These 5 Airline Cards Can Earn You 300K+ Miles

Update: These offers for the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard®, the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express and the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express have expired. Learn more about the current offers here.

For those who are new to miles & points, the best way to quickly increase your balance of miles is to apply for credit cards when they have increased sign-up bonuses. Many of these credit cards are worth holding onto long term for the perks they offer, and on top of that, many cards offer the annual fee waived for the first year, which really lets you a try a card before you have to “buy” it.

However, I know many people are confused about which cards to apply for, how many cards you can apply for over what period, etc. So I wanted to outline some of the best airline credit cards at the moment. Because these five cards are offered by three different issuers, you can potentially apply for all five cards within a few days, and earn 300,000+ miles upon completing minimum spend. Best of all, only one of these cards has an annual fee for the first year, while the rest have waived annual fees for that period.

Five airline credit cards that offer you 60K+ miles

At the moment the following airline credit cards are offering 60,000 plus miles after completing minimum spend:

• The Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® is offering 60,000 AAdvantage miles after making $3,000 of purchases within the first three months; the $99 annual fee is waived for the first 12 months
• The CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard® is offering 70,000 AAdvantage miles after making $4,000 of purchases within the first four months; the $99 annual fee is waived for the first 12 months
• The AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard is offering 60,000 AAdvantage miles after the first purchase; $95 annual fee applies
• The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express is offering 50,000 SkyMiles after spending $2,000 within three months, plus 10,000 additional SkyMiles after spending an additional $1,000 within the first six months, plus a $50 statement credit after making a Delta purchase within the first three months; the $95 annual fee is waived for the first 12 months
• The Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express is offering 50,000 SkyMiles after spending $2,000 within three months, plus 10,000 additional SkyMiles after spending an additional $1,000 within the first six months, plus a $50 statement credit after making a Delta purchase within the first three months; the $95 annual fee is waived for the first 12 months

60,000 AAdvantage miles is enough for a one-way ticket to Europe in Iberia business class

If you completed the minimum spend on all five cards and paid the $95 annual fee on the Aviator Red Card, you’d earn 300,000+ miles, which is huge.

Can you really get all of these cards at once?

Not quite, but almost. For example, you could apply for all three personal cards on the same day, since the Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite™ Mastercard® is issued by Citi, the AAdvantage Aviator Red World Elite Mastercard is issued by Barclaycard, and the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card is issued by American Express. That’s an easy 180,000 miles.

As far as the two business cards go:

• You could apply for the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express the same day, though there’s a chance that approval of the application will be delayed by a few days, as Amex often doesn’t approve people for multiple cards on the same day, though there’s no problem applying same day
• You could apply for the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard® nine days after applying for the personal version of the card; that’s because Citi will typically approve you for no more than one card every eight days, and two cards every 65 days

60,000 AAdvantage miles is enough for a one-way ticket to Japan in JAL business class

Bottom line

These are some fantastic bonuses for cards that mostly have the annual fee waived for the first 12 months. Not only do these cards have among the best sign-up bonuses we’ve seen, though they also offer some great ongoing perks if you’re a frequent flyer with any of these airlines. With most programs, 300K+ miles should be more than enough for two longhaul international business class tickets, which often retail for $5,000+ each.