Let’s be completely honest.  Most frequent flier rewards programs are 90% nonsense and 10% value.  The conversion rates to cash (or cash equivalents) can be miserable.  Some programs require you to book your travel with card company-approved agents who do not get you the best prices.  The process involved in using your miles can be more difficult than trying to fly a plane at night without instruments.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone built a decent credit card that had a workable, fair and comprehensible frequent flier plan?  Guess what.  They did.  It’s called the Miles by Discover® Card.

The Miles by Discover® Card addresses all of those concerns and does it on top of a core set of card terms that are good enough to stand on their own merit.

With this card, you earn one mile for every dollar you put on the card.  You get two miles per dollar when the purchases are used for travel.  You can earn double miles by shopping online with any one of several Discover partner companies.  If you spend make purchases totaling $3,000 or more per year, all of your miles are automatically doubled.

That sounds good, right?  Nothing confusing there.  Now, the question is how you can actually use the miles.  Again, Miles by Discover® Card really stands out.

You can start redeeming miles as soon as you hit the 1,000 mark, if you would like.  You can use your miles as travel credits, gift cards or cash.  When you hit the 5,000 mile mark, for instance, you can choose to receive $50 in travel credit or you receive $25 in account credit.  You can do that every time you accumulate 5,000 miles.  You can also use those miles to pick up gift cards from those previously mentioned members of the Discover Partners Network.

As you can see, it is a pretty generous and a very “clean” set up.  The Miles by Discover® Card makes the frequent flier game easy.  It is even easy to book your travel.  Instead of forcing you to use their agents, you can use any travel agent you would like–and that includes online agents.  You can do your own bookings and still use you miles without dealing with all of the crazy restrictions commonly encountered with other programs.

The Miles by Discover® Card frequent flier program is rock-solid and so is the card itself.  There is no annual fee, the APR can be as low as 11.9% and they provide six months at 0% APR for purchases balance transfers.  It is a good card.  This is not one of those situations where you are stuck with a rotten card in order to qualify for a good reward program.  In this case, both elements are strong.

As with most Discover offerings, cardholders also receive generous travel insurance and auto rental insurance along with very strong fraud protections.

If you are ready to stop messing around with lousy frequent flier reward programs and rewards cards that really do not measure up on their own terms, you need to look at Miles by Discover® Card.  It is obvious that the folks at Discover put in the time, thought and effort necessary to create a card that will really appeal to those with an interest in frequent flier benefits.