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Get Free Airline Tickets with your Credit Card Application
Want to get away? Below, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of credit card promotions that will give you a free airline ticket when you apply, and in some cases, reach a certain spend level. The list has been broken into two parts: 1) a subset of cards that earn points that can be easily converted into miles in your favorite frequent flyer program, and 2) a list of cards that are geared towards earning airmiles with specific carriers.
Points-Earning Credit Cards
| Credit Card | Bonus Miles | Annual Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
 Citi PremierPass® Card - Elite Level |
20,000 ThankYou Points | $75 |
|
| The Gold Card from American Express OpenSM | Up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points | $125 (waived first year) |
|
| Platinum Credit Card from American Express | 25,000 Membership Rewards points | $450 | 25,000 Membership Rewards® bonus points when you spend $1,000 - redeemable for one round-trip domestic airline ticket |
| Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
|
Up to 25,000 Starpoints | $45 (waived first year) |
|
() - Recommended Cards
Airline-specific Credit Cards
| Credit Card | Bonus Miles | Annual Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska Airlines Visa Signature® Card | 20,000 Mileage Plan Bonus Miles | $75 | 20,000 Bonus Miles valid for a Round Trip Coach Saver award ticket in the continental U.S, Alaska or Canada on Alaska Airlines or Horizon Air. |
| Citi® Platinum Select® / AAdvantage® World MasterCard® | 25,000 AAdvantage® miles | $85 (waived first year) |
|
| British Airways Visa Signature® Card | Up to 25,000 BA Miles | $75 |
|
| Continental Airlines World MasterCard® | 21,000 OnePass bonus miles | $85 (World)/ $65 (Platinum) |
|
| Platinum Delta SkyMiles Credit Card
Gold Delta SkyMiles Business Credit Card |
Up to 25,000 SkyMiles | $150 Personal / $95 Business | 20,000 bonus SkyMiles® (including 5,000 Medallion Qualification Miles) after first purchase and another 5,000 for adding 2 Additional Cardmembers |
| Frontier Airlines World MasterCard® | Up to 25,000 bonus miles | $0 / $49 |
|
| Miles & More World MasterCard | Up to 35,000 bonus miles | $59 / $79 | 15,000/20,000 miles after first purchase; up to 10,000/15,000 additional bonus miles for initial balance transfer |
| Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Visa Signature | Up to 24 Rapid Rewards credits | $39 Classic / $59 Signature | 16 Rapid Rewards credits after first use; up to 8 more Rapid Rewards credits for balance transfers |
| United Mileage Plus Visa | Up to 40,000 MileagePlus miles | $60 (first year waived) |
|
| US Airways Visa | 25,000 bonus Dividend Miles | $90 | 25,000 bonus Dividend Miles with first purchase |
| Virgin Atlantic American Express® Card - Black Virgin Atlantic American Express® Card - White |
Up to 40,000 bonus Flying Club Miles | $49 (White) / $90 (Black) | See our post on the Virgin cards for more details |
A caveat
Do keep in mind that a “free flight” isn’t always completely free. Some airlines and programs may charge a fee to issue the ticket, and you’ll still be responsible for any applicable taxes, passenger facility charges, government imposed surcharges and the September 11 security fee.
Our Recommendations
The Citi PremierPass® Card - Elite Level and SPG Amex receive our highest recommendations not only for their generous introductory bonuses, but for the tremendous value and flexibility that they offer every day.
The Starwood Amex is an established favorite, since it offers value both in hotel and flight redemption opportunities. Since Starpoints are transferable to nearly every major carrier’s frequent flyer program at a 1:1 exchange rate and have a bonus of 5,000 Starpoints for every 20,000 transferred, it only takes $20,000 in spending to earn 25,000 miles with your favorite program.
The Citi PremierPass® Card - Elite Level card, on the other hand, is relatively new and because of its link to the arcane ThankYou network, its usefulness is easily overlooked. A full explanation really deserves its own post, but I will give a short summary here. The first thing to realize is that you can earn 1 ThankYou point for every mile you fly on any airline, provided you purchased the ticket with the card. That’s in addition to the 1 or 2 points you earn for your spending. So, assuming you fly enough, you’ll earn at least 2 ThankYou points for each dollar you spend.
Next, the key to getting the most value out of your ThankYou points is using the fixed point flight redemption. If you use the fixed flight option, your points can be redeemed for up to 2 cents each when redeeming for Coach tickets and up to 3 cents per point when redeeming for Business class tickets. For instance, you can redeem 20,000 points for a coach ticket within the continental US worth up to $400. Or you can redeem 90,000 points for a business class ticket within the continental US worth up to $2,700. If you are earning 2 points per dollar spent (which is the case if you fly enough), that means you can effectively earn up to a 4% rebate towards coach tickets or up to 6% rebate towards biz tickets. In addition, there are a few tricks that can be used to ratchet up your effective return even further which are omitted for brevity’s sake, but even without their use, the PremierPass Elite card is a miles dynamo.
July 28th, 2008 at 7:29 am
[...] can find the full list of cards along with details here. Posted in Reward Cards, Signup Bonuses, Travel Cards | Trackback | del.icio.us | Top Of [...]
July 28th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
one more card from AirTran
http://view.ed4.net/v/5ETZVH/2VTKT/PSI67S/32D37G/MAILACTION=1&FORMAT=H
July 28th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Jarek–Thanks for the link, but AirTran (ATA) is out of business now.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:54 am
I got that link last week. AirTran’s website looks pretty operational (www.airtran.com). Although, ATA (www.ata.com) is indeed out of business.
July 29th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Jarek–Thanks for pointing that out. For some reason I always associated ATA and AirTran together.