The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and the Capital One Venture Credit Card both have made a few waves in the ocean of rewards credit cards recently. Both earn flexible points, have comparable annual fees and charge no foreign transaction fees.

However, are these two cards really that similar? Let’s go over their differences and similarities to help you decide which choice suits your needs best.

Chase Sapphire Preferred® CardCapital One Venture Credit Card5X points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠3X Ultimate Rewards points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs).

Colombian air carrier Avianca might not be on your radar, but its loyalty program, LifeMiles, should be. It’s got pretty solid award redemption rates (when you can find ’em) and no fuel surcharges on partner bookings.

The program is a transfer partner of several flexible reward programs, which means your account can be topped off at any time.

LifeMiles uses a region-based award chart, yet still offers opportunities to book awards at promotional rates.

Avianca Partners

Avianca is a Star Alliance member, the largest airline alliance in the world.

It’s no lie that there’s some great ways to redeem American Airlines AAdvantage miles.

When it comes to earning points and miles, having a foundational understanding of credit is imperative. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t actively keep up with their credit.

Most people don’t even understand how credit works. There’s a reason why the number one question I get when explaining points and miles to people is “doesn’t that hurt your credit?” Even people who I would consider financially savvy tend to ask me this question, and it is simply because people don’t understand how credit works.

If you’re new to credit, let me start off with some calming words.

The purpose of this post is not to tell you whether or not you should be traveling. Rather, I’d like to share my experience and my impressions of what it’s like to travel right now. I’ll share my experience with booking flights, what it’s like to fly and stay at hotels during the pandemic and my overall impressions of the precautions taken by hotels, airlines and tourist attractions.

Planning the Trip and Finding Award Space

At the beginning of September, my friends and I felt safe enough to travel abroad and decided to take a trip to Turkey.

There are a few fundamental rules to the success of anyone involved in points and miles. If there’s one that is more important than any other, it is the Chase 5/24 rule.

The Chase 5/24 rule is so fundamental that you’ll almost always hear someone mention it when discussing sign up strategies. “What’s your 5/24 status?” is almost always the first question asked when someone asks for credit card recommendations.

If you haven’t heard of the 5/24 rule yet, you may be wondering what the big deal is.

If we were to start handing out awards here at MileValue, we can officially declare Chase the winner of some of the most exciting updates in the credit card marketplace for September 2020. Between updating the welcome bonus on the Chase Sapphire Preferred, and improving the Chase Freedom Unlimited® and the introduction of the Chase Freedom Flex®, Chase has been all over the news in the points and miles world as of late.

And guess what: they’re back in the news again.

The infamous 2020 is soon coming to an end (and, if you ask me, its about time!). Although we still aren’t clear what travel is going to look like for 2021 and beyond, now is the time to at least start thinking about what you would like your travel goals to look like.

If you’re like many travelers, you may not be focused on much international travel.

In this three-part series, we are looking at the basics of the cheapest domestic awards. This encompasses frequent flyer programs spanning all three alliances:

Oneworld – British Airways, Iberia, and American Airlines

Star Alliance – Avianca, Turkish Airlines, and United

SkyTeam – Air France/KLM and Delta (this post)

SkyTeam is one of the smaller airline alliances but that doesn't mean there aren't good options to book domestic awards.

In this article, we'll look at how we can use Air France/KLM Flying Blue and Korean Air SKYPASS programs to book domestic award flights on SkyTeam's U.S.

If there’s one major airline program I love having miles with it's the American Airlines AAdvantage program. Knowing the ins-and-outs of the American Airlines AAdvantage program can help you get some outsized value from your miles. 

One of the best ways to do so is by redeeming them with American’s partner airlines. Don’t let this stop you from looking at American Airlines own flights, but you’ll typically find more value with its partner airlines. 

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the best ways to redeem American Airlines AAdvantage Miles.