Based out of South Korea, Asiana Airlines is a rapidly growing carrier which works hard to stand out from the crowd by branding themselves as an upscale airline. But is the Asiana credit card also a cut above the rest? Let’s do a review and find out…

Issuer: It is a Bank of America Asiana credit card. Many people assume it’s an Asiana American Express issued card (since the logo is on it) but that’s incorrect – the logo means the card operates over the American Express payment network. The actual issuer and party responsible for handling the accounts is BofA.

Annual Fee: This credit card currently carries a $99 annual fee (I have not seen any “no annual fee” promotions for it either).

Rewards: The rewards are as follows:

• Double miles on all purchases for each dollar spent
• Triple miles at select grocery stores that Asiana is partnered with. Unfortunately the Asiana credit card application does not tell you which grocery chains are partners and instead directs you to Asiana Airlines website. Once there I located a link that said “click here for a list of participating stores” but upon clicking, I would only get re-directed to the homepage. I tried this several times on different browsers without luck.

Signup Bonus: The Bank of America Asiana credit card offers 5,000 bonus miles for new card applicants.

Other Noteworthy Benefits: A $100 rebate on an Asiana ticket purchase once per year. This card is a member of the Star Alliance, which means you can convert use your miles on other airlines which are part of the network (around 30 different airlines).

Verdict: This is undoubtedly the best card from Bank of America for rewards that’s currently available. With its 2x miles, the Asiana credit card is definitely worth checking out. To see how it stacks up against others, take a look at the top 10 air travel credit cards.

Review written April 2011