Q: What are the current American Express Rewards airlines partners?

A: One of the best things about American Express credit cards is that you can redeem your Membership Rewards points for frequent flyer miles with a number of different partner airlines. However, due to shake-ups in the airline industry (i.e. bankruptcies, mergers) that have taken place over the last several years, the list of participating AmEx rewards airlines does change periodically.

At the time of the last update (April 2012) here’s the current AmEx airline partners:

• Delta Airlines = 1,000 SkyMiles® = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• AeroMexico = 1,000 Club Premier® Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Air Canada = 1,000 Aeroplan® Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• AirTran = 1 A+ Rewards credit(s) = 1,500 Membership Rewards Points (no longer a transfer partner as of March 1, 2012 due to AirTrans’ merger with Southwest Airlines)
• Alitalia Airlines = 1,000 MilleMiglia Miles =1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• All Nippon Airways = 1,000 ANA Mileage Club Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• British Airways = 1,000 BA Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Continental Airlines* = 1,000 OnePass® Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points (Continental Airlines and American Express weren’t able to reach an agreement to renew their partnership. Therefore, after Sept 30, 2011 Continental will no longer be an American Express rewards airline participant.)
• EL AL Israel Airlines = 15 Matmid Points = 1,050 Membership Rewards Points
• Air France & KLM = 1,000 Flying Blue® Award Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Frontier Airlines = 1,000 EarlyReturns® Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Hawaiian Airlines = 1,000 HawaiianMiles® = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Iberia Plus Airlines = 100 Iberia Plus Points = 1,400 Membership Rewards Points
• JetBlue Airways = 200 TrueBlue® Points = 250 Membership Rewards Points
• Singapore Airlines = 1,000 KrisFlyer® Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Virgin Atlantic = 1,000 Flying Club Miles = 1,000 Membership Rewards Points
• Virgin America = 200 points = 100 Elevate points (note: from my experiance Elevate pts = 2.2 cent value each)

The following are not transfer partners, but let you buy tix for a pre-negotiated number of points:

• Swiss Air Lines = economy tickets to Europe for 60k to 65k points + $396 in taxes/fees, departing from select US cities
• Cathay Pacific Airways = economy tickets to Hong Kong from 60k points + $845 in taxes/fees and from 125k points with $359 in taxes/fees
• Qantas = economy class ticket to Australia from 92,000 points + $656 in taxes/fees and from 22,000 points + $1,115 in taxes/fees/charges
• South African Airways = economy ticket to South Africa from 95,000 points + $482.85 in taxes/fees. Companion ticket from 50,000 points + $482.85.

Obviously these are subject to change w/o notice at anytime, so always consult AmEx directly for current partners and conversions.

Additional Options
The Membership Rewards airlines listed above aren’t necessarily your only option. Not too long ago AmEx began offering “Pay with Points” which allows you to use your Membership Rewards points to pay for all our part of your flight through their travel booking website. The prices are shown in dollars and then you can use some or all of your Membership Rewards points to pay for the ticket -when you go this route, you can use your points to pay for tickets that are not Membership Rewards airline partners. However the drawback of this method is you most likely won’t be getting the best value for your points when you use them for “Pay with Points” payments.

Your best option for reward flights with American Express?
Ironically, the AmEx which offers the best rewards program for flights are not the charge cards, not their partner airline cards, but rather their Starwood card believe it or not.

Why? Because you earn at least 1 Starpoint per $1 spent. Those Starpoints can be converted to over 30 different frequent flyer programs, almost always on a 1 for 1 conversion. Now compare that to the American Express Membership Rewards airlines list which is much shorter and not always on a 1 for 1 basis. To learn more about this card and to get up to 25,000 bonus Starpoints, check out our Starwood American Express review to learn more!

Your only choice if you have crummy credit is often a secured credit card… but most of those suck. Is the Citibank secured credit card any better?

I’ve seen some secured credit cards that charge more than $200 in fees just for the first year! Obviously I can understand why they have to charge something, but $200? Are you kidding me?! Take a look at this Citi Secured MasterCard review to see how it compares to the others…

What are the fees?

The Citi secured card application lists the annual fee as being $29. I don’t see mentions of any other fees besides that.

What’s the interest rate?

The application lists 18.24% for purchases, 25.24% for cash advances, and up to 29.99% for the penalty APR when it applies. Those were the interest rates as of April 2012.

How does it work?

• You include a check or money order for an amount between $200 and $5,000 with your card’s application. That amount becomes your security deposit. You will be billed for your annual fee at a later time.
• Your security will be put into a Certificate of Deposit (CD). The credit limit on your Citi secured credit card will be up to the amount of money that’s in this CD.
• There is a grace period of at least 23 days after your credit card billing cycle closes. If you pay your entire balance in full before that time, you will not be charged any interest.
• After having and using the Citi secured MasterCard for 18 months, you “may become eligible” for an unsecured Citi Platinum MasterCard.

Who can apply?

The application for the Citi secured credit card says you have to be at least 18 years of age and be a U.S. citizen or a resident alien. Either way, you will need to provide a copy of your government-issued photo ID (non-US citizens must provide either a copy of their passport or Mexican consular ID).

In order to apply you will also need to prove your address. If you are a U.S. citizen your driver’s license or passport will work. However if you are non-US citizen you need to provide a copy of your recent utility bill, bank account statement, or phone bill (cell phones don’t count).

How can you apply?

You will either need to go to a local Citibank branch and bring all the required things – or – you can download the Citibank secured credit card application on their website and mail it in with your payment and document copies (unfortunately online submission isn’t an option).

Verdict?

Credit Card Forum advertises some Citi products, but we don’t advertise this one. Regardless, I still think it’s a good choice for a secured credit card. The annual fee for the Citi secured MasterCard is pretty reasonable and the requirements are fairly standard.

Compare this card vs. the best secured cards here

Q: What is the best credit card sign up bonus currently available?

A: We all love to gripe how much postage rates have shot up over the last couple decades but their is a silver lining… it now costs a lot more for banks to mail us those card offers. The result? Banks have been using more creative ways – like credit card bonus deals – to try and entice you to apply.

However the best bonus offers aren’t always advertised on the card issuer’s website. Why? Because they don’t necessarily want to give out a super generous bonus unless they have to. This is why you sometimes have to go elsewhere to find them. As the leading site for reviews, CreditCardForum has the best sponsored offers out there for signup bonus promotions:

Note: The offers below are current and updated daily. Keep in mind an offer available today may not be available tomorrow.

Cash Bonus

These offers give you cash or points that can easily be converted to cash/cash equivalent (like a statement credit or check). Some of them give the bonus after your first purchase, while others may require you to spend a minimal amount during the first few months you have the card. For example, they may give the $100 credit card bonus after you spend $1,000 or more during your first 3 months (that only equals out to be $33.34 per month, which is easy to do).

You can find even more cash back cards on this page

Travel Bonus

The days of cheap flights are long gone. Nowadays it can cost a small fortune for a rountrip flight cross country. To help cushion the costs, there are many who turn to credit card bonus miles. Sometimes it’s possible to get enough miles up front that will either pay for a round trip flight up front or at least cover a good chunk of the costs.

Because most travel cards charge annual fees during the first year, ideally you want a bonus offer that includes having the first year fee-free. That way you are not paying anything to get your freebies.

Want more options? Compare the top 10 travel credit cards here!

As you will notice, some deals also offer bonus points each year you have a card. They do this to build loyalty in hopes you won’t cancel after after the first year (or in other words, when the annual fee starts if your first year was fee-free). This is a newer trend and to be honest a pretty smart one in my opinion. Personally, I have found that a lot of times it actually is worth keeping cards beyond the first year if they have a good enough rewards program. So when picking out a credit card sign up bonus, try and choose a card that you will actually want to keep long term.

A lot of people wonder if they are eligible for a sign up deal if they already have a card from a given bank. From my experience and to the best of my knowledge, as long as you don’t already have (or had) the exact same card, you should be eligible for the bonus. For example, if you are an existing Chase Freedom cardholder, you should be eligible for the Chase Sapphire bonus if you’re getting the Sapphire for the first time. I have taken advantage of dozens of deals like this and have never once had a problem receiving my bonus.

Keep in mind the above offers are not always available – they are updated daily. So if there is a good one available, take it while you can!

While talking credit cards over the weekend with an old friend of mine from Michigan, she mentioned that she was going to apply for a Peebles credit card (if you’re not familiar with them, they’re a department store).

Unless you have subpar credit that won’t qualify you for a normal credit card, I see little reason to get a card like this…

Problem #1: You need to earn 750 points for the extra benefits

There’s the Peebles VIP Gold card, Silver card, and Bronze card. However, you don’t start off at any of these levels.

So it’s not until after you’ve earned 750 points with their credit card that you start getting the perks.

• VIP Bronze card – To get this you must have earned 750 or more points within a single year
• VIP Silver card – Have to earn 1,000 or more points annually to get this
• VIP Gold card – Requirement of 1,500 points or higher

Since there’s only 1 point earned per dollar and you only start off with 250 points, that means after you apply for the credit card you will typically need to spend $500+ annually to get the other benefits.

Problem #2: The rewards and benefits suck

So what do you get for these points? Not much.

There will be chances to earn double or triple points during some “special events.” But whether you accumulate a little or a lot of points, the benefits are pretty boring and seem to fall under these two main categories:

(a) Peebles coupons and sales
(b) Discounted or free gift wrapping

With most credit cards, points are converted into cash back or reward certificates. For example at department stores the Blue Cash Preferred earns you 3% rewards.

However that’s not the case with the Peebles credit card. Instead, the number of points just dictates what tier the account is at. There’s no cash back or gift certificate coming your way for all that spending.

Problem #3: The card is of little use

Forget using this thing to finance a purchase. Why? Because the interest rates are way up there at 24.99%.

And because it can only be used for purchases at a Peebles department stores (and affiliated stores) it’s a card that will be taking up real estate in your wallet, while serving little purpose.

And don’t even get me going on the issuing bank’s customer service and how applying for unneeded cards can affect your credit score…

Written or last updated January 2012

Every once in a while you will come across a card that’s a hidden gem… it has some good benefits but since it’s issued by a local or regional bank, not many people know about it. A case in point are the Plains Commerce Bank credit cards.

Plains Commerce Bank has 6 branches in South Dakota. So when it comes to banks, they are about as small as you can get. So what makes their credit cards unique?

Reason #1: They’re issued and managed in-house

You may be surprised to learn that most small and regional banks (even the bigger ones like KeyBank) outsource their credit card portfolios to the big boys like Citi, FIA Card Services (BofA), etc.

I figured that would be the case, but after examining the Commerce Bank Visa card application, it’s quite obvious they are managed in-house! Heck, you even apply for their credit card the old fashioned way by mailing your application to a branch.

Reason #2: The interest rate is low

All of their cards have the same rate… a flat 12% fixed. Even on cash advances!

Obviously many of the big banks offer APRs that may start at 10.99% or 11.99% but you need the best credit to get that rate. Contrast that to Plains Commerce, who is giving everyone that is approved the same low rate.

Reason #3: They use fixed interest rates, NOT variable

Over the past 5 years or so, fixed rate credit cards have virtually gone extinct. Almost every card that previously offered fixed has been converted to variable, which means it’s tied to the U.S. prime rate. So when that goes up, your rate will go up.

On the other hand, Plains Commerce Bank has stuck with fixed rate on their credit cards.

Old fashioned is good for some but not all

While reviewing the applications I actually reminisce to my childhood. Why? Because the names of the cards are a blast from the past.

Their top tier offer is the Plains Commerce Bank Visa Gold card and next down on the list is the Visa and MasterCard Classic. Except for AmEx Gold, when was the last time you’ve seen a gold tier credit card? I got a chuckle out of that. By the way they used to offer a secured credit card but I don’t see it listed, so apparently that’s no more.

Another aspect that’s old school is that there is no rewards program on these cards. Normally I would criticize that, but given the low fixed interest rates I will let it slide this time.

Verdict?

The credit cards from Plains Commerce Bank is what used to be offered… locally issued and managed cards. For the person who carries the occasional balance, the benefits of a lower rate probably outweigh the lack of rewards.

Meanwhile for those who carry pay their bills in full, they would be better off with the high cash back offered on the AmEx Blue Cash (no annual fee) or any number of other reward cards out there.

Last but not least, since you have to have an existing banking relationship with Plains Commerce to apply for their credit card, so unfortunately it’s mainly for those in South Dakota only.

Written Jan 2012