The Plus and Minus of Airline Cards

I remember back in the late 70's, early 80's when the airlines began awarding points for mileage flown on their airline, the reward being a free ticket (you'd have to pay the tax), for every 10,000 miles earned. Now it's up to, for most destinations, 25,000 miles for domestic tickets and 50,000 for international destinations.

Back when they first started this, the reason was to reward the business frequent flyer, but nowadays, for the past several years, they have really promoted the “carrot” to the infrequent vacation flyer. With your airline card, you can get points by purchasing all kinds of things, groceries, furniture, even a house or car. Back 10-12 years ago, I had a client who purchased everything with his card and he and his wife went to Hawaii and back every year on his points...virtually impossible now.

The real problem that many of our clients have experienced is that they have thousands of points, but when they want to travel, the seats reserved for those wanting to utilize their earned points are not available. Additionally, when most of those vacationers want to travel, the airlines have blacked out most of the dates. They have also increased the point requirements for many of the destinations, so the traveler ends up having to pay additional after applying his points. Interestingly enough, many of the airline cards offered by the banks in an agreement with the airlines have an annual cost to them; one from American Express is over $400 a year; many around $70, but for what?

There are some real benefits to some of the cards, but one has to have earned over 100 segments during the year; that's a lot of traveling. It gives them access to upgrades to business or first class within 24-48 hours before a departure. It also waives the baggage charges, and with some, depending on their status, they have access to the airline departure lounges. An additional perk is early boarding on their flights.

Recently American Airlines announced that they are ceasing awarding points on mileage flown, or segments flown, rather basing the points on the dollar amount that was paid for the ticket. So that is not setting too well with the frequent flyers. In addition, since American and USAir merged, it is almost impossible to get an upgraded seat on any of their flights.

When they started doing this, they were “rewarding” loyalty to their airline. Nowadays, nobody cares about which airline they are on as long as the price is right and they can get service with a smile. It's getting easier to get a good price with proper planning, harder though to get service with a smile.

So the tip today is don't get “snookered” into buying into a bank credit card that is in cahoots with an airline for those “oh so wonderful airline points”. In the long run, they are not worth the hassle, and too much reliance on building up points with purchases on the bank card will get you in an economic bind in a hurry.

The experienced travel agents at The Travel Factory are ready and willing to help you manufacture the vacation of your dreams, so give us a call today at 698-1421 or toll-free 800-760-4040, or drop in for a face-to-face visit at 4150 Southwest Drive, Ste. 120. We do not redeem airline tickets with frequent flyer points, but we sure enjoy helping to send friends on the vacation of their dreams.