Should You Be Getting An Airline Credit Card?

An airline credit card will bear the brand of a specific airline, but they are usually administered by a third party such as GE Money. They will usually be processed by a large credit processor like Visa, MasterCard and sometimes American Express.



These cards are usually aimed at the more affluent traveller. They will normally have a high annual fee, but they also will offer travel protection insurance along with insurance against theft or loss on items that are purchased by using their card. They are aimed at frequent flyers, and as such, these credit cards normally carry good foreign transaction policies. You should check what is customary on foreign charges on any card that you apply for to be certain you are getting the best deal.



Airlines now are starting to offer gold and platinum credit cards under there brand. There are also a number of credit cards that will include any frequent flyer miles already in an existing account. This means that any tickets purchased with the card are automatically entered onto the frequent flyer program.



If all of this sound like a good deal, there are some factors you might wish to consider before applying for an airline credit card. The first is the most obvious, but one that you must ask yourself. Are you indeed a frequent traveller? If you don’t fall in the category of constantly travelling, then the benefits of an airline credit card will really not be of much use to you.



The next thing to consider is whether the particular airline that you are thinking about taking the card with actually services the area in which you do most of your travelling. Obviously, if they do not service the areas you frequent, the benefits of their card to you would be negligible.



Finally, it just gets down to a case of money and value. Do the airline credit card fees actually give you good value for money? As stated previously, some of these cards come at rather high annual fees. Do the cards perform well enough in other areas that they would be worth paying these fees for?