If you use credit cards for regular expenses rather than excessive spending and pay your balance off each month, you should be getting something back for the money you’re making for the credit card companies. Some of the options out there include cash back, 0% APR balance transfers, 0% APR on purchases, and sign-up bonuses.
Here are some of the current best offers for credit card users who are frequent fliers.
American Express Business Gold Rewards Card
This card is currently offering 25,000 bonus points, credited to your account in two partial rewards six to eight weeks after your first purchase. The 25,000 points can be redeemed for one domestic airline ticket, for a fee of $0.0004 per point up to $50.
The American Express Business Gold Rewards Card carries an annual fee, waived for the first year.
This card, in addition to a 0% APR introductory APR offer on purchases and balance transfers, provides 2 miles for every $1 spent on travel-related purchases and 1 mile for every $1 on other categories. There is a $29 annual fee for the rewards program, however.
Like the American Express Business Gold Rewards Card, you don’t have to actually have a business to apply and be accepted for this card. With this card, you earn one mile for every dollar, but gas and travel purchases earn double miles. You can begin to redeem rewards once you earn 5,000 miles.
The Discover Business Miles is also currently offering 0% APR on purchases for 12 months.
American Express JetBlue Business Card
If you’re a frequent customer of JetBlue, consider the American Express JetBlue Business Card. This card offers 25 TrueBlue points after the first purchase, putting you on your way to earning a free flight with 100 TrueBlue points. As an extra bonus, your first purchase earns you a $50 credit.
The card, with its $40 annual fee, entitles the holder to a 5% discount on JetBlue purchases. If you spend $800 or more on JetBlue flights in one year, the card pays for itself, just taking the discount into account.
American Express Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Card
Again, the Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Card does not require a business. The Federal Tax ID for your business is not required on the application. The benefits of this card include 15,000 bonus miles after your first purchase, 1,000 bonus miles for each of the first 5 additional cards submitted with your application, 5,000 bonus miles every year when you spend $15,000, and 5,000 bonus miles every year when you spend $25,000.
The annual fee of $85 is waived for the first year, and AmEx is currently offering 0% APR on purchases for 6 months.
Like the JetBlue card, Delta flights purchased with this card qualify for a 5% discount.
American Express Starwood Preferred Guest Business Card
As a commenter pointed out, the AmEx Starwood Preferred Guest Card allows the user to accumulate points which can be transferred to participating airlines as miles. Points are also earned for each dollar spent. AmEx will start you off with 10,000 points after your first purchase.
Any dollar spent at a Starwood hotel (Four Points, Sheraton, W Hotels, Westin, et.al.) earns two points. Transferring 20,000 points to an airline’s miles program earns you 5,000 additional points. The $30 annual fee is waived for the first year.
I don’t recommend chasing rewards offered by credit cards unless you pay your balances off each month, avoiding late fees and interest charges. Once you start paying interest to the credit card companies, the rewards come at too high a cost. Credit card rewards should only be sought by Type B credit card users.
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You forgot to mention the Starwood AMEX which gives 25k miles on most commercial carriers for only 20k points (25% premium) via a simple transfer. Annual fee is $30.
Sdg: Thanks for the heads-up. I’ve added the Starwood AmEx to the post with the card’s details.
Kudos to you for putting this together, thank ya sir.
Sometimes I think these cards are a little insidious. It’s difficult on occasion not to make a decision to spend money on something simply because you can get miles. There’s something subtle going on with these cards that we’re not always concious of. The incentive of the miles can tip the balance on whether to spend or not spend. I have to be careful. Just my two cents.