US Airways World MasterCard

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Features

Annual fee: $49

Intro Bonus: 5,000 Bonus Miles With First Use, 5,000 Bonus Miles After $750 Spent In The First 90 Days, Up to 10,000 Bonus Miles With Balance Transfer In The First 90 Days

Miles Earned For Each Dollar Spent: One mile for every one dollar ($1.00) of Net Purchases made with the Account, and an additional one mile (for a total of two miles) will be awarded for every one dollar ($1.00) of Net Purchases of US Airways Purchase made with the Account rounded to the nearest dollar.

Foreign Transaction Fee: 3%

5,000 Mile Discount Off Each Eligible Award Ticket. For example, if twenty-five thousand (25,000) Dividend Miles are required to redeem an award ticket, then as a US Airways Dividend Miles MasterCard Cardmember who met the criteria set forth in the Terms and Conditions, the Cardmember’s Dividend miles account would only be deducted by twenty thousand (20,000) miles instead of twenty-five thousand (25,000) miles.

Annual Certificate Redeemable For One $149 Companion Ticket

Miles good for travel on: US Airways, United, Continental, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Singapore Airlines, and several

Our review: Decent if you use US Airways frequently, but there are other options

This card’s reasonabe annual fee of $49 compares to $80 or more for most airline-specific mile credit cards. It has the same earning power as most — 1 mile per dollar spent. Where it falls a touch short is in the introductory bonus, which is only 10,000 miles unless you choose to make a large balance transfer, in which case you will receive up to 10,000 more miles for 20,000 miles total.

US Airways is a decent program for earning and redeeming miles. It’s part of the Star Alliance, the largest partnership of airlines in the world. Your US Airways miles are good for redeeming travel on United, Continental, Air Canada, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, Singapore Airlines, and several more — with more available destinations than any other alliance.

Try entering your monthly spending in our Mile Credit Card Value Calculator. You’ll probably find that although this card doesn’t have the highest first year value because of its limited intro bonus, it does do reasonably well in years beyond the first because of its relatively low annual fee.

That said, you may be best off if you choose a card that lets you transfer miles into many more airline programs like the Starwood American Express. With the Starwood card you can transfer miles directly into US Airways and over 20 other airlines — with a special 25% bonus, making it among the most valuable cards in ongoing years.