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Credit-ability

Our family is scattered to all points of the compass, mostly in Manitoba, West Virginia, Florida and Oklahoma. Sometimes the best way to get from here to there is to fly, so we’ve been researching credit cards, looking for ones that give the best deal on airline miles. I found it all pretty confusing trying to figure out who had the best deal until Jess happened to see an ad for a website that compares all sorts of different credit cards. You can search by type of card, and one of the categories is for airline credit cards.

We decided to apply for their top pick, which happened to be a Discover Card. Jess filled out the application, and it was only a week or so before a couple of new credit cards arrived in the mail. I called to activate them last night, and figured we were good to go.

I had a purchase I needed to make online, so decided I’d give the card a test run. I got the information put in, pressed the “enter” button, and up popped red letters – you know there’s a problem when the messages are red. So what was the glitch? It seems that company didn’t accept Discover cards, only Visa or MasterCard.

Rats! I didn’t even think of that.

As it turns out, we already had a credit card with the company that is second on the “top pick” list for airline miles. Only thing is, you can’t just switch the type of credit card you have with them. Nope, you have to apply for a new one.

Well, fine, just be that way. This afternoon I filled out the short online application, and after a few seconds thinking it over, up popped a message that my credit card was approved and would arrive in 7-10 days, and with a higher credit limit than our old card. Alrighty then!

Hopefully we’re good to go now. I would think just about any place we shop would accept either Discover or Visa. Our plan is to pay for a lot of things by credit card that we would ordinarily use a debit card or cash for, then pay off the bill as soon as it comes in, thereby making our money do double duty as it not only purchases items we need, but builds up air miles. Kind of reminds me of when we used to get green stamps at the grocery store that could be redeemed for all kinds of things.

Okay, we've got places to go, so let the air miles accumulate!

3 comments:

Good plan! That's what we do as much as possible too -- pay w/ card, then pay off every month. It's not quite as good a plan now that we can't use our Northwest Airlines card to pay for everything, but still... Too bad you can't put mortgages on them! ;)

 

The thing about these cards is that you can use them for ANY airline. Essentially, you use that card to pay for ticket, and can purchase it anyplace you want to, then they reimburse you with however much your airmiles are good for.

 

And anyway, where do you think we got the idea to do this anyway, but from you guys? Only we needed to be able to use different airlines since not the same ones go to both Canada and Florida, so didn't want a card specific to just one airline.