Credit card rewards

[WanderALot]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DangerMouse Thanks for that, I might do the Citi AMEX and CC because that wud mean 150k points which would definitely get me somewhere international. I don't bother with anything that offers 30k miles on any airline because I don't really go anywhere domestic. I might pop into Citi next week and verify.

DM, I don't know if you travel to Central America, but 35K is a standard trip to pretty much anywhere. And often there are specials for 30K. Traveling on AA or Mexicana (well, before the bankruptcy) is often loads better than something like TACA with its long layovers.

One more thing, the 75K offer was supposedly targeted. A Citibank office may or maybe be able to offer it. Many people on FT got credit card offers for 35K or 40K, but are still supposed to get the 75K because they signed up using the link on the thread. YMMV.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by WanderALot DM, I don't know if you travel to Central America, but 35K is a standard trip to pretty much anywhere. And often there are specials for 30K. Traveling on AA or Mexicana (well, before the bankruptcy) is often loads better than something like TACA with its long layovers.

And 35k will get you to Hawaii. One other notion that I have figured out with having a mish-mash of rewards points across a number of different carriers: all that I deal with allow 1 way travel for 1/2 the points of a RT ticket. Hence, 30k miles may not get you anywhere useful, but 30k miles will get you 1/2 of a RT ticket to somewhere that takes 60k miles. Then redeem using a different rewards program to fly the other 1/2 of the RT flight.

This idea comes in handy if you have kid(s) traveling with you as well. Say you and DW have 35000 miles in each of your Delta miles acct. And 35000 in each of your AA accounts. You can fly a family of four somewhere that requires 17,500 points 1 way per ticket on Delta, then fly back on AA for 17,500 points per ticket. This may help with using up crappier points, like on Delta, if you can't find a RT ticket, but instead can only find a 1 way ticket with reasonable schedule.

[DangerMouse]

We use our FF points differently from what you seem to do. It is only in a case of a last minute emergency that we would use points for an economy class tix. We save our points to either upgrade or to purchase the tix using points in full. We never fly long haul (that is over 5 hours) in economy. Premium Economy is the minimum for us these days. If we can't afford PE we won't go. We figure there is not any excitement left in taking a flight so for us it has to be about comfort.

So taking into account our needs, 35k doesn't really do anything for us. Also there does become the danger of spreading ourselves too thing over too many programs and ending up with little bits instead of something that you can actually do a lot with.

[rescueme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FUEGO I guess it comes down to "least bad". 2 years in CONUS then 2 more in Nam to finish out the 4 year hitch is better than 4 years of Nam. Well, from a life-preservation standpoint. Maybe not so much from a heroism standpoint...

Only a year in Nam (yeah - "only a year" ). Returned to the world, got married, and stationed in Florida (Eglin) for 18 months to finish out my "commitment".

Hey, at least my gumint check (VA disability) paid for what I "lost" in those earlier years: