Ready to pay for Christmas by signing up for a credit card?

For those that see little value in the power of airline miles, there is hope for those that recently opened the current 50,000 mile Southwest credit card, or even if you have some miscellaneous miles sitting stagnant in your account.

There has been lots of talk around the internet about the Southwest credit card, which has an excellent sign-up bonus of 50,000 miles with a small annual fee of $69. If you use your miles correctly, the 50,000 miles could have over $800 in value if you use them for the Wanna Get Away Fares, especially with the especially low fares going on this week.

We are seriously debating about opening the current Southwest card to stock our accounts for future use. It is too bad Southwest or it’s partners do not fly between the Hawaiian Islands, because I would not even be second guessing signing up if that were the case.

Personally, we will keep our miles for travel, but everyone has their own ideas on mileage redemption. One clearly gets a better value when redeeming for travel (1 point = $.0167 with Wanna Get Away fares) versus gift cards (at 20% off, 1 point = $.0125). Our family travel needs would try and string out as much value out of redemption as possible, so 50,000 for each of my wife and I would gain us a lot of future travel with Southwest.

Upon signing into my Rapid Rewards account today, I noticed that their gift card redemptions are currently 20% off. Currently your 50,000 miles from the credit card promotion could earn you:

– $600 in Alamo, Avis, Budget or Hertz $50 gift cards
– $600 towards Best Western, Fairmont, Marriott or Ritz Carlton Hotels ($100 ea gift cards)
– $600 in Carnival or Royal Caribbean Cruise vouchers
– $600 in Sandals Resorts gift cards
– A Family of four (4) admission to Busch Garden Tampa or Sea World Orlando (with plenty of miles left over for various restaurant gift cards)
– Four tickets to Universal Studios Orlando
– $600 in Home Depot or Lowes gift cards
and tons of other gift card options.

Here is the key though. You need to be a Southwest credit card holder in order to redeem.

To see the current gift card availability, go to southwest.com/morerewards

After signing into your account, go to the Explore Rewards page and then Gift Cards.

You will see all the gift cards are currently discounted 20%.

I went to post this in several forums, and several people had already done so. The key thing I have noticed though that I have not been able to locate on the Southwest site, is the deal appears to only be valid until December 15, 2011. This is excellent news because it allows enough time for your credit card bonus to post to your account, and could help pay for all your gift card Christmas gifts…but everyone puts a lot more thought into gifts for people than gift cards, right?