Quick highlights
- Rewards rate: 5X miles on Frontier purchases, 3X miles at restaurants and 1X miles on everything else.
- Limited-time welcome offer: Get 50,000 miles after you spend $1,000 on purchases within 90 days
- Annual fee: $0 intro annual fee, $89 after intro period
- Purchase intro APR: None
- Balance transfer intro APR: 0 percent for 15 billing cycles
- Regular APR: 18.24 percent, 22.24 percent or 27.24 percent variable
Current welcome offer
The Frontier Airlines card is currently offering 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $1,000 on purchases within 90 days of opening your account. Since Frontier award flights start at 10,000 miles, this welcome offer could get you one or even two round-trip flights.
This is a nice offer for a budget airline, in the similar neighborhood as the sign-up bonuses found with the best Southwest Airlines credit cards and the JetBlue Plus card.
Rewards rate
The Frontier Airlines card allows you to earn Frontier miles on Frontier flights, dining and everyday spending. Frontier also has partnerships with car rental agencies, hotels, and even cruise lines, which will give you plenty of new opportunities to rack up additional bonus miles.
However, you’ll have to make a purchase with your card at least once every six months to keep your miles from expiring. Most other airline cards earn points that never expire. For example, with the Southwest lineup of cards and the JetBlue Plus Card, your points won’t expire as long as your account remains open and in good standing.
Earning rewards
As a cardholder, you’ll earn 5X miles on Frontier purchases, 3X miles on dining and 1X miles on everything else. That’s an impressive rate compared to many other cards offered by low-cost airlines. Most competing cards only earn 2X or 3X miles on flights.
For example, the Southwest Rapid Rewards® Premier Credit Card has more bonus rewards categories but only offers 3X points on Southwest purchases and 2X points in a variety of other bonus categories like local transit and commuting (including ride shares), internet, cable, and phone services (plus select streaming)
On top of this, you can also earn bonus miles when you use your card at select brands that have partnered with Frontier Airlines. These partnerships could also come with discounts. For example, when you use your Frontier card to rent a car through Budget Rent a Car, you can earn up to 1,000 bonus miles and get up to 30 percent off the cost of the rental car.
With the Frontier Airlines card, your purchases also get you closer to earning elite status. For every dollar you spend, you’ll get 1 Qualifying Mile. The first tier of elite status starts at just 20,000 qualifying miles and offers benefits like seat choice and family pooling, which allows you to combine miles with friends and family to make redemption easier.
Redeeming rewards
Your Frontier Miles can be redeemed for award tickets, starting at 10,000 miles for a one-way domestic flight when traveling in the U.S. or Puerto Rico. You can also redeem for magazines, but it would take anywhere from 500 to 3,600 miles to get a magazine subscription, which won’t give you the best value for your miles.
Frontier Airlines doesn’t have any partner airlines you can transfer your miles to, which limits your redemption options. The best travel credit cards let you transfer your points or miles to other airlines, where your rewards may be worth more. The Frontier Airlines card does let you transfer your points to select hotel loyalty programs, but your points transfer at a very unfavorable ratio, as listed here:
- Marriott Bonvoy: 3:1 ratio
- Radisson Rewards: 10:1 ratio
- Wyndham Rewards: 5:1 ratio
As you can see, you’ll need to trade 3 to 10 Frontier Miles for a single point with one of these hotel loyalty programs. That’s a major dilution of your rewards value.
Instead, a better choice may be a general-purpose travel card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Its $95 annual fee and bonus categories are comparable to the Frontier Airlines card’s, but your points are more flexible and have a higher potential value. You can redeem for travel through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal at a value of 1.25 cents apiece or transfer points to over a dozen airline and hotel partners, including budget airlines like Southwest and JetBlue.