Airline Miles Credit Cards

Scroll down for a current list of some of the best airline miles credit cards available today.

Airline miles credit cards can be great for people who want to turn their everyday spending into vacations and trips around the world. A year of expenses can easily be converted into one free flight.

Most airlines have frequent flier programs that you can sign up with and earn miles towards future free flights. The programs are usually free to join and you earn the rewards mainly by taking fights. Thus, they are called frequent flier programs. If you aren’t signed up with the frequent flier programs and you’re here look for an airline miles card, then I would first advise you to go join the free programs.

To make the most of your frequent flier program efforts, I recommend you check out a guide by Chris Guillebeau: Frequent Flyer Master. If you get it he guarantees you will get at least 25,000 frequent flier miles, enough for a round trip domestic US ticket.

After you’ve joined a program or two that suits your needs, it’s time to look into other ways to add to your miles balance. That’s where the airline miles credit card comes into play.

An airline miles credit card gives you rewards for spending and lets you use those rewards to buy miles with various airlines. They work similar to cash back credit cards or other rewards credit cards. Except with airline miles cards, you get to use the points towards miles for airfare. Essentially, your everyday spending can turn into free flights. Photo by Joshua Davis.

There are also frequent flier program specific credit cards, like the Delta SkyMiles credit card. However, I’m not discussing those cards now. I’ve never been a big fan since they have annual fees and the miles are restricted to one airline. Not to say they can’t work out better for some people.

The big advantages of airline miles cards over program specific cards are (1) you can typically use the miles you earn at any airline to purchase flights, and (2) you typically don’t have an annual fee to deal with. Annual fees with other cards can be around $75-100, so this is a nice advantage.

Top Airline Miles Credit Cards and Miles Program Specific Credit Cards