Anonymous wrote:If your family wants to do fairly short flights, e.g., DC to Florida, you should check out the British Airways Visa. BA Avios miles are excellent for use on short flights on American and USAir. It's really good to have a variety of points and miles. Hotel cards, Airline cards, transferrable points cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and AMEX reward points, like from the free AmEx Everyday Card.

Thanks , the British Airways is one we were looking at also.

love the capital one venture card and its "purchase eraser"

Chase Sapphire - allows to transfer points to Southwest, United, Marriott and other. Useful for this area considering the number of United and Southwest flight options.

We've also had great luck with ours. We just decided at the last minute we needed to go to South Beach. So, I paid the $75 to book the tickets the same day with my frequent flyer points and got a much needed "getaway from winter" getaway.

Anonymous wrote:I've been using American Airlines Aadvantage card for years. You get a mile for every dollar charged, miles for flights, miles for using their website to book, hundreds of extra miles through rental car and hotel programs and the Aadvantage dining perks can be 2-3 miles per dollar for places you'd eat anyway. Summer camp? Charge it. Vacation rental? Charge it. Been to the Caribbean for free several times, all on personal charges.

If your family wants to do fairly short flights, e.g., DC to Florida, you should check out the British Airways Visa. BA Avios miles are excellent for use on short flights on American and USAir. It's really good to have a variety of points and miles. Hotel cards, Airline cards, transferrable points cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred and AMEX reward points, like from the free AmEx Everyday Card.

Have used Amex Starwood for about 6 or 7 years now for free hotel nights.

We're actually switching to a Hilton-based card, but that's based on some calculations specific to our family and based on locations my spouse travels to for work. IOW Starwood is not as good of a deal for us any more because he's not staying at Starwood properties and we'd accrue more points if we went with Hilton.

If that weren't the case, we'd stick with Starwood because it has a far greater bang for the buck based on the credit card spend alone. I think the key is to use it for as much as you can. Everything goes on it; groceries, aftercare, amazon, netflix, all online purchases, all travel expenses, and a lot of reimbursable work travel.

I've been using American Airlines Aadvantage card for years. You get a mile for every dollar charged, miles for flights, miles for using their website to book, hundreds of extra miles through rental car and hotel programs and the Aadvantage dining perks can be 2-3 miles per dollar for places you'd eat anyway. Summer camp? Charge it. Vacation rental? Charge it. Been to the Caribbean for free several times, all on personal charges.

AMEX Starwood. They have the most bang for your buck for hotels. Most of our vacations are at free hotel stays from our Starwood points earned from AMEX.

Anonymous wrote:Capital One Venture card.

I'll check it out, thanks!

Capital One Venture card.

Currently looking at the Chase Sapphire Preferred, British Airways Visa, and AMEX Starwood. We're a family of five and need to really utilize points or miles in order to make frequent travel cheaper. I've looked at a ton of blogs and reviews, now asking DCUM for practical experience. What do you have and what do you think is the best?