Question
Looking for:
1) No annual fee
2) 0% APR for 1st 6 months on purchases
3) Earns airline miles (ANY program)
I'll happily send some United or Continental currency to the first person to email me with a credit card that meets these criteria.
Thanks,
Brian
Answer
If you are never willing to pay an annual fee, your choices are the $2/1 mile cards or home-grown-points cards for free air travel. (HH Amex is another option, but the conversion from hotel points to air miles is so bad it's hardly worth discussing.) I'm not a big fan of any of those options.
A couple of popular cards waive the annual fee for a while: AA Mastercard has 10k signup miles and 6 months free; SPG Amex has a varying amount of bonus miles (up to 12k if you do hotel stays, up to 6k if you do not) and 1 year free.
Since you are interested in 0% teaser money for a purchase, I'm assuming you want to make a whopper purchase as soon as you get the card and then roll free money for as long as possible.
One option would be to pick up the AA MC or SPG Amex, make the purchase to earn miles/points, and then quickly roll it to a non-mileage card that provides free balance transfer money. (I'm getting these in the mail all the time. Nearly all are no-fee and many are giving 12 months of 0% money. Chase, Citibank, MBNA, even the dreaded Providian and First USA - all the big boys are throwing free transfer money around right now.)
Another option, if you want to maximize miles, is this:
- Get the AA/MC card and make your big purchase.
- Get the Midwest Airlines Mastercard. $69 annual fee, 7500 mile signup, but - here's the unique part - your first $5000 of balance transfers earn miles. And you get your 0% for 6 months.
(Note: the only reason I'm using YX here instead of some other airline is that they are the only ones I've seen with the 0% transfer offer that also comes with a generous sign-up bonus. Then again, I don't follow every promotion, so there may be something better out there.)
So you can get everything you are looking for with either SPG Amex or AA Mastercard, plus a second card. The only question is: are 12,500 YX miles worth $69 to you?
At some point, if you want to keep a good points/miles card, you will need to make a decision on the annual fee. They won't be free forever, unless you take a lesser card. Some users have had luck getting Citibank or Amex to either waive fees or provide retention bonuses, but I wouldn't count on it.
Good luck!
Answer
Marriott, 20th anniv. with 20K points. Free the first yr.
Answer
Originally posted by pinniped:
- Get the Midwest Airlines Mastercard. $69 annual fee, 7500 mile signup, but - here's the unique part - your first $5000 of balance transfers earn miles. And you get your 0% for 6 months.
(Note: the only reason I'm using YX here instead of some other airline is that they are the only ones I've seen with the 0% transfer offer that also comes with a generous sign-up bonus. Then again, I don't follow every promotion, so there may be something better out there.)
A similar type of offer seems to be available on most or all the affinity cards from Juniper Bank, whose partners (http://www.juniper.com/app/ccsite/affiliates/prtnrCoBrandDynamic.jsp) also include Frontier and AirTran as well as Best Western, plus a "fake miles" card with Orbitz.
[This message has been edited by Stefan Daystrom (edited Feb 28, 2004).]
Answer
If you happen to be a 1K member, there's no annual fee for the UA Mileage Plus Visa and you can get 20,000 miles for signing up. Check out the UA forum for details.
Answer
get started with the YX deal mentioned above. You can transfer the miles to Amtrak GR and from there to Continental or United. After you got your starting benefits, cancel the card and get a Amtrak GR credit card. no annual fee and possibility to transfer miles to UA or CO (up to 25 k a year). read other postings concerning amtrak cc here.
Answer
Got a Fleet Plat card... 24 months 0% APR and 8.99% after that. No Fee. 35.00 yearly fee for airline miles.