"The average credit card user has to wait a long time to redeem a reward," she said in reference to cash rewards and airline miles cards.
Here's a true story of what can happen: Paul applied for a travel reward-miles card, but never received any response from the credit-card company.
Now here is the trick - use a frequent flyer mile card to pay off the first list, and then never use that card for any other bills.
You'll do better by using cards with lower interest rates than frequent-flier mile cards, which generally have pretty high rates.
You could score a free flight by signing up for an airline miles rewards card.
Well, there's a clever new solution that makes it possible to take a currency most of us already have -- airline miles, club card reward points, and other similar "loyalty" currency -- and turn it into donations for the charity of our choice.
And even as United, Delta, and other airlines make it harder to bank miles, credit cards still have lucrative earning structures (sign-up bonuses, double-points offers, etc).
