Which airline has the best rewards program for domestic travelers?

Location matters here, for a primarily a solo traveler with BHM as main airport, answer is Southwest, even with the recent changes, especially if he is willing to get a SW co-branded card.

SW has 10 directs out of BHM, American is next with 6.

https://nonstop.flybirmingham.com

Southwest has the best rewards program, but at this point, thats about the only thing going for them.

All others are going to be pretty equal.

Good question if an airline branded card is worth it. Considering he will be in school and I imagine time/ease of travel will be super important, having more flight options, especially direct flights is probably the biggest factor.

I would try to stick with 1 carrier for most of the trips, probably SW, but if there is an interview in NYC he should 100% book the direct to LGA instead of connecting on SW or another airline.

If he's based in BHM, I'd go with Delta. Not the best rewards program by any stretch but if he gets an AmEx Plat or Delta Reserve he can access the Sky Club and he's one stop from anywhere in the world via Atlanta.

Get a rewards account for all the airlines and choose the best flights at first. Once he knows where he is going to be for a few years he could focus on the best particular airline. For example I fly to the west coast from New Orleans often. The United morning flight to Denver can get me anywhere I need to be by the end of the day and they have a direct to SFO every night. Delta has a morning flight to LAX and evening flight to SLC which isn't as useful to me so I mostly fly United but will switch it up if the time/money savings is significant.

I have been upgraded a few time as silver status. Usually a half full flight to Houston. I graduated college in 2015 so not familiar with the good old days of frequent flying but I guess it's all relative. I used to fly places with my grandmother probably 2003-09 and she would bitch about them letting all the "low class people in their pajamas" fly.

quote:

---

Flights on AA out of Houston always price lower than United flights out of IAH, for example. He's going to have to connect somewhere anyway, no reason it needs to be ATL.

---

The best thing in the world is departing on a non-hub airline out of a fortress hub. I love flying Delta out of Bush. A is quiet and you don’t have to deal with the United mess. Delta flies to 7 hubs from Bush and I don’t mind having to make one connection. That works for any direction you need to go.

I'd echo WhoGeaux's sentiment. AA best to get value using credit cards especially since one of them takes 0 spend. SW credit card doesn't have any more value than a Chase, Cap One etc since you can use their points just as easily and more flexibly, as the points rate is tied to the cash rate, unless he's checking a bag which he won't for a 48h trip. He probably knows some of his most likely interview locations already and can base around that for his initial card while figuring the rest out.

(no message)