The Little Known Credit Card Every Alaskan Should Have

In my earlier post I discussed the Best Credit Card for Alaskans. This credit card was the Alaskan Airlines Visa Signature from Bank of America. Today I want to write about the little know British Airways Visa Signature Credit Card issued by Chase. Most people would think why would I want a British Airlines credit card if I live in Alaska where British Airways doesn't even fly to. The reason is that Alaska Airlines and British Airways are mileage partners allowing you to use your British Airlines Avios points to fly on Alaska Airlines flights.

This is not the only reason that you should own this credit card. Many intra state flights within Alaska cost only 4,500 Avios Points each way. That is significantly cheaper that the base award rate of 7,500 Alaska Airlines miles that Alaska Airlines charges for a one way intra state award.

British Airways Avios points work differently than many other airline reward programs in that British Airways Avios redemptions are base on a distance award chart. The Avios award chart says that you can book any flight less than 650 miles for 4,500 Avios points with British Airways partners. Because Alaska Airlines is a British Airway partner you can book many award flights within Alaska for just 4,500 Avios points. This includes route such as Anchorage to Juneau, Anchorage to Fairbanks, Anchorage to Bethel, Anchorage to Yakutat, and Juneau to any other Southeast Alaska town.

The next level is only 7,500 Avios for flights under 1151 miles. This includes routes such as Juneau to Seattle or Ketchikan to Seattle. Even a flight from Anchorage to Seattle only cost 10,000 Avios each way which is still 2,500 points less than Alaska Airlines charges for the same flight.  Check out the Avios Calculator to see how many points it will cost to get between your two cities.

The British Airways Visa Signature Credit Card give 50,000 Avios after spending $2,000 in the first 90 days of account opening which is an easy minimum spend for most of us to make. There is a $95 fee which is NOT waived for the first year, but these points are definitely worth the yearly fee for the first year. The card also comes with 2.5 Avios per $1 spent on British Airline tickets and 1.25 points per $1 spent on everything else. You can also enjoy no foreign transaction fees when you travel abroad.

With just the sign up bonus from this credit card you can get up to 9 free one way tickets on Alaska Airlines for intra state travel.

Best Credit Card for Alaskans

Living in Alaska we have limited options for which airlines service our state or our city. Many blogs advertise the Southwest Credit Card or the Virgin America credit card to their readers. These are great credit cards... if you live in an area serviced by one of these airlines. So what are the best credit cards for people living in Alaska?

I think it is probably just a gimme, but most Alaskan educated on the subject would suggest that the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Card is the top credit card for Alaskans. Alaskan Airlines has the largest presence in Alaska with flights as far north as Barrow and as far south as Ketchikan This credit card offers:

• 30,000 Alaska Airlines miles after first purchase
• valuable $99 companion fare
• 3x miles on Alaska Airlines purchases
• $75 fee is NOT waived for the first year

Most of the offers publicly available are for only 25,000 miles so this offer is 5,000 miles greater. Yes, the $75 fee is not waived for the first year, but 25,000 miles is sufficient for a round trip domestic ticket. This is well worth the $75 fee.

The $99 companion ticket is also quite valuable. It works like this:

• Works only flights on  Alaska Airlines flights only
• Purchase one ticket and received the second for $99 plus tax

The Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Credit Card was my first credit card and I have kept it ever since. Some people find that they are not able to use the $99 companion ticket before the 1 year expiration date (you get a new $99 companion ticket every year you have the credit card).  I see that many people sell their Alaska Airlines companion ticket on craigslist. The going rate is around $175. A reminder that this practice is not completely legitimate from the perspective of Alaska Airlines, but many people do it.

So if you do not have this credit card already, you should definitely consider signing up!

How to Earn the Most Miles and Points

The fastest way to earn free travel is through generous credit card sign up bonuses. This is the primary tool for earning travel rewards. Rewards credit cards offer generous bonus for spending certain amount of money in a limited period of time often 90 days for account opening.

Credit card bonuses are not the only way to earn bunches of reward points. Manufactured spending is another way. Manufactured spending is when you artificially create credit card spending that you would not normally make. Usually this means turning credit card purchases back into cash through the use of prepaid debit cards for example. If you are able to do this with bonus categories for example 5x points for purchases at office supply stores with the Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus credit cards than you can quickly rack up a substantial number of points. I will discuss in detail methods of manufactured spending in future posts.

One of the more obvious methods for earning miles is actually paying for airline tickets and receiving miles for the distance flown. I earn virtually 0 miles using this approach because it is my goal and mile habit to never actually pay for an airline ticket with money. My goal is to earn enough miles to pay for all my airline tickets with miles that I acquired for almost free.

The Frozen Travler: What's it all about

This will be the first post for the new Frozen Traveler. I have been increasingly engaged in the hobby of getting great travel deals to help fund my world travels. I am always learning more and more. I want share my experiences with friends and family so that they can also enjoy the benefits of travel hacking. Travel hacking for me includes everything from signing up for credit cards, manufactured spending, utilizing travel resource websites, understanding airline and hotel reward programs, and everything else related to getting free, nearly free, or heavily discounted travel.

There are many blogs out there that focus on travel hacking, and this blog will also talk about the best ways to get free, nearly free, or heavily discounted travel. What is different about this blog is that I will do it with the focus for people living in Alaska. That is not to say that this blog will not have value to individuals residing outside of Alaska. Living in Alaska offers unique travel challenges that are most often not addressed or even considered by mainstream bloggers. I will focus on travel deals that have value to Alaskans or those traveling in Alaska. 

Earn Free Hotel Stays by Signing up for the SPG Rewards Credit Card

If you are thinking of traveling in the near future, then sign up of the Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card. When you sign up for this free credit card you will get 10,000 Starwoods points after your first purchase. This is good for up to five free nights at a Category 1 hotel. the number of points goes up with the categories. Starwood owns Sheraton, Four Points, and several other hotel chains, so there are lots of options for places to say.

On top of that, you can receive an additional 5,000 rewards points for refrerring a friend. That is enough points for another two free nights! This works out really well if you are planning on traveling with a spouse or significant other. Both of you can sign up for the credit card and receive 10,000 points each plus one of you can receive the 5,000 point bonus for referrring the other. The 25,000 points are good for up to 12 free nights at a Category 1 hotel. Go on vacation and stay for free!

If you are interested in this offer, let me know and I will send you a link. You can help me out by using the link that I send you, and I will receive a 5,000 point bonus too!

Fly Cheap on Delta Airlines with 100% Bonus for Transfering/Buying Miles

Until September 30, 2011, Delta Airlines is offering a 100% bonus when you transfer/buy miles. Usually buying or transferring frequent flier miles is never a good idea because airlines charge way more than the miles are worth and there are fees for transfering miles. This bonus offer brings down the cost of transferring/buying miles by half which makes this a pretty good deal for getting really cheap flights on Delta.

Delta Charges $0.035 per mile plus a 7.5% excise tax plus a $30.00 transaction fee to purchase miles. So if you wanted to buy enough mileage for two base round trip (25,000 miles each) tickets on Delta. It would cost $875 to purchase the miles plus $65.63 in taxes plus $30 transaction fee for a total of $940.63. This can get you two round trip domestic flights so that is a cost of about $485 each. Without the bonus one round trip ticket would cost the full $940.63 (not a good deal!). So $485 for a domestic round trip ticket seems like an OK deal, but it is nothing to get too excited about.

Here is where it gets really exciting.....

Delta charges $0.01 per mile plus a $30 transaction fee to transfer miles to another Skymiles account holder. Normally, this is a bad idea because it would cost you $280 to transfer 25,000 miles to someone else so that they can book a ticket.

Let's look at this same situation with the 100% bonus for transferring miles offered by Delta Airlines. Let’s say you already have 25,000 Skymiles in your account. If you don't you can get 25,000 Delta Skymiles for free just for signing up for the Delta Skymiles American Express Card. Find someone else with a Skymiles account or have them sign up for one. The terms and conditions say that in order to get the bonus, you must have had your Skymiles account for at least 10 days.

With the 100% bonus for transferring miles, you will pay $280 for 25,000 Skymiles enough for one domestic round trip flight. From reading the terms and conditions, there is no reason why you could not transfer miles to one person’s account, get the 100% bonus, then transfer the miles back to the other account and get the 100% bonus again.

It’s a good idea to know where you want to fly and check out the amount of miles needed and the price for a full fair ticket.

I looked at traveling round trip from Seattle, WA to JFK in New York. The cost of a full price ticket was $370. Using 25,000 miles instead will save you $90 or about 24%.

The savings can vary greatly. I often fly out of Alaska. A round trip flight from Anchorage, AK to Seattle, WA cost $668. This flight was also 25,000 air miles. This represents a savings of $388. The lowest price on any of the competitor airlines was $548. This is still almost a 50% savings over the full cost fare.

Save yourself some money on air travel and check of this deal. Remember the offer expires September 30, 2011.

Travel for Free using Frequent Flier Credit Card Offers

My Girlfriend and I preparing for extended traveling in Asia at the end of the year. As I am always looking for a good deal I was researching freqent flier programs. Everyone has heard of freqent flier miles being awarded for signing up for a particular airlines sponsored credit card, but often you don't receive enough free miles to travel where you want to go, and many of these credit cards have steep membership fees.

So here is what I did...

For signing up for the Continental One Pass Credit Card you will receive 30,000 bonus miles. You get 25,000 bonus miles after you make your first purchase, and you can get another 5,000 bonus miles just for adding an authorized user (the authorized user does not have to make any purchases).

The flight that I purchased was 32,500 Continental miles for a flight from the west coast of the US all the way to Bangkok. I only had to come up with 2,500 more frequent flier miles which is easy.

There are plenty of other ways to earn the miles you need for a free flight. The website freefrequentflyermiles.com provides a comprehensive list of great ways to earn free frequent flyer miles.

If you want to earn even more miles... because Continental Air is merging with United Air beginning 12/31/2011, for a limited time only, you are able to transfer Continenal One Pass miles into your United Skymiles account without any additional charges. So after you sign up for the Continental One Pass Credit Card sign up for the United Mileage Plus Credit Card as well.

For signing up for the United Mileage Plus Credit Card you will earn 25,000 bonus miles after your first purchase and 5,000 additional miles when you add two authorized users to your account.

Once you've got both the Continental and the United air miles you can merge the miles into one frequent flier account and you will have 60,000 frequent flier miles!

Even better, this is not limited to just one person in your household. Your spouse or significant other can sign up for the same promotions and you can each earn 60,000 free freqent flier miles.

Both credit cards have annual fees, but for both offers, the annual fee is waved for the first year. Just remember to call and cancel the credit cards before the one year anniversary.