Question
Just wondering what people think of the Smith Barney Platinum Select MasterCard with Travel & Rewards. I know you need to have an FMA account with Smith Barney but the Annual fee is $50 which is well below the AA credit cards and you can transfer points into American Airlines in blocks of 5,000 points = 5000 miles with no limit on the amount of miles you can transfer in any given year. The points form the credit also combine with the points from there ATM card. You can also get 1 class upgrades certs on BA/CO/NW and they got free tickets they can purchase for you on any airline of your choice and depending on the vaule of ticket determines the points you need just like the ThankYou points do.
But with the add feature of being able to deposit points into AA program or getting the 1 class upgrades certs doesnt that kinda of make this credit card better for travel rewards over the Thank You rewards program? All the other items in there redemtion catalog look to be same as the Thank You rewards items except you need same points and you earns points much slower on this card over most of the Thank You reward card that have no annual fee because this card awards 1 point per dollar spent no matter what item you buy and you dont get bonus points for miles flown either.