Credit Card Travel Rewards

[yakers]

Wife & I have a Wells Fargo MasterCard which we think is OK. We get about 1% back in various rewards. This can literally be cash equivalents in that they will issue major store gift certificates that return the 1%. But they also have a travel benifit which I have not been able to determine its value. You have to call them 30 days in advance, generally I can do that but their deals only seem good compared to regular rates. MY wife sees this as cheap flights because its "paid for" but I see it as a loss of cash as I look at our rewards points as cash in hand. Is there a way to get my own travel deal and then apply a credit card reward for a further discount? Or should I just forget about travel rewards and take the cash?

[brewer12345]

No doubt there are many approaches. I have a Schwab visa (issued by MBNA, actually) that accrues points redeemable for a wide variety of things. If you prefer cash, they will cut you what is effectively 1% cash back. You can also redeem points for travel. We did this once so far, getting my wife a ticket to go to Denver to visit family. She got a direct flight on Continental that we picked out before-hand. Cost of the flight was about $300 if I bought it, but we got it for 25000 points ($250 equivalent). With this card you can get any flight of value up to $400 for 25k points, after that the point price starts climbing.

I figure that if I am ahead by taking cash, I'll take it. If I am ahead by taking the flight, great. Its nice to have the flexibility.