Airline rewards programs
 

Does anyone have a favorite airline rewards cards? Which airline has the least amount of blackout dates and inconveniences, anyone know?

I realize this is subjective, depending on where you live and vacation/visit, but all the majors serve SEA where I'll be heading out of . . . thanks all

Southwest probably has the fewest restrictions and is the quickest to free tickets unless you are doing transcons and foreign travel a a bunch.

The average APR around 18%, stay away from all airline affinity cards:

http://www.my3cents.com/search.cgi?c...ne+Miles+Cards

Go to flyertalk.com. They can answer most of your questions over there.

APR only hurts you if you don't pay in full - but the legacy airline cards all have annual fees of $50 and up. Unless you are charging alot to the card (like $1,000 a month) you don't get enough points to justify the annual fee. And they will not waive it. I found better luck with a Hilton Honors Visa card: no annual fee, reasonable interest rate (about 12% if I remember) and lots of points with no restrictions. I haven't paid for a hotel for personal travel in 4 years.

Hilton includes Hampton, Hilton Garden, and several other chains.

United waives the fee the first year and you can cancel after 6 months without losing the free miles you get for getting the card. The Delta Amex can be good if you fly them a lot and spend a lot on your card in general. They have double point periods from time to time and that can really blast the point levels up, but they do have a pretty steep yearly fee so you need to be putting a lot of payments onto that card to make it worth it. Overall the airline specific credit cards are not that great a deal unless you are flying a lot and paying for the flights with the card (at NetJets the company direct bills your airlines unless you use the company card so you don't get the double point benefits of most of the airline cards).