The best airline credit cards

Featured cards

All 24 cards in this ranking, with what each one is actually best at. Tap any card to jump to its row.

1. 1 Bank of America Atmos Rewards Summit Visa Infinite — Best overall for an airline cardholder: 3x on dining, $395 a year — 4.2¢ back per dollar
2. 2 Aeroplan Card — 3x on groceries, $95 a year — 4.0¢ back per dollar
3. 3 Air France KLM Visa Signature — 3x on dining, $89 a year — 3.6¢ back per dollar
4. 4 Delta SkyMiles® Platinum Business American Express Card — Best for business spending: 3x on hotels, $350 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
5. 5 Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card — 3x on hotels, $350 a year — 3.5¢ back per dollar
6. 6 Frontier Airlines World Mastercard — 3x on dining, $99 a year — 3.0¢ back per dollar
7. 7 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Business (Atmos Rewards) — 2x on gas, $70 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
8. 8 Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature (Atmos Rewards Ascent) — 2x on gas, $95 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
9. 9 Hawaiian Airlines Bank of Hawaii World Elite Mastercard — 2x on gas, $99 a year — 2.8¢ back per dollar
10. 10 American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® Card — Best with no annual fee: 2x on groceries, no annual fee — 2.7¢ back per dollar
11. 11 Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard® — 2x on gas, $99 a year — 2.7¢ back per dollar
12. 12 Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® — 2x on dining, $99 a year — 2.7¢ back per dollar
13. 13 Citi® / AAdvantage® Globe™ Mastercard® — 2x on dining, $350 a year — 2.7¢ back per dollar
14. 14 JetBlue Card — 2x on dining, no annual fee — 2.6¢ back per dollar
15. 15 Aer Lingus Visa Signature Card — 2x on hotels, $95 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
16. 16 British Airways Visa Signature Card — 2x on hotels, $95 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
17. 17 Iberia Visa Signature Card — 2x on hotels, $95 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
18. 18 JetBlue Business Card — 2x on dining, $99 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
19. 19 JetBlue Plus Card — 2x on dining, $99 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
20. 20 JetBlue Premier Card — 2x on dining, $499 a year — 2.6¢ back per dollar
21. 21 United Gateway Card — 2x on gas, no annual fee — 2.5¢ back per dollar
22. 22 United Business Card — 2x on travel, $150 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
23. 23 United Explorer Card — 2x on hotels, $150 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar
24. 24 United Quest Card — 2x on travel, $350 a year — 2.5¢ back per dollar

The ranking

What these actually pay on a year of dining

A rate is a promise about one dollar. This is the same ranking run over 145 real dining charges totalling $4,789 — our sample year — scored one charge at a time by the same engine the app uses on your own statement. Caps, category rules and point values all apply; nothing is annualised or rounded up.

On this spending the gap between top and bottom is $72 a year — the effective rate, after caps and point values, runs from 2.70% to 4.20%. Your own charges are what matter, and the app scores those rather than a sample.

How we rank

One arithmetic rule, applied by code to our maintained card database. There is no editorial pick, no hand-ordering and no sponsored slot.

• Printed earn rate. Each card's strongest printed rate that pays ANYWHERE — which for an airline co-brand is usually its dining, grocery or hotel line, not its headline. The "5x on our own flights" rate every one of these cards carries only pays on that airline's own tickets, so it is printed beside the row, labelled with where it pays, and never ranked.
• Conservative point value. That rate is multiplied by our conservative mid-range value for the currency it pays, which is why a hotel card printing a large multiplier can finish below a plain cash-back card. Every point value we use, published →
• Annual fee. Printed against every card and used to break ties. The best fee-free card in this pool is American Airlines AAdvantage® MileUp® Card at 2.7¢ per dollar. We never net the fee out of the rate for you — whether it is worth paying depends on how much you spend.
• Caps and limits. Where a card's headline rate stops after a spending cap, that cap is on the card's own page and in the relevant category guide. This ranking uses the printed rate, so a heavily capped bonus should be checked against the cap before you act on it.
• Pool and cutoff. 221 open US cards are in our database; 40 of them are airline co-brand cards and qualify. The page publishes the top 24 by real value — the cutoff is #24, so 16 qualifying cards did not make it and can be found on the full card list.
• Rotating and pick-your-own categories. Kept out of the headline ranking, because they only pay in the right quarter or with the right election. Issuer-travel-portal-only rates are excluded for the same reason: they pay only if you book through the portal.
• Commission. The ranking code has no access to which cards pay us a commission — the ordering function never reads the affiliate file. Any apply link is attached after the order is already fixed, so it cannot move a card up or down. How that works.

Full methodology, including how each point value is set: how we value points and rank cards →

The honest caveat

Miles are worth what you redeem them for, and we value them conservatively rather than at the best seat anyone ever booked. If you fly one airline enough to care about a free checked bag, priority boarding or elite-qualifying credit, those perks can be worth more to you than the whole rate difference on this page — and none of them are in this ranking.

Common questions

More guides

Every guide on this site is built by the same code from the same card database, so the numbers on one page mean exactly what they mean on another. Jump sideways:

All 70 best-card guides → · Best card for a specific store or bill →