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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
Recommended Card Citi PremierPass® Card - Elite Level 20,000 ThankYou Points $75
  • 20,000 bonus points after $600 in purchases made within 3 months of account opening
  • 20,000 ThankYou Points are redeemable for a round-trip ticket in Coach within the continental US, Alaska and Canada (limit of $400 in value) using the fixed flight option Travel Rewards
The Gold Card from American Express OpenSM Up to 40,000 Membership Rewards points $125 (waived first year)
  • 5,000 welcome bonus points for first-time Gold Cardmembers
  • Additional 5,000 bonus points for spending between $20,000 and $50,000 in a year
  • Another 20,000 bonus points for spending over $50,000 in a year
  • 10,000 points for one-time renewal bonus
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
Recommended Card Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express Up to 25,000 Starpoints $45 (waived first year)
  • 10,000 Starpoint bonus with first use; plus, earn an additional 15,000 bonus Starpoints when you spend $15,000 within the first 6 months
  • Earn a 5,000 Starpoint bonus for each transfer of 20,000 Starpoints to a frequent flyer program
  • Exchange 1 Starpoint for 1 mile in over 30 frequent flyer programs: for a full list of participating FF programs, see this link.

() - 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)
  • Must spend $750 within 4 months
  • 25,000 miles valid for a MileSAAver award wholly within the Continental U.S./Canada
British Airways Visa Signature® Card Up to 25,000 BA Miles $75
  • 20,000 bonus BA Miles after your first purchase or BT, plus another 5,000 bonus BA Miles when you buy a BA flight.
  • 25,000 BA Miles are enough for a reward flight within the US on partner airlines American Airlines® and Alaska Airlines.
Continental Airlines World MasterCard® 21,000 OnePass bonus miles $85 (World)/ $65 (Platinum)
  • 21,000 OnePass bonus miles after your first purchase.
  • 20,000 OnePass miles are enough for a round-trip SaverPass flight of 1,500 miles or less with a required Saturday night stay)
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
  • There are two versions of the card: 1) The no annual fee card gives 5,000 miles after first purchase 2) The $49 annual fee card gives 15,000 miles
  • Both cards give up to 10,000 bonus miles for initial balance transfers
  • Free roundtrip tickets begin at 15,000 miles
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)
  • 20,000 bonus with signup plus another 20,000 bonus miles after spending $10,000
  • Alternatively, this offer earns 25,000 miles after $250 in spending
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.

5 Responses to “Get Free Airline Tickets with your Credit Card Application”

  1. 17 Credit Cards with Free Plane Ticket Offers · Credit Card Watcher Says:

    [...] 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 [...]

  2. Jarek Says:

    one more card from AirTran

    http://view.ed4.net/v/5ETZVH/2VTKT/PSI67S/32D37G/MAILACTION=1&FORMAT=H

  3. ccwatcher Says:

    Jarek–Thanks for the link, but AirTran (ATA) is out of business now.

  4. Jarek Says:

    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.

  5. ccwatcher Says:

    Jarek–Thanks for pointing that out. For some reason I always associated ATA and AirTran together.

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