Airline co-branded credit cards are probably what most people think of when they think about travel credit cards. Planes are the emoji of travel, after all. So what are airline credit cards? Who offers them? How do they work? What tier[s] are they in? How do they fit into a team? And who are they a good match for? Stay tuned to answer these broad questions.
Right off the bat, I am not really a fan of airline credit cards. There are just so many things that other cards do better, some of which are really pretty surprising. Airline cards don’t even earn you the most miles per dollar on the airline they are cobranded with, which kind of seems like it should be the whole point of them. That’s how hotel cards work.
Airline co-branded credit cards broadly refers to credit cards offered by an issuer like American Express or Citi, co-branded with an airline like United or British Airways. There are cobranded cards from Aer Lingus, AirCanada, Alaskan, American, British, Delta, Emirates, Frontier, Hawaiian, Iberia, Jetblue, Southwest, Spirit, United, and probably more that I can’t think of, but I’m going to focus on the non-budget US-based carriers. American Airlines cards are offered through Citi, Alaska Airlines through Bank of America, Delta Air Lines through American Express, Hawaiian through Barclay, Jetblue through Barclay, Southwest through Chase, and United through Chase.
There are four main reasons I can think of to apply for and hold airline cobranded cards where applicable: earning a signup bonus (or earning a lot of that particular type of miles in general), supporting higher loyalty status, having benefits when travelling on the airline, and lounge access.
Some are also offered across multiple tiers. Southwest has two tiers of card, American offers three tiers of card, and Delta and United offer four. Southwest offers B and C tier cards (there are actually three personal Southwest cards, but two fall into B tier), while American offers A, B, and D tiers. Delta and United both offer cards across A, B, C, and D tiers. Check out my post on card tiers here!
In the A tier, we have the AAdvantage MileUp, the Delta Blue, and the United Gateway cards. These no-annual-fee cards offer limited benefits and a double points category for the co-branded airline, plus possibly another category. Honestly, I see no purpose for these cards other than earning the signup bonus, and maybe as a downgrade option if you don’t want to close an account for some reason and these cards are a possible downgrade path. For example, Kristyn had a Delta Gold card for a very long time. As we’ll get to in a moment, it’s not very useful, but rather than cancel an old account and adversely affect her credit score, she downgraded to the free Delta Blue card.
In B tier, there are the AAdvantage Platinum Select and Aviator Red cards, the Delta Gold card, the United Explorer card, and the Southwest Plus and Premier cards. That’s a pretty busy space with six cards from only four airlines, plus entrants from several other airlines I’m not focusing on. These cards typically offer some low elite-like benefits, like priority boarding and free checked bags (although two bags are always free on Southwest). They also typically offer signup bonuses around 50,000 miles, which is potentially worth multiple years of annual fee. For sustained use, however, these cards really fall flat, in my opinion. They offer 2x or 3x points on the co-branded airline, and typically 2x in a few additional categories. We’ll discuss in a moment why these aren’t very good rates, though. Some offer good X-factor benefits, like Southwest’s annual bonus points, or Alaska’s $99 companion fare (not mentioned here) that make them much more interesting options.
The use case for these cards is ideally for people who fly certain airlines infrequently and can't earn elite status, or for just earning a lot more of the airline's points or miles.
C tier starts to get less busy, with offerings from just Delta, Southwest, and United. The Delta Platinum, Southwest Priority, and United Quest cards have annual fees well over $100 but offer some intriguing value. Each justify their fee in a different way. The Delta Platinum card has an annual companion certificate and a pathway to earn elite-qualifying miles; the Southwest Priority awards annual bonus points and a couple annual boarding upgrades (which on Southwest, means sitting near the front of the plane), and the United Quest card has annual United statement credits and award redemption reimbursements. This is where airline cards start to get intriguing to me. I personally don’t have any of these, but Kristyn has had the Southwest Priority previously, and I’ve been considering adding the Delta Platinum or United Quest. In each case, there is a way for occasional users of the co-braded airlines to make the annual fee worth it by leveraging the interesting benefits. Like the lower tiers, they are also an option for earning more points and/or qualifying for higher elite status.
Up in D tier reside the American AAdvantage Executive card, the Delta Reserve card, the United Club Infinite card, with their $450-$550 annual fees. The main way these justify their annual fees is with lounge access. They also offer some other perks like stronger earnings, companion certificates, travel credits, or pathways to elite qualification. The lounge access is the main benefit, and from everyone I know who has one of these cards, lounge access is really the reason they got it. Keep in mind, though, lounge access only applies with a same-day ticket of the airline. For frequent flyers of the co-branded airlines who will be able to use the lounges 24 times per year (one trip per month, or one every other month with a connection), it’s effectively paying just $20-25 per lounge visit, and getting other benefits on top of that. Those visits include free food and drinks which could easily cost $30-40 at an airport restaurant.
I see the purpose of airline card in a credit card team as a Mastermind in select cases, or as a higher-end specialist. The D tier cards can be that top of the line card that elevates your experience while traveling, if you almost exclusively use that airline. The C tier cards have some benefits that offset their fees, plus offer elite-like benefits when flying the co-branded airline. A couple of B tier cards have some benefits that make them good specialists, but most B tier cards are effectively just paying $100 per year for first-level elite status benefits. A tier cards are pretty much only useful for signup bonuses, downgrade options, and a free way of keeping your miles from expiring.
Why don’t I like these cards overall, especially the lower-end ones? Airline cards’ biggest problem is flexible-point cards. Compare the Delta Reserve and the Amex Platinum for example, or the United Explorer and the Sapphire Preferred. For the Delta comparison, the Amex Platinum card offers better lounge access by offering Centurion Lounge access for all trips, not just Delta trips, and earns more points per dollar on airline purchases. That’s ALL airline purchases, including Delta, but not just Delta. The Amex Platinum earns 5x on all airlines, and the Delta Reserve earns 3x on Delta purchases, and 1x on other airlines. The kicker is that Amex MR points can be transferred 1:1 to Delta Skymiles! You could buy the exact same Delta ticket on the Amex Platinum card versus the Delta Reserve card and earn 67% more Delta miles with the same lounge access and better perks. In the United example, the United Explorer card earns 2x miles on United and some other categories, while the Sapphire Preferred earns 2x on all travel, including ANY airline, 3x on some select categories, and 5x points on travel booked via Chase’s portal, all for the same annual fee. Similar to the Delta example, Chase UR points can be transferred 1:1 to United miles, in addition to many other transfer options. The United Explorer card does offer some benefits like checked bags, but the stronger earnings, annual hotel credit, and the flexibility of the Chase UR points make the Sapphire preferred a much better option, in my opinion.
Who are airline cards a good match for? Much as I might not like this type of card overall, there are some good use cases for them. The cards with lounge access are solid options if you fly frequently on a single airline. They will elevate your travel experience and help you earn higher elite status that you already would, and can be the centerpiece of an effective card strategy. Some B and C tier cards can also be good specialist cards if you can use them just enough to offset the annual fee, like the Delta Platinum companion certificate. Lastly, if elite status is your only goal, most airline cards have some elite qualification mechanism, be it a spending threshold, or just that points earned go towards status. A good example of this is the Southwest Companion Pass - I've worked with a few people who earned 50,000-80,000 Southwest points per year flying, and used a credit card to earn the rest of the points they needed for Companion Pass. While the 50,000 points earned on the card might not be worth as much as if the spending was on another card with superior earning, the Companion Pass netted them a few thousand dollars of value. Other than that, however, I view most of these cards like just paying cash for elite benefits on a certain airline. In most cases, you will either fly an airline enough to actually earn elite benefits, or spend enough on travel that for the few times you fly a rando airline, you can just pay for a higher class that includes all of those benefits anyways. The other purpose for these cards would be for the signup bonuses, which can certainly be useful, albeit temporary.
Perhaps the reason I’m so salty about these cards is that they are marketed so fiercely, and many people see them as the main travel card options. Flight attendants talk about them mid-flight, there are posters all over airports, and there is an option to sign up every time you book a flight on an airline’s website it seems. Obviously enough people are signing up to make this heavy marketing lucrative. Many people have one because they take two vacations a year with a particular airline and want to earn extra miles. But if you run the numbers and really put some thought into your card strategy, there are almost always better options, even for those taking two trips per year. Do your research, and maybe sign up to develop a plan with me!
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