  
|  | |||||||||||||
Plastic route to earning free flights
 There are about 900 different credit cards on the market that can earn you air miles. QUICKVOTEYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- When it comes to choosing a credit card that can earn you air miles, prepare for a confusing and complicated search -- there are 900 on the market. Most offer around the same points per dollar spent. What you want to look for is the bonus offers, interest rates, annual fees and ways to spend your miles. One the most popular cards, the American Express Membership Rewards card, allows you to buy a range of things, from flights, to hotel stays, car hire and gifts. The advice from the experts is to know your priorities. Ravindra Bhagwanani is general manager of Frankfurt-based company Global Flight, which specializes in helping airlines manage frequent flyer programs and assists travelers who want to make use of them. He said the most important thing travelers needed to consider when choosing a card was whether it would lock them into just one frequent flyer program. "You have to know whether flexibility is more important to you or whether you really want to be tied to a frequent flyer program," he said. "If flexibility is what you need, you should go for a generic card like American Express or Diners Club, because you have the flexibility to transfer your points to different kinds of frequent flyer programs afterwards, and you're not tied into one specific frequent flyer program. That's the main difference." It is not just credit cards that travelers can earn air points on, major hotels also have their own loyalty programs. The number of miles you can earn as you sleep varies from one brand to the next. Most offer the option of collecting hotel points for extra nights or upgrades, or you can opt for air miles in exchange for flights on partner airlines. The golden rule is to never pass up the opportunity for earning points or miles, even when it comes to renting cars. All the major companies have their own programs. They'll give you points or frequent flyer miles, they can then be used either up in the air or on the ground 
|
| |||||||||||||
| © 2007 Cable News Network. A Time Warner Company. All Rights Reserved. Terms under which this service is provided to you. Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. |
 |
|
External sites open in new window; not endorsed by CNN.com
Pay service with live and archived video. 
