How Do Credit Card Miles Work and How These are Better than Cashback?

Yes, you read that right. 

If you love travelling and you just want to save some money on your travel, then airmiles credit card is indeed the best option for you. It offers a wide range of travel-related benefits like air miles, discounts on car rentals, discounts on flight tickets and hotels, free access to airport lounges, bonus points, etc.

Airmiles card has gotten a lot of attention lately thanks to welcome bonuses offered by some of the leading airmiles credit cards. However, it is not plain-sailing as signing up and getting free travel benefits but once you understand how credit card miles work, it is will helpful for you to earn yourself a free travel flight and some other exclusive travel privileges.

How Do Credit Card Miles Work?

Most of the airlines have loyalty programmes that reward its customers for flying very frequently. Being a member, you are entitled to earn airline miles each time you fly with the respective airline and if you have accumulated some enough amount of airline miles, you can redeem them for free flight.

Well, credit card miles work in exactly the same manner, except these airmiles credit cards reward you for spending instead of flying. Every time you make any purchase using an airmiles card, you will earn some specific number of airmiles based on the amount you’ve spent on your card. Later, you can redeem the accumulated airline miles for flight tickets, hotel stays, car rental, and some other travel-related expenses.

Under most loyalty programmes, you will earn airline miles or points for each AED spend as well as points or bonus airline miles for spending in certain categories or spending a minimum amount of money with a specific period of time after opening a credit card account.

Henceforth, credit card miles are quite different than an airline-specific frequent flyer. However, they both can be redeemed for complimentary travel.

What is a Co-branded Airline Credit Card?

Co-branded airline credit cards are offered by leading banks and financial institutions such as Emirates NBD, CITIBANK, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), in conjunction with some specific airline companies like Emirates Group, Etihad Airways, Air Arabia. These types of credit cards will enable the cardholder to earn additional airmiles on making purchases using that card, and the earned miles can usually only be utilized on that particular airline. Well, such type of credit cards also comes with benefits associated with that airline like priority seating and complimentary checked bags.

How Credit Card Miles Are Better Than Cashback Credit Card?

With airmiles credit cards, you are restricted to redeeming points or airline miles on only travel-related purchases whereas cashback credit card give you the money back that you can use for any purchase. Without any doubt, cashback credit cards are straightforward and simple which helps you earn cash and enable you to use it for any purchase.

But credit card miles provide you more of your money if you really know how to make the most of them. Also if you are a frequent lover, then you should choose airmiles credit card over a cashback credit card to save on travel and enjoy a wide range of travel-related expenses.

In A Nutshell

When choosing a credit card, be honest and practical about how you are going to use it and for what purpose you are mainly opting for it. If, in case, you travel frequently or you just simply love to travel and you want to get some travel privileges and benefits to save on travel, then go for an airmiles card. You just need to opt for the credit card that offers high airline miles along with other travel-related perks such as hotel stays, complimentary upgrades, airport lounge access, etc. Making the right decision will definitely help you to make the most of the travel.