Using Credit Cards to Earn Free Flights

Many merchants reward you for purchases with frequent flyer miles. You can now get miles for renting a car, getting insurance, or shopping at certain stores. Credit cards provide an additional way to earn airline miles towards award flights.  

Which credit cards can be used to earn airline miles?

There are a number of Swiss credit cards that reward you with airline miles when you use them to pay for purchases. Some credit cards give you more miles than others, so comparing is important.

The moneyland.ch credit card comparison lets you limit results to cards that let you earn airline miles, and sort credit cards based on how many airline miles you earn.

Which frequent flyer programs offer Swiss credit cards?

The vast majority of Swiss airline miles credit cards are linked to Miles & More, a frequent flyer program from Star Alliance, the world’s biggest airline partnership. The Flying Blue World Mastercard from Viseca, which lets you earn Flying Blue miles from Air France, KLM, and other Skyteam airlines, is an exception.

You can find a detailed overview of popular frequent flyer programs here.

How can I collect airline miles with credit cards?

When you use an airline mile credit card to buy something, you get rewarded with airline miles, instead of cash back or reward points.

Credit cards which are clearly labelled as Miles & More or Flying Blue credit cards are linked directly to the corresponding frequent flyer program. The airline miles you get as rewards for credit card spending are automatically credited to your personal frequent flyer account.

There are other credit cards which do not automatically reward you with airline miles, but do give you the option of redeeming your reward points for miles. For example, the Superpoints that you earn with a Coop Supercard credit card can be redeemed for Miles & More miles (two Superpoints for one mile). The reward points from Bonuscard credit cards, American Express and UBS reward points can also be redeemed for miles.

How many miles can I get?

All Swiss airline miles credit cards reward you with miles based on your spending. Your total spending accounts for all purchases from Swiss and foreign merchants paid for using your credit card. You do not earn miles for cash advances, credit card fees, or interest charged on credit card debt.

Airline miles credit cards vary in terms of how much you have to spend to earn one airline mile. With some credit cards, you have to spend nearly four francs to get one mile, while with others, you only have to spend less than one franc.

The tool below makes it easy to see how many miles you can earn using different Swiss airline miles credit cards, based on your total spending.

It is very important that you also account for the costs of credit cards, and compare them to the value of the miles you can earn. The credit cards with the highest airline miles rewards normally also have the highest annual card fees. The interactive credit card comparison on moneyland.ch makes it easy to find and compare the total costs of using Swiss airline miles credit cards.

If you could benefit from cardholder benefits like complimentary use of airport lounges, and complimentary travel insurance, then you should also consider those benefits.

Do Swiss miles credit cards have welcome offers?

Most Swiss frequent flyer credit cards have a welcome bonus which you get when you first sign up for the card. Depending on the airline miles credit card, the welcome bonus can be as low as 2000 miles or as high as 10,000 miles. Card issuers often run temporary promotions with higher welcome bonuses.

Additionally, many airline miles credit cards also have annual bonuses by which you are rewarded with extra bonus miles every year in which your credit card spending passes a certain threshold.

Do the airline miles I earn with my credit card expire?

Yes. The validity periods for miles vary between different frequent flyer programs. Both Miles & More and Flying Blue extend the life of the miles in your frequent flyer account when you use an airline miles credit card to earn miles. Detailed information about the expiry periods of miles can be found in Table 3 in the comprehensive guide to earning and spending frequent flyer miles.

More on this topic:
Compare Swiss credit cards now
Earning and spending frequent flyer miles: A complete guide
Tips for making the most of airline miles
Is getting airport lounge access with credit cards a cheap alternative?
Simple ways to save money at airports