Quote:
Originally Posted by GSIZZ
Thanks for the quick response. I need to buy some airline tickets and hotel for my parents to visit next month so this seems like a good opportunity to get started. maybe something with a cash back bonus?
Either way, i live in Seattle. Fly to San Antonio, Vegas, Atlanta at least once a year with Delta or Alaska being the preferrred airline.
EDIT: I usually fly whatever is the cheapest but if i were to pick an airline or two it would be delta or Alaska.
I do have a business as i employ a nanny so the Ink line might be a good idea.
There are a couple of things to consider. First, is that Delta is probably the worst carrier for earning miles on because their miles are infamously hard to use. They've been given the nickname "SkyPesos" for that reason.
Another thing to consider is that Alaska partners with several airlines, and you don't necessarily need miles on alaska to fly on alaska. For example, the current best offer on an alaska cobranded card is from BOA and is 25000 miles. This has occasionally been as high as 40k, but not recently. The current best offer on an American Airlines cc from Citi is 50k miles, and those miles can be used to book on alaska metal through aa.com. Typically a domestic one way when there is off-peak availability costs 12,500 miles, so a 50,000 bonus is 2 round trips just for signing up for the card and meeting the minimum spend requirement.
And although you didn't mention it, you could always consider the Chase Southwest card, as southwest serves the locations you metioned (Seattle to Vegas, San Antonio, Atlanta) and the signup bonus rotates between 25,000 and 50,000 points. This bonus is good as long as you can book 2 weeks in advance to qualify for the cheaper "Wanna Get Away?" fares where each point has a fixed value of 1.67c.
Lastly, if you were looking for something that just has flexible travel perks, you could get the INK business card as mentioned earlier, which in addition to earning 5pts at office supply (think amazon, or any other store you would buy a GC to before shopping), it also earns 2pts on hotels and comes with complimentary Lounge Club access (gets you into 2 select airport lounges a year for free). The INK has a hefty signup bonus of 50,000 points, but has a higher spending threshold of $5k in 3 months (used to be 10k in 3 months, OUCH). There is also the Chase Sapphire Preferred that earns 2pts on all travel except gas (rental cars, hotels, airfare, tolls, taxis, etc) and 2pts at all restaurants, and comes with a 40k signup bonus after 3k spending in 3 months.
If you can swing the spending (and there are creative ways to do this), I would signup for the Chase INK, Chase SP, Citi AA, and BOA Alaska and be sitting on a pile of points diversified over 3 programs pretty quickly, remembering that Chase UR points can be transferred to multiple airline partners.