I live in southern California in an area where I have 4 airports within an hour (the biggest one being LAX being about 45 minutes away- but I live very close to a medium size airport) all the big airlines fly to the 4 airports. Is it worth getting an airline card? I fly about 5-7 times a year and would be willing to drive for a good flight. Would ideally like to use points as much as I can.
Worth getting an airline card if I don't live near/want to go to a Hub?
byu/CRLA3210 inCreditCards
Posted by CRLA3210
5 Comments
Not much into airline cards. But I guess for your purpose travel cards would be more useful.. since you aren’t much frequent flier.
Look into Venture X and CSP/CSR or Citi Strata
Can use portals to book and all have some signup bonus points/miles + cashback on other categories like dining and groceries. So it could be more all rounded
Edit: VX and CSR also have Priority Pass
I personally have the Ritz Carlton credit card, there are no direct airline benefits, but there’s a $300 airline incidental credit, 85,000 point Marriott voucher every anniversary year, and unlimited, authorized users, where each authorized user gets their own priority pass access. For me personally, this makes a lot more sense than getting a traditional airline card because of the flexibility.
Airline cards are good for perks: companion tickets, free bags, status boost, lounge access, award fair discounts, etc.
They’re almost never great for general heavy spend outside of a welcome or retention offers or special spending categories.
If you want to earn a lot of delta points, get a few MR cards. If you want United or southwest, get some UR cards. And get citi TYP cards for American.
following
Maybe an Amex Delta Platinum
Hit the Gold first, then Platinum to maximize SUB potential. Close Gold when AF hits and keep the Plat.
Delta Plat yields you a free companion ticket after the 1st year, and that pretty much pays for the annual fee already ($350). You also have $150 a year to spend for hotel bookings, and very occasionally get free upgrades if the flight is empty enough. And you receive some monthly lyft and resy credit that you may or may not need. But honestly, just using the companion ticket is enough to justify keeping this card, and the $150 hotel is just a nice little bonus along with priority boarding and free checked bag.
You can also go for the Delta Reserve if you fly at least twice domestically, though it is harder to recoup the annual fee on this card since you MUST use the $200 hotel credit too along with the companion ticket, assuming you fly economy and don’t use Resy and Lyft credits frequently. But I believe the Reserve companion ticket can also be redeemed for Delta First, so if you don’t fly economy then you can get this card.