Lets look out the advantages and disadvantages of each reward.
Miles
Advantages:
You earn miles (usually dollar for dollar) on one specific airline. On some credit cards it even lets you earn miles towards the airline’s “elite” status, without flying the required miles.
Disadvantages:
You can only fly that specific airline. You can redeem you miles for flights that the airline is partners with, however, those airlines usually have a limited amount of seats that they let you use for bonus tickets. Making it very difficult to get a seat.
Points
Advantages:
You earn points (usually dollar for dollar). These points can be redeemed for virtually anything you want, i.e. gift cards, airline tickets, hotel, etc. All you do is go online and choose the item you want and they will tell you how many points it cost. The return ratio is usually 100 points = $1.
Disadvantages:
If you redeem them for airfare you can’t choose whom you fly with or whether it will be non-stop flight or not.
So which is better? It all really depends on what you use the rewards for. Travel or “Stuff”
Please feel free to post your comments or email me if you have any specific topics you would like me to discuss.
Comments (3)
You are saying you can't pick a non stop flight with points?
Am I not understanding?
Posted by Barry Schwartz | March 7, 2007 1:08 PM
Posted on March 7, 2007 13:08
Maybe if I explain the redemption procedure it might be clearer.
Lets say you want to fly from New York to LA it should cost you about 25,000 points. What you would do is call your rewards program and tell them that you would like to redeem your points for airfare. They would then give you a travel certificate with a phone # of a travel agent that they work with to book your flight. You tell the travel agent the dates and times you want to go and they will book your flight for you. They will book the cheapest method. If a non-stop flight is the cheapest, then that’s what you will get.
If you would like to book the flight of your choice you can, but only sometimes does it make sense and only some cards let you do this like American Express and Citibank Thank You. For example, if you would like to buy a ticket with Jet blue from NY to Florida and the ticket cost only $150, you can purchase the ticket using your rewards credit card and then call them and ask them to reverse the charge and pay for it with your points. Again, the ration is 100 points = $1. So in the above example the ticket would cost only 15,000 points.
Let me know if there are more questions
BarryS
Posted by BarryS | March 7, 2007 3:39 PM
Posted on March 7, 2007 15:39
Got it...
Posted by Barry Schwartz | March 7, 2007 3:48 PM
Posted on March 7, 2007 15:48