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Using a credit card that has frequent flier mile or hotel point rewards is one of the easiest ways to quickly bolster your mileage accounts. Mileage credit cards first hit the market in the mid 1980’s. The market for these types of cards has grown considerably in the past few years, which has benefited consumers by being able to quickly cash in on large bonuses, in some cases as high as 100,000 miles. Which credit card is best for you? Over the years, I have used almost every airline card available in the US. I have passed on airlines that do not service my home airport.

There are two types of mileage credit cards, actual frequent flier miles cards (i.e. American Airlines AAdvantage credit card through Citibank or Delta Airlines SkyMiles credit card through American Express) and award travel cards (Capital One Venture card or Chase Sapphire.) Frequent flier cards reward you with actual miles (in most cases 1 mile for every $1 spent). You redeem these frequent flier miles for flights, which is typically 25,000 miles for a domestic round trip ticket. International flights and flights outside of the Continental United States required more points and vary by distance (i.e. 40,000 points for Hawaii, 55,000 points for Europe, 80,000 points for Asia). The downside to using actual miles is that you are limited to a number of mileage seats on each flight and blackout dates apply. Award travel cards do not have those same restrictions. With those cards, you typically earn 1 point for every $1 spent (although many of them will pay higher levels of points for certain purchases). When redeeming with this points, you typically use 100 points for each $1 of reward travel. For instance, a $300 plane ticket would cost 30,000 points. You can usually use these points for hotel nights as well.

In addition to mileage, every hotel chain these days has a branded credit card, such as the Hilton HHonors card through Citibank and the Marriott Rewards card through Chase. In the future, I will review these credit cards as I use hotel cards frequently as well. Today we’ll focus on the airline cards.

Which is better, miles cards or travel rewards? That depends on your reward goals. If you book a $300 domestic plane ticket, a mileage card will only cost you 25,000 points versus 30,000 with a travel rewards card. On the flipside of that, a $200 ticket would only cost you 20,000 points with a travel rewards card versus 25,000 with a mileage card. If you only plan on using 1 or 2 different airlines, it is more beneficial for you to use a mileage card as you will build status with the airline to use for upgrades and be eligible to additional perks (free checked bags, access to airport lounges, priority boarding, etc). If you plan to use multiple airlines or do not have an airline preference, a travel rewards card probably suits you better. One other advantage of a travel rewards credit card is that the site that you redeem your awards on packages your travel plans together (flight, hotel and car rental if you need it) to receive discounts. This works similar to the packaging you may see today on sites like Travelocity or Expedia.

You can apply for any of the credit cards I review at CreditCards.com.   Click Here for additional Instant Approval Credit Card Offers

Top 5 Free Flight Credit Cards

1. Starwoods Preferred Guest American Express
The Starwoods Preferred Guest Credit card is a hybrid credit card that can be used for both miles and reward travel. Starwoods is the parent company for several brands of hotels including Westin, W Hotels, Aloft, Sheraton and many others. You can redeem your points for free nights in their hotels. You can also book any type of travel with them on a travel awards based system. And most impressive, you can transfer your points into 30 different airline frequent flier programs. Airlines include American Airlines, Delta, Continental, United, US Airways and many international carriers. This makes the card the most flexible of all of them. It has an annual fee of $65 a year, but it is waived the first year. You will receive a 30,000 point bonus for signing up, which is enough for a free flight or 3 free nights in one of their category 4 hotels. You also receive 5,000 bonus miles any time you transfer 20,000 points into a frequent flier account.

2. Capital One Venture Card
This card has the best earning potential as a reward travel card, 2 miles for every $1 spent. You will earn 25,000 miles upon opening the account, which you can redeem for $250 in travel. It has a $59 annual fee, which is waived the first year. There are no blackout dates and there are no foreign transaction fees for this card. As long as you carry the card, your miles won’t expire (even if you are not using the card). There have been temporary promotions where the signup bonus is much higher (although there is not one running at the present time) so if you want to wait a few months you may get a bigger bonus. If you visit this site often or subscribe to our newsletter, you will know when that happens.

3. Continental One Pass/United Mileage Plus through Chase
Continental and United are in the process of merging, so these two cards are tied for 3rd. Once the merger is final, the Continental Card will be eliminated. If you do not have one, right now is a good time to sign up before it goes away. Both cards offer a 40,000 miles bonus at signup. When the merger is complete, your miles will be combined if you have miles on both airlines. These cards have the annual fee waived the first year but jump up to $95 in the second year. You earn 1 mile for each dollar spent. The card sports some nifty other benefits such as free first checked bags, 2 passes to use annually at the President’s club lounges and priority boarding. In my experience, Chase has not had the best customer service and easiest web page to navigate through, otherwise I might rank this card a bit higher.

4. Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
This is the newest credit card to join the mileage party. As with the Continental/United cards, I would probably give this a higher rating with better experiences with Chase’s customer service. This card is very similar to the Capital One Venture card, with a much higher signup bonus but you only earn 1 point for each $1 spent. This is an attractive card for the signup bonus but does not have as much long term value. This card’s bonus is 50,000 points after spending $3000 in the first 3 months. If you are not going to be able to spend that much in 3 months, go with another card.

5. Delta SkyMiles Gold through American Express
This is a basic airline credit card where you will earn 20,000 points upon opening and another 5,000 for adding an authorized user. It has no annual fee the first year and then jumps to $95 after the first year. The big perk with this card is no baggage fees for you and up to 9 others on the same reservation for the first checked bag. Delta also seems to run more bonus promotions throughout the year to get extra points. As with the Capital One Venture card, this card has higher signup bonuses periodically throughout the year. If you visit this site often or subscribe to our newsletter, you will know when that happens.