) and they have a Delta Platinum airline card which offers 15,000 free airline miles with your first purchase. Annual fee is around $135 I think. Are there strings attached to these kind of incentives? What if the trip runs 20,000 miles but you only have 15,000 stored up, then what? How are the outstanding 5,000 miles paid? And since in this case, the card is called Delta, it only applies to Delta flights? Do you always get seats you reserve, etc? Will it end up being more of a hassle than doing without these cards? Are there other cards which offer good incentives? Thanks alot.

 

I am Platnum with AA (over 3.5 mm miles so I have that status for life). I use a Wells Fargo CC. I charge my tickets and get my AA points plus points on WF. The WF program is good for airline, hotel, packages, etc. I had the AA charge card but the cost and interest rate made it a poor choice in todays market. Just my $.02

 

I'd go with the card that adds miles to the airline with the largest route structure in Asia...which is United. Add redemption agreements with ANA, Singapore there are few in Asia you can't go. American and Delta fly to to Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya but few other places in Asia. United flys to Tokyo then beyond to Seoul, Beijing, Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore. From there you can transfer to the other airlines (using milage redemption) to go almost anywhere you want.

Same holds true for Europe, United has good routes there and has agreements with Lufthansa, et. al.