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I put all my Delta and American point on Alaska, and about all I can do with them is Fly, or get magazines (i've got 80K+ points I think). Hotel programs (Hilton, Marriot, Holiday Inn) seem to have reward shopping malls you can use for gift cards and merchandise, and at least with National I could get free rentals fairly quickly.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against using miles to fly, but I'd have hoped to be able to use them on Hotels or Rental car. Maybe Alaska is the only one.

They all scaled back after 9/11 and then again when gas prices spiked post-Katrina and again after the recession...so you're left with slim pickings at this point. Southwest's program is still pretty good...I'm not as familiar with the others.

I don't like "stuff" so I avoid shopping whenever possible. Personally, I prefer to use points/miles for flying. Nothing like a trip to Hawaii (or points farther afield) where the airfare is free! Also, with Costco's crazy-good pricing, even the rental cars wouldn't be worth spending miles on. But that's just me.

Piss on points.....grab a sleeping bag and ear pro and crash in the cargo hold.

Fly Freeeeeeeeeeee.

I prefer points over miles... Points equate to dollars.. No black outs, no nothing.. It's $$ you can use towards travel as you wish. I use my Venture Card as my primary card and have used it for free travel quite a bit.

Unless you travel for business, Miles are virtually useless these days. CC's with points do offer some benefits however. The last time I tried to use miles, it was like 70k miles for a domestic trip (Delta) at crappy departure times (eg: 5am or 11pm). Forgetta bout it.

Using my Alaska Airline miles, the wife and I have flown 1st class to Mexico (Cabo twice, PV, Manzanillo) and using Quantas a partner airline we flew 1st class to Australia but this had to be booked 353 days in advance. In the old days where you could get a 1st class upgrade for 5000 points we did that every time we flew. We currently have 160K and will be using our miles to go to Europe when I get enough for 2 business class tickets.
I trashed my Hilton card but I keep the Costco Amex just for Costco. Everything else goes on my Sams club card because it pays 5% back on gas & 3% on travel & restaurants and the 1% stuff goes on the Alaska card.
All cards get paid in full every month and I never pay cash (except tipping) because the price of credit is built into every purchase so beat them at their games and get your rewards!

Classic wrote:Using my Alaska Airline miles, the wife and I have flown 1st class to Mexico (Cabo twice, PV, Manzanillo) and using Quantas a partner airline we flew 1st class to Australia but this had to be booked 353 days in advance. In the old days where you could get a 1st class upgrade for 5000 points we did that every time we flew. We currently have 160K and will be using our miles to go to Europe when I get enough for 2 business class tickets.
I trashed my Hilton card but I keep the Costco Amex just for Costco. Everything else goes on my Sams club card because it pays 5% back on gas & 3% on travel & restaurants and the 1% stuff goes on the Alaska card.
All cards get paid in full every month and I never pay cash (except tipping) because the price of credit is built into every purchase so beat them at their games and get your rewards!

We've got a similar card, but are working to pay off our CC debt. May look into that in the future once we are paid off and have established better habits.

I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

joao01 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

My GF is a Flight Attendant for Alaska.

They're expanding coverage and hiring F.A.'s at an alarming rate.

Don't be surprised if that doesn't change in the near future.

Just saying.....

joao01 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

Open a credit card with British Airways and spend the 3k in 3 months to get 50k avios. Use your Alaska Airmiles to get you to the east coast and the Avios to get you overseas.

Massivedesign wrote:

joao01 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

Open a credit card with British Airways and spend the 3k in 3 months to get 50k avios. Use your Alaska Airmiles to get you to the east coast and the Avios to get you overseas.

I flew to Hawaii on Alaska and then found out United (my follow on carrier) had cancelled my flight while I was mid-air. Got stuck without a car in Honolulu. Sounds much cooler than it was. I try to avoid changing carriers if I can. In that case, United wanted me to fly through SFO to get to HNL. Alaska had direct.

joao01 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

Europe on Delta using Alaska airline Miles is 60,000 points
American is 40,000 off season and 60 for the summer months

Funny thing, I went to Australia 7 years ago using alaska points and 1st class then was 140K pp, it is still 140K pp

Classic wrote:

joao01 wrote:

ANZAC wrote:I think Alaska's programs is good, very easy to redeem.

BA sucks, blacked out most of summer.

Hotel programs suck too, I never usually bother.

I can't get to Europe with my Alaska Miles.

Europe on Delta using Alaska airline Miles is 60,000 points
American is 40,000 off season and 60 for the summer months

Funny thing, I went to Australia 7 years ago using alaska points and 1st class then was 140K pp, it is still 140K pp

Maybe I should look at other destinations