Not many people have heard of the term airline credit cards, but most people have heard of the term frequent flyer miles that you can earn by using a credit card. Basically how the frequent flyer miles work is that you are given a certain amount of frequent flyer miles in compliance with how much money you have spent on your credit card. Basically you are given a reward for spending money on your credit card, but these frequent flyer miles are not the same thing as an airline credit card, even though they work in similar ways.

An airline credit card is a reward based credit card that is sponsored by a certain airline. You can use the credit card anyway that you want, for any kind of purchases, but as a reward you get to earn airline miles for a specific airline. And because the airline miles you are getting are designed for a specific airline you are going to be limited to what airline you can fly, but the good thing about that is that the miles you earn with your airline credit card usually offsets the cost of having to fly on a specific airline.

Here are some of the advantages of using an airline credit card.

Number one:
If you have to travel at the last minute many times your airline ticket is going to cost you a lot of money. But if you have an airline credit card that you have used to earn a free airline ticket this could save you a lot of money because you can use the free ticket you have earned rather than spending money on a last minute airline ticket, but make sure that the airline credit card does not require you to make an advance reservation to use your free tickets.

Number two:
Airline credit cards also usually offer some type of incentive for you to become an airline credit card holder. In fact more often than not they will offer you several thousand bonus miles just for becoming a cardholder. For example Northwest Visa offers you 10,000 air miles, American Airlines Citibank MasterCard offers you 7,500 air miles for opening a platinum card and 10,000 air miles for opening a gold account.

Number three:
Many airline credit cards are also offering reduced mileage rewards. What this means is that if you don't have enough miles saved up to earn a free round trip ticket, which with most airline credit cards it is usually 25,000 miles to get a free round trip ticket, then you have the option of getting discounts off the round trip ticket price for fewer miles. A great example of this would be for 10,000 miles you can get a $100 savings voucher that can be applied to any future ticket purchase.

Number four:
Many times the air miles that you have earned on your airline credit card can be used towards other aspects of travel, which is nice especially if the many restrictions the airline places on their flights are not working out for you. But many airline credit cards will allow you to use your miles towards rental cards or even hotel stays, not to mention the fact that they will also allow you to earn miles when you use your airline credit card to pay for these other aspects of travel. But even if you can't use your miles towards the purchase of rental cars or hotel stays many of the airline credit cards will offer you discounted rates at certain hotels and rental car companies. So in this case it is a win-win situation for most people who travel more often than not.

Number five:
Perhaps the best thing about airline credit cards is that you get to travel for free. The way that you get to travel for free is going to depend on the credit card that you choose but most airline credit cards allow you to earn miles for simply spending money on your airline credit card. And after you earn a certain amount of airline miles you can cash those mile sin for a free round trip airline ticket. But one thing that you want to know is that the miles you earn don't mean the miles it takes to get from here to there, so when choosing an airline credit card you want to look into how the air miles are going to work. For example one airline credit card allows you to earn 1 mile for every dollar that you spend on your credit card. And also keep in mind that finance charges are not considered to be money that you have spent for the purpose of earning air miles.

Here are some disadvantages of using airline credit cards.

Number one:
With how many financial problems that majority of the airlines are facing there is a huge chance that these airline reward programs are going to be scaled back and the worst part is that the card issuers can actually scale back the program with only 15 days written notice. If the programs are scaled back some things that you might see are increased mileage redemption requirements, meaning you are going to have to spend even more to earn your bonus miles or you can even see the elimination of the bonus miles. But the worst thing that could happen is that the programs are cancelled entirely.

Number two:
With airline credit card reward programs you often face numerous restrictions when using your bonus miles. Some of the restrictions that you can face are seat restrictions, airline miles expiring, blackout dates, etc. Also if you are using an actual airline card rather than a reward card that is used to earn airline miles you are going to be limited to what airline you can fly, which in some cases can restrict where you are flying too. So if you are going to want to travel with the free miles that you have earned with your airline credit card you are going to need to be very flexible when you travel just so you can use those free miles.

Number three:
Many of the airline credit cards come with annual fees and most of the time those annual fees are actually higher than other credit cards annual fees. In fact the airline credit cards that are sponsored by a certain airline have a higher annual fee than just your regular rewards cards. For example the Delta Gold Card has an annual fee of $85.

Number four:
If you have the high fees that are usually associated with airline credit cards this can actually wipe out any of the benefits you will receive with the card, especially if you don't charge a lot on your credit card. For example one airline credit card requires you to earn 25,000 miles to get a free round trip ticket for domestic flights and if you only charge about $8,500 a year on your card it is going to take you at least three years to earn enough miles to get a free round trip ticket. In those three years of earning the free ticket you are going to end up paying about $250 in annual fees, which that $250 could have bought you a round trip ticket on a discounted airline. So in this case it is a no win situation, your fees cancelled out the benefit you would have received for a free airline ticket. And this doesn't even cover international flights which most of the time requires 60,000 miles just for a coach ticket.

Number five:
If you are using an airline credit card and do not travel on a regular basis then you will probably not earn enough miles to travel to some great getaway for a much needed vacation. The reason for this is that with most airline credit cards it actually takes a lot of traveling to earn enough bonus miles to get you free air travel. With most airline credit cards the only way you can earn free air miles is by booking and paying for your ticket with your airline credit card, but some allow you to earn air miles by making regular purchases.

Number six:
Many airlines will also restrict where you can actually go with your airline miles, meaning you can't just book a flight to anywhere. So when choosing an airline credit card you should check into where you are going to be allowed to fly, especially if you are interested in going to certain places.

Number seven:
Most airline credit cards also have higher interest rates than your standard credit cards. So if you are going to be using airline credit cards for normal purchases so that you can earn air miles for free travel you are going to want to make sure that you pay your balance off in full each month so that you don't get stuck paying those high interest rates, which can cost you more than a regular airline ticket.