Understanding Airline Credit Cards

Airline or travel credit cards offer many great bonuses when used. Many airline credit cards offer fight and/or hotel rewards which you accumulate when you make purchases using your airline credit card. One is able to build frequent flyer miles or reward points every time you use your airline credit card to purchase a flight ticket or spend using the card. If you wish to redeem your accumulated rewards points you can redeem them for airline airfare discounts. If you do not want to redeem your reward points for airfare, some hotels allow you to use your rewards points for free nights at hotels. If you are a frequent flyer who travels a lot for work or pleasure an airline credit card could work for you. If you use your airline credit card every time you make a purchase you will accumulate reward points. You get free rewards by using your airline credit card instead of credit, debit, cash, check, etc.




Airline credit cards have not been around for as long as you may think. In fact, they are a fairly new option available to credit cardholders. Nonetheless, airline credit cards have quickly gained in popularity and can be found partnered with every major airline.



The first airline credit card to be offered to consumers was the City AAdvantage MasterCard. When it came out, the card allowed consumers to earn miles with every purchase made. These miles could then be redeemed for free air travel through a variety of airlines. This card remains one of the major players in the airline credit card industry. Today, you can redeem your airline miles at over 25 different airlines. In addition, you can redeem miles for discounts at numerous hotels and car rental companies.



Today, airline credit cards are in abundance. Every major airline has partnered with a credit card company in order to bring their own airline credit card to the consumer. In addition, competition to gain and to retain flying customers is fierce. Therefore, airline credit cards offer a number of incentives, bonuses, and special deals to entice customers into acquiring their credit card.



In addition, the number of "generic" airline miles credit cards is on the rise. It is not unheard of for an airline credit card to allow the consumer to choose from over 200 different airlines when redeeming earned miles. Many of these airline credit cards also offer other discount options, such as hotel, car rental, and vacation package discounts that can be purchased with earned miles.