You’re going to be reading about this one on many of the BoardingArea blogs.
BoardingArea and the American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card are sponsoring a giveaway — a trip for two to Australia’s Gold Coast including air and seven nights hotel (all mileage-earning), meals even, and cash and gift cards as a kick-in to cover taxes on a trip that’s otherwise valued at over $10,000.
Each of 20 participating BoardingArea blogs will be able to select one reader for the final drawing. By reading several of the blogs you have more chances to win and by being selected on one of the blogs you have about a 1 in 20 chance of winning the grand prize.
The contest is only open to those 18 years of age and older and to US residents only, not to our friendly Canadians or to residents of U.S. Territories.
Here’s how you enter. Leave a comment to this post answering the question:
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
I will select at random a tip from among those that meets, in my sole discretion, a minimum standard of usefulness.
In other words, your tip doesn’t have to be the single greatest one ever. It just has to be useful or thoughtful to some. I don’t want blank entries here, or “I’m in!” as a comment, that won’t get you an entry. But anyone with a reasonable tip about something they’ve found useful in earning or burning points gets you an entry.
And I don’t want to get into the game of selecting what’s the best, the winner from my blog will be selected at random (via random.org).
That winner will be selected based on comments received by noon eastern time on March 28. They’ll be forwarded to BoardingArea as one of ~ 20 finalists who will go on to be selected to win the trip!
More details on the contest can be found at contest page, along with a full list of the twenty or so participating blogs where you can leave similar tips and gain additional entries into the giveaway!
Questions? Shoot those over to me by email rather than in the comments to this post, the comments here are tips about earning and burning points in order to enter to win a truly amazing trip!
I read boarding area blogs, they help tip me off to promotions…
Don’t use miles on low cost trips and don’t be afraid to burn lots of miles for a biz class ticket if you have them. There’s no sense in hoarding. Use ’em and enjoy.
Credit every flight and every hotel stay. If possible, every dollar spent should earn points.
Earn the miles/points in the cheapest possible ways and then burn them for the most luxurious travel!
I frequently advise my friends and family on redeeming their airline miles, and my most commonly offered tip is to not forget about all the partners on which they can also redeem their miles. My father has lots of United miles, and in the past used to look up availability to visit family in the Middle East on United’s website, and stop there when he couldn’t find what he was looking for. But by now I’ve trained him to think about options on Continental, Lufthansa, Austrian, BMI, etc.
this is pretty pedestrian, but so very important…
READ THE PROGRAM RULES AND BENEFITS! Seriously!
Know the program(s) that you’ve joined. Know who all the partners are, and how they credit mileage.
Better yet, do some research into the loyalty programs *before* you join, so you aren’t duplicating effort, and spreading around miles that could otherwise be accumulating in one place.
Take advantage of promotions (many are mentioned in boardingarea.com blogs) and then use the miles before they’re devalued.
“What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?”
Mine is flexibility. Like other similar programs, you do yourself the ultimate disservice if you’re not flexible. Given the different ways you can put loyalty points to work, it’s easy to forget that you can get a lot more bang for your point if you are willing to be flexible what you apply them to. Mix it up, keep it open and take advantage of the added benefits you’ll inevitably realize.
Fly within one global airline alliance and credit all of your miles to one FF account. That way, your miles aren’t spread around to different accounts, making it hard to ever accumulate enough to redeem them for anything.
Define your goal – where do you want to go? what do you want to do? …and work towards getting points for it.
P.S – make it a SMART goal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria)
Cheers!
Life is short, use those miles!
try to concentrate your travel, hotel and credit card usage to programs that can be tranfered between, that way if you need to boost point in one for a particular aware it is easier to do.
Some alliances have more and better options to certain parts of the world, so make sure you’re happy with where your points are being credited. (Star Alliance: Asia and Europe. oneworld: Australia and South America)
Ensure you keep your account active and know when your miles expire. Even good programs like Aeroplan have stingy expiration policies (in Aeroplan’s case, one year of inactivity).
Be sure to pay for any and all purchases with a mileage/points earning credit card. No purchase is too small and that pack of gum puts you 2 points closer to paradise.
If you have miles that are about to expire, it’s usually super easy to extend the miles by buying something small (preferably something you would probably buy anyway) through the airline’s online mall.
Two tips for the price of one entry! I know this doesn’t increase chances of winning, but I surely hope it doesn’t break the rules 🙂
1. If you think you might lose elite status the following year due to changes in travel patterns, focus more on paid (point/mile-earning) flights and stays while you still have status. Two reasons this helps: (A) you take advantage of the elite benefit of bonus earning (10%, 25%, 50%, 100%, etc) that should more than compensation for the risk of devaluation in the coming year, and (B) you will continue to take advantage of upgrades associated with your status in the paid flights/stays. This means avoiding redemption of miles, points, and “free” vouchers (e.g. VDB) that do not earn miles — use these for your family and friends instead, or maybe offer a tit-for-tat exchange (you’ll pay for someone else’s trip using points, and they’ll pay for your similar or less expensive trip using money).
2. Don’t overestimate the value of your miles/points or be overzealous of spending money just to collect rewards, since this is counterproductive to your more important personal finance goals (that will fund more travel!). For example, if you would never pay $20,000 for an international first class flight, don’t benchmark your miles based on that cost! If you do the math, you might find that cashback cards will be more beneficial to your pocketbook than mile or point-earning cards. For example, the Schwab InvestFirst Visa gives 2% cash back on all purchases; would you rather have 2 cents in your pocket for every $1 you spend, or one mile/point? If you always redeem for domestic flights for 25k miles, are those limited-availability flights worth $500 to you?
Resist saying that “I’m only going to fly this airline once so there’s no reason to sign up for its mileage program”. I probably missed out on a couple of free flights by failing to anticipate the diversity of airlines I would wind up using over a few years. Join the frequent flyer program for every airline you fly and manage them at AwardWallet.com to save a lot of hassle.
In the beginning, stick with one airline and one alliance so one can achieve status faster and have less orphan miles.
Earn locally, burn globally. It’s surprising how many people don’t know about partner awards.
Earn locally, burn locally. It’s surprising that people would earn hotel points and spend them on partner awards
Be flexible with your plans, and sometimes consider traveling somewhere near your intended destination
Earn something for everything you do. It doesn’t hurt to earn outside your regular loyalty programs and alliances, especially when there are opportunities to trade through sites like points.com.
Chose one airline programs and get their credit card which will earn miles. Charge everything you can to the card and pay off at the end of the month. My favorite is AA.
To earn miles/points, concentrate on one main airline/hotel and try to maximize point/mile earning by registering for promotions. To use the points/miles, plan ahead, be flexible, maximize redemption promotions (pointsavers, etc), and check points/cash combos.
For earning, your time is better spent earning big chunks of points. Charge your phone bill, utility bill, car payments, and other big bills regularly. If you can swing it, even pay for college classes with a card (and pay it off completely and immediately).
For burning, stick with the go big opportunity. If you have family on the opposite coast, you probably already have those travel costs baked into your budget, so don’t use rewards for them. Instead, treat yourself to international travel, business/first class, or a ticket for a friend/family.
If something is broke, it ain’t going to fix itself! Reporting problem seats on planes, for example, can result in generous travel credits or miles!
I’ve always tried to work out deals with friends where I’ll pay for their travel via awards, and then they give me the money for what they would’ve paid (within reason). That way, you can essentially convert your miles into cash (at a rate acceptable to you), and you don’t lose out of miles that you could’ve earned by paying for trips that you would’ve spent miles on.
“What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?”
Read View From the Wing every day and read Flyertalk!
Top tip for folks who aren’t already frequent flier experts: Pick one airline and one hotel program, and try to get as many as possible of your flights on that airline (or partners) and stays in that hotel chain.
Top tip for folks who are already frequent flier experts: DO NOT insist on always getting miles or points. There are sometimes when it’s a much better deal not to get the miles/points, but to get a lower rate instead. For example, if you can save a bunch of money by getting a hotel room at a rate that doesn’t earn points, that can be a better deal than getting the points.
Be very flexible
Casual travelers – who at most travel maybe half a dozen times a year domestically – and perhaps earn points on credit card spend without going nuts – should burn the miles as soon as they have enough to redeem for something of value. Low mile earners who save up for years for that once in a lifetime trip are setting themselves up for disappointment. As soon as that high milestone nears, the airline will up the requirements. Better to earn and burn quickly – this goes for high mileage earners as well really.
Use your Amex to earn points (especially the places that give double points) and then use them for the longest flight posible. A transcontinental flight is the same as a flight to the next state.
Don’t hoard points, use them up and have fun!
Focus spend on SPG credit card
Plan ahead, way ahead, if you have certain dates in mind!
Hire Gary to book your award ticket!
Be consistent and focused. One or two but no more than three airline programs at the same time. My favorite is AA.
For hotel pograms, I focused on IHG and *Wood.
Points = Money
Earn’em, Track’em, most importantly Spend’em!
read top blogs daily, like view from the wing, the frugal travel guy–then adopt their tips and use awardwallet to manage your various ff programs.
Plan in advance to maximize award redemptions. For example, even though AA essentially eliminated stopovers, they still allow stopovers in North American gateway cities for international departures. So, although my base airport is a gateway city, I’ve tacked on what is essentially a one-way from another trip as the “stopover.”
Don’t spend miles on domestic coach unless it is a last minute emergency trip.
Look for weekly mileage specials such as those posted on continental.com. I’ve booked an international flight r/t for as little as 15,000 miles!
Always sign up for loyalty programs, even if you don’t think you’re going to fly with the airline/alliance a lot. They’ll collect over time, and you never know when your situation might change (along with your primary carrier).
As Delta redemption value and availability is so bad for non elite fliers, I open a Hawaiian airlines account for members of the family that don’t fly a lot. They can earn Hawaiian miles for any Delta flight. (And most Continental & Virgin Atlantic too) I have a Hawaiian airlines classic credit card which allows me to pool miles so that they don’t expire.
Focus on a single airline alliance and hotel chain as much as possible, having 50,000 miles in one program is infinitely better than having 10,000 in 5 different programs. It sounds basic (they’re loyalty programs after all) but the first decision as to which program to focus on is the most important.
Go ahead and collect the scrap miles/points for the others too, but donate them to charity or order magazines or other cheap redemptions.
When booking award travel, be flexible and be EARLY!
The magic number is 330. Most airlines load new inventory into their reservations system 330 days prior to the flight date. If there are any award seats on the flight you want, they will be available right after that flight is loaded into the system.
Of course, popular travel days (i.e. holidays, spring break, etc.) and popular travel routes/destinations may cause these seats to disappear nearly immediately after release, but be patient, plan well in advance, and mark (and double-check) your calendar for the correct day to start your search.
Happy travels!
Sign up for special promotions (i.e. Continental’s Twice as Fast promotion) that will get you double miles on all trips taken during a specific period. It’s also useful when you need to meet elite mileage requirements.
As with any worthwhile endeavor, you need to spent the time and energy to collect and spend miles successfully.
Join Flyertalk.com
Get a good bluetooth earpiece/headset before you call your airline-of-choice to redeem miles. You’re going to be on the phone a while, so get comfortable!
Sometimes a bad FFP in general can turn out to be a good one to you. For instance, if you fly about 4-5 long haul flights from Europe to Asia, primarily with VS but occasionally(or possibly none) with any *A airliners in Economy, the best FFP turns out to be SQ. You get your gold card recognised by both *A and VS, full mileage credit for any VS economy fare, tier bonus destination miles for all VS and SQ flights and redemption opportunity for business product on A380 & 772ER. But if you credit your miles into VS, you might only end up with VS Silver. Thus, although SQ FFP is one of the most stingy programme, in this case it turns out to be the best option for people with such travel needs.
(I’m guessing others are saying this, but …) Instead of having miles and points in multiple programs, try to limit yourself to a primary air carrier and hotel program. This way, you can reach elite status in either one or both, instead of middling around at a basic level.
1)never use cash
2)go against the conventional wisdom of participating in only one FF program–join those in which you anticipate mergers(much like stock investing), get the credit cards when there are a minimum of 25,000 bonus miles for sign-up, and hold those like a long term investment, using them on the occasions that your primary carrier is not attractive.
3) churn wherever possible
When redeeming your miles it is always better to avoid school holidays and to travel off season to get the best value for your miles with airlines and hotels.
When you are ready to use miles for that vacation you’ve always wanted – select the flights you want first, and then call. I’ve found that the websites might not allow you to select valid flights with availability. I’ve been on several first class trips that showed no availability on the airline’s website, but was able to book over the phone.
Use orphan miles towards high value subscriptions such as The Economist, The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times either as gifts or for oneself. Some local dailies such as the Los Angeles Times and The San Francisco Chronicle offer Sunday- or weekend-only redemption options in additional to 7-day delivery. Miles from different programs may be stacked to extend the term of the subscription.
Be loyal and loyalty will reward you. Use a card for your top airline or hotel, and always fly the same airline (or alliance) and stay at the same hotel.
You can save a bundle on flights within Asia by using points. The number of points needed is often quite low, while flights between some countries in Asia is not necessarily cheap (i.e. to/from Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, etc.) To put it in perspective, you might get a $600+ fare for less points than a US domestic flight reward!
Choose a program and stick to it. Try to choose the program that has lot of flight out of your hometown airport.
Don’t get married to any program. Read these blogs, read FlyerTalk and read all the ones I haven’t even heard about yet. I’m a confirmed Starwood and Starwood AMEX guy who is now charging on the British Airways Visa to get my two free First Class tkts to Israel and who is also waiting for the Hyatt Visa to come out. Then I’ll look into the Asiana AMEX. Well, you get the idea! Nothing is the best forever and it is important to be like the rest of us junkies and stay on top of things.
Don’t forget to not only play the credit card churn game, but also to seek retention bonuses by actively threatening to cancel your credit cards.
Take advantage of specials on purchasing either miles directly from the airline or purchasing items through the airline’s shopping mall. Paired with the right promotion, you can rack up hundreds of thousands of miles for under $1,000 in some cases, which can be used to redeem for an award valued at $10,000 or more.
Do the math when choosing between a fare that earns no EQM’s or RDM’s and a slightly higher fare which actually earns them. I booked SFO-AKL on NZ last year and “saved” $200 in a fare class which earned nothing on UA MP. The miles I could have earned would have been worth much more than $200.
Focus your loyalty program points on one program at a time. For airlines, once you earn the miles you want for you reward, focus on a 2nd program in a different airline alliance. This way, if you cannot find availability in one program alliance, the other may have availability. I personally recommend One World and Star Alliance over Sky Team.
Never lose an opportunity! I used to use the work Amex (no points) but switched back to my own card. Easier to fill out expense report but lose to many’free’ points!
Keep a log of ALL points earned and any promotion associated. Regularly reconcile your earnings. So many points are just lost because they were never awarded. Think about hiring one of your children to help you keep track.
Top Tip – Read the blogs on Boardingarea.com. The bloggers on the website do a fantastic job gathering and synthesizing all of the information out there in order to keep you up to date on ways to maximize earning rewards. On the “using” side of the equation, they stay abreast of all of the best deals to use points, and also provide detailed advice and comparisons on using your rewards.
Follow the tips from blogger’s to add to your miles. Pass on new ideas and spread the wealth of miles earning.
When you’re staying for multiple days on business at a major chain hotel, get in the habit of checking out every morning and checking back in every evening. This lets you get or keep elite status faster (since number-of-stays is usually one metric of elite status) and helps you earn bonus awards for promotions like “a free night after four stays.”
I evaluate all mileage opportunities believing that each mile is worth 1 cent. Thus that helps me determine the value of the awards that I redeem on any given airline.
Try to be flexible in redeeming awards. Try connecting in different cities to piece together an award.
Keep up with the boarding area blogs and flyertalk.
If you’re playing the game big time, leave one or two hotel or car rentals UNCREDITED. This may seem counterintuitive, but it can help if your miles somewhere get expired.
For example, once after American changed their expiration policy, I found all my miles had vanished. I found an old Hyatt stay that hadn’t been credited and submitted it. As soon as that stay posted, all my miles were magically reinstated.
Explore ALL your options when booking Award flights. Pull up the route maps for airlines in your alliance and look for the obscure/unusual, and then check availability. Never trust a phone agent to help you find a creative award routing. Do the legwork if you want to find that dream trip, and be flexible.
Use miles for redeeming premium class air ticket. Economy is just a waste of miles.
don’t ignore status in hotels. when i started, i collected united miles but still stayed at priceline hotels. after learning a bit more, i started spending a bit more money but also collecting starwood points. now, i might pay a bit more for my hotel stays overall, but instead of the room with the view of the parking lot i’m in a suite with free internet…and for vacations, my room is free! you don’t get that with priceline.
Before you buy anything online, check a website like evreward.com for points-earning opportunities. I earn thousands of miles and points a year for my modest online purchases, and it’s a good way to keep points from expiring.
For some frequent flyer program keep calling until you get what you want.
Subscribe to the RSS feeds on all the good blogs (like this one), use your mileage credit cards for everything (if you can pay off your bills each month) and look for ways to accumulate lots of small mileage increments through such programs as mypoints, e-miles and e-rewards.
Redeeming miles for premium class international flights provide the most value out of your points, rather than domestic coach flights.
I recommend using the Amex Gold Rewards card, then transferring those points into the frequent flier program relevant to the destination you need on any given trip.
Watch for promos, a great and easy way to multiply your points/miles!
Car Hire. If you can find rock bottom prices (and don’t have a car) combined with max mileage (1,000 a rental with Virgin Atlantic) you can end up with a free flight from renting cars for little more than the flight would have cost you in the first place, and had a load of car rentals in the process!
Stick to one program and earn/redeem points through that program with that carrier and its partners.
I’d first suggest that folks go with a program not for the points but for the overall experience. The points/miles should be second. The nice thing about points is the flexibility (ie. using AA for Cathay) and of course monitor sites such as ViewfromtheWing 🙂
The other name for the Internet is “information overload.” Not only is it important to earn, but it’s important to maximize the burn. The web is extremely helpful, but also the amount of info is overwhelming. Maximizing value from miles/points is all about the planning – organize and plan well ahead whenever possible to snag the best awards. I find it helpful to save information that I learn on blogs such as this one to both use later and refresh my meager memory. And it’s helpful for me to know where we might like to go for our “big trips” over the next several years and set up folders in my computer for each destination. Whenever I come across a tidbit that might prove useful later, I save it to the appropriate folder.
Check airline partner websites for seat availability to international destinations. Then call your airline and suggest the dates that you found available on the partner sites.
Just calling in to a live person always works best for me. Unfortunately, the websites never seem to show the same availability that you can get dialing in directly. It is a hassle, but worth it when you need to get complex trips for multiple people
Use a consolidation website to track all your miles in a simple format.
Check each individual airline for how many miles it will cost for a specific place – sometimes there can be a big discrepancy between carriers!
Find out which website for each alliance/airline is the best to search for reward travel bookings.
While “SPG Flights”-a fairly recently added redemption option for Starwood points usually isn’t a good use of starpoints, I’ve found that their lowest tier award: 10k points for a trip up to $150 can be a nice way to redeem a ‘short hop award’ for little cost in points. It certainly beats the 25k miles most of the airlines would charge for a similar short hop redemption.
Government travelers should consider Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan as the universal receiver for flight credit from American and Delta, and the the universal giver for redemptions on those airlines. This will concentrate their miles into one account, rather than having them spread over multiple accounts.
Concentrate your travels (effort) into few reward programs, but don’t let that stop you from signing up for every program available. You never know when your travel patterns may be forced to shift. If it happens, at least your previous trips on other programs aren’t completely wasted.
Being a novice to the whole FF miles game I have come to rely on advice from the intelligent crowd that frequents http://www.flyertalk.com/. I try to use my miles to upgrade to the front of the cabin rather than free flights.
Make sure to register for frequent flyer dining programs to get extra miles.
My tip would be:
Spend your miles!
While it’s wise to accumulate your miles towards a goal that’s has better value (first class tickets), everyone should keep in miles that miles WILL be devalued sooner or later! It’s better to get something out of your miles as opposed to accumulate them for an increasingly distant goal.
My tip is to avoid Delta Skymiles since it is impossible to use those miles for awards at the lowest tier level!
Continue to follow all the blog posting in the Boarding Area on a regular basis and follow FlyerTalk threads for your chosen programs. Opportunities to earn and redeem often come fast and disappear even quicker.
try hard to stick to one network, and get a credit card with a loyalty program linked to the airline you most frequently use
I pay for everything with mileage earning credit cards, buy only what I would have purchased anyways, and pay off the bill at the end of the month. Convenient and mileage earning.
Always carefully consider an airline’s partners, especially when trying to book award travel.
While it’s great to strive for using your miles on a First-Class seat to Asia or Africa, you’ll get the experience of visiting more places if you instead redeem for coach international seats for a half or a third as many miles as premium seats. Travel to experience parts of the world that are new to you. Got 100,000 miles? That’s business class somewhere far away, or coach seats to two different places. Pick wisely, and you can be a globetrotter on a dime.
For Continental credit-card-holders, shop using the double miles Chase links for places like ebags, big-box stores, and other places giving really big bonuses on stuff you would otherwise be planning to buy. Then use the miles on open-jawed Copa to harder-to-reach places like Santa Marta, Colombia and another city in the region.
Use your rewards for something you cannot afford — premium class flights, expensive hotel rooms. You get to feel like a star and it has the best % return!
Read FlyerTalk every day.
Try to charge everything on your loyalty charge card, then spend the miles on that really long trip to Yap in business class.
If you can swing it, use your own credit card that gives you the miles for the purchase which gets reimbursed by your employer, then get miles from the flight.
Also, make sure the FF program you sign up for is actually useful in your region so you can actually use the points from your location.
Try to focus your miles/points to a few programs (don’t spread yourself too thin). Get a mileage earning cc and charge all your bills/expenses to it to earn miles/points towards vacation travels!
If you’re a business traveler, ask if your company would allow you to charge your air fare to your own card, and reimburse you. That way, you get the frequent flier miles without having paid for the initial (work travel) air fare in the first place. Then, when you cash out your frequent flier miles, it is truly a “free flight.”
What a great incentive to take a vacation!
Miles/points credit cards + plan ahead!
Never take a trip or hotel stay without joining the mileage or hotel program, you may never use it but you never know the future
This is easy – I use one card for everything 🙂 Keeps track of all my points and when it’s time to use – so easy! 🙂 PLUS I’m always looking out for specials where I can get double the points or even free along the way!
Safe travels and Happy flying! 🙂
Fly within one global airline alliance and credit all of your miles to one FF account. That way, your miles aren’t spread around to different accounts, making it hard to ever accumulate enough to redeem them for anything!
At the same time that you want to focus your earning on specific programs, remember — you didn’t get married to your primary frequent flier program. Sometimes you will be better off just buying the best available value even if that won’t earn points in your primary program.
Tip 1: If you travel internationally, investigate which program has the best redemption value for the locations you like to visit. Earn your miles with that program. Make sure that you can redeem your miles with the program’s partner airlines, too. Sometimes the partner airlines offer the best deals.
Tip 2: When booking your flight using mileage, do your research. Keep some routes in mind to suggest to your agent. If the ticketing agent can’t find anything, consider calling back at a later time to speak with someone else who might be more willing to explore alternate routing with you.
Tip 3: Credit cards offer more than just miles. First of all, CCs provide a quick way to earn miles to top off your account for the perfect trip. But more importantly, CCs sometimes offer other great savings. For example, with US Airways, the CC saves you 5,000 miles each time you book a flight with miles. For British Airways, you can earn a free companion airfare when redeeming miles (after a $30K spend). Some other airline cards also offer free or reduced companion fare with purchase. All that is on top of the 20-30K miles for your program account!
Look for promotions to buy/transfer miles. Transfer to your husband/wife/sister/brother and plan a family trip.
Or, look for a bank card that offers travel rewards – a mile for every dollar you spend directly from your checking account. We pay everything with our check card and have a few tickets ready!
consider the bank of America virgin amex. you ean 1.5 miles per dollar, redeemable on partners such as continental and us air as well
Use the dining for mile web sites… and when you need to spend so many $$$ by a certain time to get a bonus, but a gift card from one of the participating restaurants to get the bonus!
Earn points on everything! Spend on what you want! No matter what it is!
Ok, here’s my tip – it’s sort of a two-fer. First is, it’s worth spending money at the end of the year on mileage runs to gain or maintain status (I’m currently coping with losing top tier on AA due to not following this tip). The second is, when you are doing mileage runs, it’s often worth it to look at airports near where you’re considering going. For example, LAX might sound like a fun weekend destination for a mileage run – if you’re having a hard time finding good fares to LAX, though, look at the other airports that are in the area, like SBA, SNA, and BUR. You might even end up connecting through LA, but you’ll get your miles, end up in the area, and could save a lot of money.
in … i used to live there–it’d be nice to visit again.
here’s the tip: there’s still time to open a chase checking account with $100 and get up to 25,000 in onepass miles … here’s the link to get the required coupon from chase: https://www.chase.com/index.jsp?pg_name=ccpmapp/shared/marketing/page/Continental_Consumer_9938 …
If you have a family mileage account, make sure that your dad doesn’t dip into your balance and steal miles for his business class upgrades 🙂
Sign up for every loyalty program you can! You never know when you might earn, need, or be able to transfer them to another program you prefer.
Rather than redeem a large chunk of miles for a free international business class seat, it can sometimes be worth it to use fewer miles to upgrade a coach seat. You can earn miles on an upgraded seat which can then be used to maintain status with an airline.
Check partner sites–for example you could use less BA points for an American Airlines domestic flight than using AA miles. Additionally you will avoid the 21 days or less fee. Also, check for seasonal deals/promotions–for example several airlines require less miles to travel to Hawaii/Europe right now than in the peak summer season.
Get the AMEX starwood card and increase your miles when you transfer them
Research partners/alliances–don’t assume an award seat isn’t available until you’ve checked with partner airlines. Try sticking to one credit card such as American Express Membership Rewards which will give you more choices with a larger balance than spreading between multiple credit cards.
Read read read! Educate yourself! Learn the ins and outs of the mileage and award programs so you can get the best bang for your buck. Only a savvy customer gets the best deal.
My top tip to a newbie is simply to read Flyertalk, understand how it works by being willing to spend hours on it until you have absorbed the basic information for the loyalty programs you have chosen. Lurk for a while. Do not get discouraged by the insane use of three-letter codes for airports and things you have never heard of!
Pick your primary plans carefully and don’t forget the expiration policies.
It is paramount to understand all of the available awards for each loyalty program. A thorough knowledge of the intricacies of each program permit a certain degree of flexibility and creativity to enable redemption in non-standard ways.
For example: when there is no AA award availability to Europe, other options such as BA through YYZ or MEX could be viable, and possibly even for fewer miles by using a oneworld award!
For someone just starting out, figure out which airlines you would be flying most. Then choose one that has the most flights and most partner airlines available for your desired routes. No matter which partner airline you fly, make sure to always credit your miles to the one frequent flyer program that you signed up with. Eventually you will have enough miles for your first award, whatever that may be.
Don’t let anyone tell you how you should use your miles. In my opinion, your miles are worth whatever they are worth to YOU. Use them to fly coach, to fly premium, for upgrades, for merchandise, or for magazines. Redeem them however you wish, and enjoy your hard-earned work!
If you want to earn & use your points effectively, read FlyerTalk religiously. Earn ’em and Burn ’em, sure, save some for a rainy day, but just enough to get you & your loved ones home for an emergency – other than, play all you can, you only live once – work hard, but play harder.
Plan ahead of time and grab the deal before figuring out what it is! Stay tuned and be loyal.
Always keep an emergency stash of miles for those unexpected circumstances, but take advantage of First Class redemptions whenever possible.
Always sign up for every program, even if it is a one time trip or stay, in the future it may come around again.
When considering redeeming miles for a trip instead of paying cash, take into account not just the cost of the miles you are redeeming, but also the miles you won’t earn but would have earned if you paid cash.
Every point counts. Those stupid 5 point things you do eventually add up. It won’t be long before you realize have enough points for a coach trip to Hawaii. You have to be vigilant, though!
My advice would be *not* to hoard miles, but instead burn them as soon as you can. Airlines keep charging more miles for a free ticket, and keep limiting available seats on useful routes. As a result, I have thousands of miles on American and Northwest which I’m unable to find a use for.
I think you’re better off with incremental awards than trying to save up miles on a single airline. I use a good cash back credit card (Schwab gives 2% cash back) and I book my travel based on price and convenience.
It isn’t all about the domestic redemptions! Gotta look outside the country and see where a big bucket of miles takes you instead of just 25k. That’s probably the biggest one to impart on the VX, B6, and WN fliers of the USA.
Beyond that, find a decent rewards card. And go to flyertalk if you want nerd out on the whole thing.
Be flexible
Unless you need the status miles, credit card sign up bonuses offer much better CPM than mileage runs. 20-50k miles for an annual fee or sometimes even free.
Learn the ins and outs of your loyalty program by reading the FAQs or Stickies of the individual loyalty program you’re interested in at FlyerTalk.com. Plan ahead. And the old adage “Try and try again” also applies. Be persistent.
Pick your blogs, just spend couple of your leisure minutes everyday. You are updated and remains on the top of the game.
Be vigilant about making sure every flight/stay/rental is counted, and try to pick a program that best suits your needs (locations, availability, etc). Then use em on that dream vacation – points are meant to be redeemed!
For earning: Credit card promos, charge everything
For burning: Book far in advance – 330 days!
Always be sure to find the legs with the most miles. Someitmes that may mean you book a flight from SLC to DEN routing through ATL, but that nets you and extra 2k or so of miles for no additional cost.
Remember to keep the end in sight; Select loyalty programs that will make both business and personal travel more enjoyable.
Amex SPG miles can be used both on flights and hotel stays, so stick with this card!
Credit card signup bonuses, even with the end of churning at Citi, are good for 3 or 4 free trips a year. Cant beat that.
I can only speak for Air loyalty programs, but my best advice is to pick one carrier and aim for Elite status. Once you travel as a top tier elite, you will never want to go back.
If you are elite in multiple airlines, make sure they are in seperate alliances so that all of your bases are covered for trips that your one carrier may not fly to. Eg… Oneworld and Skyteam.
Spend a bit of time reading blogs like flyertalk and Boarding area, checkout anything of interest and dont take no from the first res agent you talk to. hang up dial again. Nothing worthwhile is easy!
Use your points earning credit card for everything, pay off credit card fully at end month, rinse, lather and repeat. Small purchases, everyday purchases, all the things you feel silly using your credit card for – use it!
For those who don’t travel much but still feel there is value in miles, use Starwood AMEX – lots of great airline options, plus a bit of status at the hotels at 30K spend. Alternatively, just use Schwab Visa with no fee and 2% cashback, and pay for discount coach on those occasional trips.
Hyatt Gold passport is the best! Free nights!!!
Typically, the value of miles for normal domestic flights have the least value. At the same time, springing for biz class tix (usually good value) may not make sense, particularly if you fly with kids. Hotel nights thru SPG will typically give good bang for the buck. Or trying to turn them into a cash value.
Read View from the Wing and the accompanying blogroll links on a regular basis. Follow directions and enjoy!
Get a credit card that earns miles and use it for all of your purchases. Just be sure to pay the full balance each month.
Remember that if your job turns mean and you don’t get to travel for a year…Hilton will erase all your points! Keep up with your accounts!
Burn em while you can. If your plan is to bank them for the futur, bank the money it would v costed instead. Invested money bring more money. Banked points only loose value !
Burn your mails/points with a smile!!!
I use the American Express Membership Rewards program – I like the broad range of opportunities to earn points, coupled with the ability to spend the points on a large number of different airlines, hotels and resorts.
Pay for everything with your mileage card. Set goals in advance.
Keep everything in one family: Hotel stays, credit card usage, car rentals, airlines. Always ‘take the points,’ never the gifts.
I go to providers’ websites frequently to look for bonus offers
Use your Delta AMEX earn lots of miles!
Read your blog daily. My first entry.
use them or lose them!
Actually be loyal – within monetary, time, and location constraints, shift your spending to concentrate on a small number of brands. This also allows you to read up on promotions that are specific to your brands and learn the ins and outs of redeeming from that brand, instead of spreading yourself thin to the point where you never have enough points in a single program to redeem anything, nor any idea what the good values are and how to get them.
Focus your travel in a single program, but always be open to earning bonuses and taking advantages of great promotions in other programs you don’t typically use.
Keep an eye out for bonus promotions from airline credit cards or frequent flier programs sent in email or snail mail. Don’t forget to register for the promotion. Once I bought a $2 cookie on a flight with the airline’s credit card and received 1000 miles.
Establish in your mind a value for the points you collect. That will help you decide whether to use miles for an award or buy a ticket with actual money. There are so many variables to this assigned value that no one can do it for you.
Read Flyertalk and get status.
Before purchasing anything online, check to see if you can buy it through your FF program’s online store. With all of the options available, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be earning miles on almost every purchase you make.
My top tip…. one word… Flyertalk. Read it and learn.
Think about all your purchases and make sure you are earning points or miles on everything, whether it’s with a mileage cc or through a shopping portal.
Read … the fine print, flyertalk, boarding area, everything.
Research, research, research then action
Call the airlines and ask for a status challenge. They’ll often give you a shot at making it in the next 3 months.
Do your homework. Read as many travel blogs as possible and register for as many promotions as possible, those points will add up!
You won’t get if you don’t ask. I’ve asked for and received upgrades, fees waived, status matches, miles rounded up…
Follow the blogs, use award wallet (or similar aggregator) and try to take advantage of all the deals floating around the interweb
Journey of thousands of miles starts with this entry!
Save enough miles to take your spouse with you on any given business trip. For me, that is ~160,000 miles, enough to go first class to Australia, South Africa, etc. This allows maximum flexibility to take your spouse with you when you get that great business trip. You will have a lifetime of memories when you use the miles for this. So far, this has let me take my wife with me to Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam, Brisbane, and Sydney, places she thought she would never get to see in person.
For large family or group gatherings and events, try to negotiate a higher hotel point per dollar ratio. The larger the event, the better.
Don’t let points or miles expire unused! You can easily credit a car rental that you’re already going to make to extend the life of miles in most programs, or use many programs’ online shopping malls to buy a giftcard or something as small as a single iTunes song.
Wait for credit card promotion and sign up for big miles.
Take advantage of credit card rewards and sign up when a good promotion comes your way!
Two tips: Get an affinity credit card for your airline of choice and use the card for everything (phone bill, cable, etc). I’ve achieved lifetime gold status on AA this way.
Second, read, read, read. Blogs like this and Flyertalk!
Today’s useful tip is tomorrow’s old news. The key to it all is to stay up-to-date and flexible — able to earn and burn across several programs if need be and change plans (when possible) to take advantage of current promotions. Reading blogs like “View from the Wing” are a very good start!
use an on line retail purchase through an airline web site to keep a rarely used account active. Never let your miles expire.
I use the American Express Starwood Card to earn points. I also have a mileage card from an airline, which I rarely use, because the rules and restrictions to actually earn a flight have taken a turn for the worst.
Key benefits of the American Express Card through Starwood:
1. Unless I am mistaken, you’re automatically upgraded to Gold Status if you spend xx amount of dollars per year. I’ve received a ton of room upgrades, even governor suites, simply by being a Gold Preferred member with Starwood using the Starwood Amex. The bonus is that I have always been offered a free upgrade & haven’t had to ask. If I don’t get one, that’s fine…I’ve received more than enough.
2. I earn even more points when I stay at a Starwood property.
3. Starwood has multiple redemption options (cash + points, or just points).
I spend a great deal of time in Southeast Asia, which means I can get some rooms for as little as 2000 points per night. If I want to stay at a great 4-5 star resort as an option, I can generally stay for $45-60 USD per night if I use some of my points towards the rate (this can drop the price from 100 USD + per night up). I also tend to get special offers from the hotels/resorts simply be being a member.
You can also earn extra points by shopping on the American Express site and/or earn additional discounts:)
I love the blog. thanks for the 200,000 plus BA miles. If it’s too good to be true, consider the source and act fast.
Consolidate your miles/points on only a few airlines/hotels and don’t choose an program where the points expire after a set period of time unless you are a frequent traveler.
If traveling with my family, I will use miles to purchase their tickets. Then as the elite customer, I pay money for my ticket so that miles and bonuses continue to accrue. That also increases the chances of upgrades and baggage fee waivers for the whole family.
Be persistent and check the availability frequently. One weekend in late January, I checked Delta for the RT LAX-SYD for low fare business class seats. To my surprise, for about a 24 hour period, the SYD-LAX leg on almost every day was available in low fare business class. We booked two seats coach on the outbound leg, and two seats business on the return. As soon as two business seats open up on the outbound LAX-SYD leg, we will pay the change fee and have a two RT tickets in low fare business class.
If your family members don’t fly often, have them transfer any miles they accrue on random flights to you. You’ll be able to get far more use out of the miles than they would, and maybe even take them take them on a trip once you get a bundle of em 🙂
Be flexible. If you know where you want to go, search around to find which days/times/months are the cheapest number of miles and go from there!
Sometimes all that is required to earn miles is a single purchase (e.g., 750 miles from deluxe.com through e-miles). While the cheapest items on the website may be hard do find, our friend Google will allow you to search on a single domain. Try searching for terms like “$1.”, “1.”, “$2.”, etc. to find cheap items. With this method, I earned 750 US miles for buying a $3 check cover shipped free. .4cpm!
You should never spend a dollar (unless you have to pay cash) that doesn’t earn you some kind of mileage or loyalty points.
If you don’t get what you want the first time, hang up and call again. Always be informed about where you want to go and what routes you can take to get there and use the ANA website and expertflyer to be informed about what availability is out there.
You can transfer SPG points to over 30 different airlines at a 1 to 1 ratio. Transferring 20,000 SPG points gives you a bonus of 5,000 miles, for a total of 25,000 miles — enough for a domestic award ticket.
Stick to your favorite companies (airline, car rental, hotel) to really rack up the miles! Sometimes they will offer their most loyal customers really great bonus mile options.
Ideally pick the program with the most flexibility in redeeming among OTHER programs (for example, Starwood points are useful not just for Starwood properties, but can be transferred into many airline programs at bonus miles for you(and if AA, can also count for lifetime status) and from there can be used for other hotel programs (for example the AA:HH 1:2 redemption). As a fallback, don’t hoard all in one program (Starwood good for most but not all airlines, using AMEX points for those airlines is a good backup)
My tip is to have the credit card with the program you are in. This will be most efficient in earning points per spending. For instance, if you are platinum, Marriott credit card allows you to earn 20 points / $1 spent at Marriott (10 base pts + 5 Plat pts + 5 credit card pts); Amex Starwood allows you to earn 5 points / $1 spent (2 base pts + 1 Plat pts + 2 credit card pts), etc…
My tip on spending is to be flexible and make use of the benefits offer by each program, such as staying 4 nights and get 1 night free, pointsaver stay. Plan and make reservation early since more options are available and the reservation can be cancelled should your plan changes.
Be flexible
Use a points AMEX Card! rack up the points in a jiffy
Redeem Starwood points for LAN Chile kilometers, best exchange ratio our there!
Don’t just credit flight miles to your FF program, but also take advantage of partner offers where they make sense – credit cards, dining, etc. This can go a long way to earning those rewards, particularly for infrequent fliers. Through credit card use and partner offers, I earned enough miles to fly myself and my wife to Hawaii for our one year anniversary. Although I’m now mid-tier (Premier Exec) on United, I was a 3-4 times a year flier at the time.
Plan a group trip with friends and be in charge of all the booking. You get all the miles and points on your card and your friends are happy to let you organize it and then pay you afterwards.
Accumulating miles takes a bit of work, much like making money. So continue doing your homework & overtime you will be successful as I continue to be.
Don’t be afraid to use airline/hotel credit cards to accumulate points in order to prevent older points from expiring. Sending a bouquet of flowers to someone can be an easy way to prevent thousands of points from disappearing.
Use your BA miles to Buenos Aires with a stopover on Easter Island for 80K BA miles in Business or 40K in Economy on LAN. Best use of BA miles IMHO.
My only advice is repeating what others say – Read this blog religiously, watch Flyertalk, and someday, when you stumble upon the dream fare or rate (mistake or otherwise), pay it forward to Gary first! Then, of course, share!
Not everyone can be the Pudding Guy, but we can all take advantage of the mileage opportunities that are out there. Don’t use a single resource to stay informed.
SPG…The best points program ever! Earn points through American Express and then use them for a lot of different programs. I use mine to get discounted hotel rooms, for example, I’m staying using a few points and only $60 bucks to stay a night in Hawaii! And they convert to a lot of airlines miles programs. I gave 20K SPG points to Hawaiian Air and got 25K miles!
Be loyal to one of the global airline teams (which has the many flights from your point of origin) and try to have all of your miles credit to one Frequent Flyer account. Also, try finding different credit cards/ programs that give you non-flying miles/points bonuses on that account This will ensure that your miles are always dumped to one account, making it easy to accumulate enough miles/points to redeem anytime and anywhere.
Don’t hoard your miles, use them and earn more, read flyertalk at least once a day and of course, read the boarding area blogs and learn from those constantly beating the pavement for the rest of us…
Use a spreadsheet to keep track of your miles/points. You never know when the company might make a mistake, and it will help you plan your travel to make sure you get the most out of each trip.
Also utilize online tracking consolidator websites like http://www.yodlee.com to keep track of multiple travel accounts in 1 convenient location.
Use your points-accumulating credit card(s) for every possible purchase including household bills and the entire meal bill with friends (hopefully they’ll pay you back in cash or by check!).
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
I would recommend utilizing a point tracker service like tripit.com! It’s great with tracking itineraries too!
Don’t ever buy miles or pay to transfer miles. Often better to buy an item, rent a car, that also brings bonus miles. We’ve gotten as many miles with that as spending the extra $’s for a pure transfer of miles to miles. Of course starwood transfers, etc. to airlines can work great.
stay on top of every blog and source for specials. Read Inside Flyer. There is always some little nugget to be found by doing the research.
1)Make sure your miles program matches your
award goals.
2)If you have a mileage credit card make sure it
allows you to redeem awards with numerous
carriers.
3)Start looking for your award seats 6 months in
advance of your trip.
4)Don’t forget to check code-share partners for
award seats.
5)Look for award seats on midweek days.
6)Since carriers change their award inventory on
Friday & Saturday nights at midnight, check then
for award seats.
7)Try BookYourAward.com. Worth the price to get
the seat you want.(According to Wendy Perrin at
Conde Nast Traveler.)
Two suggestions worth mentioning:
1. Get family members into the game. My DP and I both applied for the Chase BA Visa and together we gathered up something over 400K BA miles and 270K AA miles by combining BA Visa, AA cc, and Citi USA savings account activity.
2. Quite a while ago I read, but haven’t used, moving SPG points between accounts for people within the same household. If still good this would encourage having someone add an Amex SPG card and later combing the points.
*** Learn the intricacies of status matching ***
Occasionally there are promotions with hotels and airlines that temporarily boost status in their program. Take your new status level and match to competing programs! With some careful planning you can quickly attain status in several programs with an opportunity to
“challenge” to further upgrade or keep your new level of status.
Rule #1:
If the ticket for the flight is less than $300, never use miles.
Use your AA miles to purchase one ways awards to Australia, you may fly first one way and coach the other way.
While it may seem simple, most people probably don’t think about it… Pay the extra $5 to throw in a layover somewhere if you’re not in a rush, or the extra $10 for two layovers. I’m a casual traveller with no rush to get places, so that $10 can buy an extra (potentially) 3000 miles per trip with some creativity. Since I don’t spend enough on cards and can only make 5 or so trips a year, an extra 3k per trip can make a difference for me.
Pick one program that suits your needs and concentrate mileage accumulation in it.
My best friend is my Delta Reserve. For someone who is more of a frequent spender than flier, it gets me oodles of MQM, free SkyClub access, tie-breaker on the upgrade ladder and – best of all – that free first class companion certificate. Totally worth the $450 annual fee to me.
Don’t just save your miles for a 25k mile domestic ticket. International business class tickets offer far more value per mile.
Consider using the Alaska Airlines MP as a catch-all for AM, DL, and others, especially if you are a low/moderate flier on any individual airline.
Buy a subscription to Mileage Manager and use it to keep track of all of your balances. If you want to redeem for a trip to a specific destination, it will do a daily check of all your qualifying programs to see what’s available, when, and in what class and keep you up-to-date by email.
Take advantage of credit card sign-up bonuses for new card applications.
never believe what a rep tells you always do your own research
I use Yodlee MoneyCenter to keep track of my miles. It’s free.
Use your hotel points for an overnight stay at an airport hotel that includes parking for 7-10 days. That way you get a free night and free parking. Great for those early morning departures or arrivals after a long overseas flight.
When the CSR says no, don’t give up!
Well, I try to figure out what I want to achieve for the year about about three years out. Is it a trip to Africa, upgrades to the continent or what. Then, research what programs offer the best solution and options, then look at what I have in what program THEN figure out what the best way to transfer my $$ spend TO THAT PROGRAM.
To sum up, SET A GOAL and work towards it.
Never forget its about using those miles and not hoarding them.
Be consistent. Why spread your points around and never have enough to do anything with? Find what works for you and stick with it. We recently found a nightly price on a hotel room that we felt we couldn’t pass up, but we really should have gone to the adjacent Intercontintental Hotel in order to get some Priority Club points while we were at it.
Track them on http://www.awardwallet.com!
Plan ahead and be flexible!
Use Thanks Again to keep less used frequent flyer programs active.
If you don’t get the answer you want on the first call into the airlines, call back. Often, you’ll get a better answer after a few tries.
Use the credit card promotions, read the blogs to stay on top of the giveaways and promotions. Make sure to keep the accounts active and don’t let the miles expire! – You can also find how to do that in this blog.
Be happy of what you can get for those miles, even though it means economic seat across the Pacific for 21 hours
When calling to make a complicated award booking never take “no” for an answer. Either call back and try again, or suggest alternative cities, hubs, routings, partners. All of which can be worked out using the ITA matrix software, a mileage runners best friend.
Use an Amex with Membership Rewards so you can transfer miles/points to a selection of different airlines and hotels.
learn about lan, they have some of the best short trip mile action… for just a few thousand spg points transferred you can get yourself tickets between ny and toronto and many other great deals!
Use Southwest Airlines and Hilton HHonors. You can double dip with Hilton (earning hotel and flight credits) and earn quick tickets on Southwest through partners and flying. Then, vacation virtually for free!
Concentrate your winnings on one Alliance and exploit it for all its worth: car rental, dining, flying, purchasing toilet paper from drugstore.com… Be sure you also sign up for all the bonus mileage offers that your airline of choice offers, even if you aren’t planning to fly the route immediately. You never know where IRROPS will take you…
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
The value of points tends to decrease with time, so burn ’em rather than earn ’em…. when you have enough for a nice premium intercontinental award.
Check out flyertalk and blogs for the best way to earn and burn miles and use them asap on first class travel!
Make sure to provide your frequent flier numbers when you go to a hotel, especially when you stay in hotels often. The points add up FAST!
Focus. Don’t keep 3000 miles in 10 different airlines. Make sure you have enough miles in one account/alliance before you start diversifying.
Download timetables from the airline and partner airlines. This will give you a better picture of the available routes and when those routes are offered. Before you call or go online to try to book your mileage award, have a preferred route along with several alternates you’re willing to travel on. By increasing your flexibility, you will increase your chances of getting to your final destination on an award ticket.
Don’t assume that every agent or booking website is going to be creative in routing you to your destination. Do your homework ahead of time.
I visit http://www.awardwallet.com twice a day to keep track of all my earning/loyalty programs. Saves me time that I can use to research more promotions!
Stick with one airline/hotel and keep up with the social media to learn about promos and tips (i.e. FlyerTalk, Boarding Area, Inside Flyer, etc).
As a consultant I stay in a lot of hotels all over the place. Picking one and sticking with it is easy enough (especially Marriott and Starwood). My trick is to really pay attention to the credit card offers (Marriott has 2) and figure out which one yields the most benefit. The free card yields triple points, but the fee card yields 5x points – that’s huge! Also, pay attention to hotel bonus programs and figure out how to maximize those points. Then use them, given the devaluation of hotel programs each year it is probably best to burn early and often rather than accruing many points over the course of several years. I’ve used 250,000 points in the last year at Marriott alone.
Get a credit card with the airline you fly most for work. When redeeming miles, plan FAR in advance, and be as flexible as possible with dates and locations. We’re a family of four, and we’ve done free trips to Hawaii at Xmas and Europe in the summer. All on saver awards. And that’s on UA, which some people will say can’t be done!
Pay attention to status requirements and try to hit them, because they will multiply your points earning. For example, being Starwood Platinum gets you 500 extra point per stay (plus all the other perks), but you have to meet the 25 stay number. On a 2 day business trip, stay at 2 different properties for 1 extra stay towards Platinum and 500 extra points.
Try to maximize “passive” opportunities for earning miles. In addition to the dining awards, there are plenty of loyalty programs that allow you to register credit cards and generate miles for every purchase at every retail partner. You’ll be surprised at how many miles can be earned on purchases that would not merit a lot of “active” follow-up.
Elite status is (typically) a huge win; concentrate enough activity to get whatever level of it you can.
Sign up for every hotel/airline program to earn points. You never know when the next earning potential can come along. Or you can convert the straggling points in one program to another program.
Be nice to the people that are booking your award ticket. They’ll be more likely to look for strange routings for you.
Get a credit card to go with the program. The miles from that–the signup bonus, and the regular use–give you a huge boost.
My tip would be this: understand that not all mile-redemptions are created equal. If you’re going to go through the hassle of expending effort to acquire a significant number of miles, it makes sense to leverage them by redeeming them for long-hual first and business class tickets on international carriers, rather than say, domestic tickets within the United States, because the net dollar redemption value for those tickets is much higher than on the lower-tier rewards. I.e., it’s a much better mile-value to redeem 100,000 miles for a ticket that costs $10,000 than 30,000 miles on a ticket that costs $400.
-Nathaniel
Here’s my earning tip: for those of us who don’t fly that much, just get the cheapest fare you can find, and don’t worry about loyalty. Over the years, your points will add up. But DO worry about loyalty with all other point-earning opportunities that are flexible, like credit cards, bank accounts, and rental cars. Funnel all of those to the same program to concentrate those miles.
Concentrate on which airline(s) has your home airport as a hub and look at the miles needed to go to places you would actually visit.
Keep organized – (travelwallet takes care of that) – get your whole family enrolled and participating in promotions, find and exploit all loopholes (Delta 150% bonus, car rental for 1 day, US Mint coins, etc…)…
save up miles & use for big trips not for domestic flights only.
Two words: Starwood. Amex.
Realize that the trick to finding business class space using miles is often looking backwards.
You don’t just look at Ohare to Singapore. You start looking for business class on ANY flight from the states to Tokyo or Hong Kong. Then work backwards to find flights to your gateway city and any flight needed to your final destination.
If you can find availability on business class on the main segment, the trick is to then go ahead and book. You’ll have business class on the main segment with economy class seat on some legs but can wait list for business class on the remaining legs.
And then keep checking back for the remaining seats to clear.
Use car rental points/free days for otherwise costly one-ways. Just be sure to check for costly per mile charges when booking your rental, especially from neighbourhood locations.
If you will charge enough to justify the fee, try to put as many charges as possible on a credit card that allows you to redeem through multiple programs. Several years ago, my parents signed up with Starwood Prefrred Guest Amex at my suggestion. They recently used 70,000 points to purchase 3 Upper Class tickets on Virgin Atlantic using Miles & Money and a 5 night stay in central London. This has confirmed to my parents that I am the genius they always thought I was.
Please include me in.
Mike
Redeem your miles for premium class tickets to Europe, Asia or Africa. It’s the best use of your miles since these are overnight flights.
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
Probably already stated – but my tip is to not be afraid to use the points – take the free flight/night/upgrade/etc. Don’t hoard!
Read Flyertalk and use your miles before it gets devalued.
New York in the house ? I need a break from this lovely place !!! 🙂 Good lick bloggers…….
Set a goal, be flexible and adventurous! Get every one involved in helping to reach that goal to realize the dream! Have fun and enjoy. Repeat!
Consolidate your miles
Choose the airline that has good connections and most direct flights out of your hometown – that keeps the award potential high and worthwhile. Register for all promos and hotel programs and keep checking these valuable blogs all the time.
Starwood points to airline programs are usually a great deal–deposit 20,000 miles and get an additional 5,000 points free. However Continental doesn’t redeem at this level. Instead of a 1-1 ratio it is 2-1. Transfer Starwood points at a 1-1 ratio into Amtrak and then transfer into Continental at 1-1.No bonus points/miles however 1-1 instead of 2-1 if you need Continental miles.
If you are a student, look at sites like student universe for cheap fares, and if you are in college, sign up for college plus through United and get 10,000 miles when you graduate for free!
The biggest thing I try to point out is to look at all the places you can use your points. Nobody seems to know that you can your points on multiple carriers, let alone transfer them for hotel use. American miles can be used on Cathay Pacific or British Airways, but also transferred to Hilton Honors at a not-so-bad exchange rate.
Read the blogs then practice what they preach.
Love Australia and the Gold Coast. Count me in on this one.
Learn how to redeem the points. Learn the partners, the different types of awards available for your given program etc… Just because the online search tool only gives you limited availability, doesn’t mean your award isn’t available. Even calling in isn’t a sure bet. If you know the rules and the booking classes, you can help guide a helpful phone agent to craft the itinerary you want.
Book early and check often. If you have an award res. on hold and aren’t ready to commit, you maybe able to snag the same again if you call really early the next day, like 4 AM.
Keep getting all credit card bonuses you can.
Get as many credit cards that offer miles for signup bonuses as you can, and churn the ones that allow for more than one application. Then use the miles for expensive international flights, not cheap domestic ones.
Only redeem miles for international premium cabin travel or last-minute domestic travel where you would otherwise have to pay full price. Using miles on regular domestic travel isn’t a sufficient return on your investment.
Remember to look up what other than online retail can earn you miles. Continental will give miles for your electric bill and groceries in New York
Fly on one airline or alliance and make sure your miles post!
join rewardsnetwork (formerly idine) for various partners. get two bills (“oh, I’ll take care of the wine” or separate bar/restaurant cashouts).
ALSO, buy a low $ IDine restaurant gift card as a standalone transaction. Use it the next time you’re there while covering the balance of the bill as yet another transaction. (Ex: I bought a $15 Pizzeria gift card. Next time there, our bill was $22. Used the $15 and charged the $7 as a separate Dine activity)
Set clear goals for your awards to figure out which program(s) is right for you.
Use a good online service like points.com if you don’t travel frequently or if you don’t always have a say in where you stay or what you fly. You can convert your miles and points into a central account so they can become useful.
Use your SPG Amex for everything and then have http://www.bookyouraward.com handle the rest!!
Pick an airline’s program,
Fly that airline as much as possible,
Apply for its credit card offer,
Register your credit card for offline dining
Direct you online shopping through the airline’s portal
Make sure anyone you want to travel with is doing the same,
Rinse and repeat with another airline as appropriate.
Consolidate all aspects of your loyalty habits!
Remember Alliances! Can’t get an AA Partner Award to Oz on Qantas? Grab a One World award using AA and JAL to get there via Japan (and use a domestic Qantas leg while there to meet the OW requirements). It costs a few more miles but has much greater availability…and you get stop-overs anywhere along the way.
When preparing for a trip, don’t forget to take advantage of the “Try preferred” programs which allow you to fast track your way to preferred status (which means extra bonus miles) while also taking immediate advantage of the perks.
A lot has been written about advantages of SPG AMEX card, and it’s a great card (I have it). However, if you don’t want to mess with AMEX and another Visa/Mastercard, consider getting Diners Club card. Because it is now accepted everywhere Mastercard is accepted (it has Mastercard logo), Diners Club card can be your only primary card if you don’t like having to pay two bills each month.
You earn one point for each dollar spend, and points can be converted to miles on most airlines, or hotel points. Some highlights include:
— Annual promotion giving you 1.5 miles for every point transferred to British Airways (1.35 miles on Delta)
— Diners Club will serve as PRIMARY insurance on domestic and international car rentals. Other cards act as secondary insurance on domestic rentals (your regular car insurance acts as primary)
— Access to many airport lounges around the world with no extra fees
Personally, I travel to Hawaii a lot, and I transfer 24,000 Diners points into my BA account, giving me 36,000 BA miles (only 35,000 is needed for round trip ticket).
Take advantage of status matches, especially when trying a new airline product.
All miles are not equal. Know the strengths and weaknesses of the programs you participate in so that when it comes time to redeem an award, you’re using the currency that gets you the most bang for your buck (or mile or point).
make sure to to consolidate all your flight miles on a specific alliance (Star, One World, etc.) onto one airline partner program.
Domestic awards are a waste of miles!!
I don’t always get to choose who I fly, so I make sure to maximise my miles by using companies with partnerships.
Be sure to keep an eye on those expiration dates! Sometimes simply renewing a magazine or buying flowers online will extend your FF miles expiration dates.
Rack ’em up fast and use them faster !!!
One useful trick is to register for very promotion you come across on these blogs. Even if you think it cannot possibly apply to you (it may in the future), or if it’s just 50 miles (wouldn’t it suck to be 50 miles short for an award?), or for a program you don’t participate in (there are ways to transfer miles)… one never knows.
Use SPG for a free 5k in miles when you transfer 20k
Get into a few good airline programs with strong alliances to places you want to visit, sign up for e-mails promos from those programs and plug into http://www.milemaven.com/ and http://www.frequentflyerbonuses.com/ to maximize your miles and/or points.
Pick a program that you like and stick to it, even if it ends up costing a little more. They’re not called loyalty rewards for nothing.
Never hurt to hoard miles. Don’t be afraid to burn. And aim high. You thought you can never afford to fly up front, and it’s not true.
Don’t bother hoarding miles…the airlines will devalue them over time. Get enough for your target award(s) and book ’em.
After all these years, Starwood Amex still beats all comers when all factors are considered. Period.
Don’t bother with domestic awards. Other than that rare last minute ticket (where you’ll likely have to pay fees to use miles anyhow), domestic travel is inexpensive. Use your miles to go abroad and see the world!
Pay attention to the value per mile when redeeming awards. Try to get at least 1.5 cents. 2 cents-plus is great value. One cent or less, you are much better off purchasing a ticket.
The Best use of your miles are international Business/First awards, don’t waste your miles on anything less.
While I mainly focus on international biz trips for best value, I plan a trip around award availability, not a given date.
Use car rentals (which often earn pitifully small miles bonuses) to reset the clock on expiration of miles accounts in which you lack activity. This works not only mile accounts in your name, but for family members too: the rental companies report only the FF account number you give them, and not the renter’s name. I’ve used this many times without a hitch.
hoping to win!
If you stay at a non-chain hotel, be sure to ask when checking in if they are affiliated with an airline program. Lots of times, they are.
Always keep your boarding passes, at least until you can check them against your ff account. Also if you ever get rerouted and it results in a reduction in the number of miles earned (non-stop instead of a connection) always make sure to request original routing credit
This may be too simple, but for starters, pick an alliance a hotel chain or two and stick with them- and their partners!
read informative blogs for info on useful promotions, and sign up immediately!
Churn credit cards and bank sign up bonuses
Use ANA to research award travel and expert flyer/KVS for other airlines. Study the airline’s award website and have 1 or 2 backups. If you spread points across alliances (easy to do with credit card churning) you will have a lot more options! Do NOT rely on the agent to find you a routing!
Every mile counts so try to get every mile possible from dining, shopping etc. Use SPG as your primary credit card for easy ability to convert to other programs.
Choose a time first, then look for destinations on sale. Never spend $$$ without getting miles or points for it.
Airline miles are usually more valuable than hotel points, in addition to all the perks reserved for elites. So the quickest way is to get an airline-branded credit card and shoot for the bonus miles.
There are so many ways out there to earn miles to get activity credit. Don’t let those hard earned miles expire. Use the shopping malls to earn with minimal purchases. Just remember to use the airline specific links to ensure you get credit for the spend.
(1) Never miss an opportunity to earn points, no matter how small; (2) Earn and burn — miles and points are only going to lose value with time.
The key word here is loyalty. Pick an airline and then deck yourself out in all of its awards affiliations, i.e. branded credit card, dining club, miles for hotel says, sign-up bonuses, online surveys, car rentals, air + hotel vacation bookings, etc. Sit back and watch your miles go up, up and away!
When you’ve earned enough for award travel, book your flight at least 6 months in advance.
If you are not a frequent traveler (for business), I tell my friends they should consider focusing on Continental’s Onepass program. It’s the only mileage program where miles never expire (or the best of whatever small group offers this feature). And with the continued growth of the Star Alliance (Brazil’s TAM in May), your options are nearly endless with Onepass.
Read View from the Wing.
Always ask. Ask if the flight you’re about to take needs volunteers. If there is a delay and you can get rebooked on another airline, ask to insert that mileage number, then call your original airline and ask for original routing credit. If your schedule has changed, ask for a more direct routing or flights at better times. Ask for retention bonuses when a credit card policy changes for the worse. But always ask; you will never get what you don’t ask for.
Use miles for first or business class to get the most value for your points.
Use a site like http://www.evreward.com to find the best online shopping portal earning opportunities for online purchases.
Amex SPG card gives you the most flexibility in terms of airlines. They offer a 25% bonus when you transfer into an airline account in increments of 20000 points. You can also burn the miles on hotels as well.
Open Airline credit cards and get those large number of bonus miles for first purchase on the card.
My top tip is to maximize credit card benefits. Some companies are very generous in the way of bonuses for new cards (even if you’ve previously received a bonus). Then keep with the bloggers and flyertalk fora to learn how to use them to best effect.
Thanks, keep up the good work!
Make sure you look into stopovers and open jaws when booking award tickets.
Network with frequent fliers.
Sign up for the rewards program’s dining plan. Makes it really easy to rack up points and by using an affiliate credit card you get even more points.
Attend the 6th Annual Ann Arbor Art Fair DO. This year is devoted to discussing the ins and outs of award ticket booking. It is the perfect opportunity to network with fellow points and miles fiends.
On Delta, the branded gold Amex offers a unique and valuable Pay With Points option – 10,000 miles = $100 off. It’s paid off for me when a ticket was $600, but Delta quoted me 120,000 miles to use miles.
Get a Hilton Surpass Amex and stay at lots of Hiltons, so you’ll earn 9 points to the dollar on every stay. Put $20,000 on your card in a year and score Gold VIP status with Hilton. Then, when you have 225,000 points, redeem them using one of Amex’ VIP Hilton special booking codes, GLONP, which will get you six free nights at a top of the line hotel in London – where the exchange rate isn’t favorable to U.S. travelers. You’ll wind up scoring a stay worth something like $3600, and it’ll only cost you about $8500 in spend if you stay at Hiltons a lot and earn the 9:1 rate.
Also – when you book the trip, use your Premier Rewards Gold Card to book your flight and get 3:1 Membership Rewards on the purchase. You can top up lots of airline and hotel programs using Membership Rewards, which makes PR Gold an extremely valuable card to carry (although I for one am very sorry to see Southwest Airlines leave Membership Rewards in June of this year.) You can even use MR points to transfer to Hilton at a great rate – more than 1:1 – so you can use them for another 225,000 point reward.
Also, don’t forget to add on Amex’ awesome baggage claim and trip delay protections, which will stop you from sightseeing in dirty clothes or having to sleep overnight in the airport – flights delayed more than three hours or past 9 P.M. mean you get generous rewards with these policies, up to $250 per night for a hotel. Enjoy!
Read the View From the Wing blog everyday!
Get a mile-earning credit card and use it for everything
Gather ye airline miles where ye may;
for left uncollected they wither away,
but in your account they can take you places!
Gather ye airline miles where ye may;
Let them fly you where they may,
for left unused they wither away,
Read, Read, Read. I have learned much and have been able to save much thanks to reading blogs such as Gary’s and reading Flyertalk.
sdcarver
read this blog daily!
Try to fly on the same airline or alliance partners to maximize your miles in one account.
Read the blogs and travel forums, stay flexible, employ savvy credit card strategies, and approach the planning process with a chess player’s attention to strategy! But most of all ENJOY yourself — earning miles and planning trips is FUN!
Use awardwallet.com to track your miles for free. Mint.com does the same for your financial accounts.
Choose one program and stick with it if you can. Splitting up miles/points means you don’t get status with anyone, and that’s not smart.
Put your bag underneath your legs after take off to give yourself more legroom.
don’t be turned off by annual fees. charge EVERYTHING to get miles/points!
Check out the blogs and be sure to take advantage of even the smallest opportunity to earn miles. Earning 100 miles for reading about some new service may be enough to keep your miles from expiring!
Check blogs often throughout the day to get the major tips on earning and using miles,
but mostly on earning, such as the British Airways, Chase card 100,000 point
offer, or the Latin Pass 1 million point offer.
Your credit score is important, check it often.
Sign up for all offers and programs but don’t forget to cancel when the free trail period ends
Definitely pick an airline mileage program and stick with it. There’s no point in having 100k miles scattered around different airlines. Having them in one place means they can be redeemed for something fantastic!
Beware of black out dates, especially if you bought additional points to get a airline ticket during when you thought you could use it.
When staying at a hotel, call the front desk very late at night or very early in the morning. Chat them up, then ask for a possible upgrade. Don’t be shy about using their name… “Thanks, Chuck, I appreciate whatever you can do.”
Save all boarding passes until miles post – particularly if you are flying partner airlines.
The first step most people miss is doing their homework. Do your research and make sure you are in the best programs, including credit card reward programs, from the start so that you have the best overall experience. The programs you choose must meet your travel behavior. Loyalty is one of the next most important steps and it takes advantage of the keep it simple rule as well. Nothing is worse than having tens or hundreds of thousands of miles or points that are of little value because they are spread out over scores of programs with poor redemption rules, no ability to transfer to partner programs, limited availability of awards, or simply no one program having enough miles or points to be used for a single award before they expire (something that is more common now than ever). Once you have your short list based on the previous criteria, sign up for tweets, blogs and e-mails from the companies/programs, as well as from industry insiders such as View from the Wing, so that you can stay on top of promotions. Always keep an open mind. Programs change and sometimes become much less appealing than they once were.
Enter all those airline or hotel promo’s even if you think its not worth it… the one that gives you (tip to Gary) “100 Continental miles” might not be much, but in most cases count to extend your miles/membership another year or two…
Focus… concentrate on one or two programs first to get status
Thanks!
Pick promos that give extra points
Thanks
Be willing to take a look at other airlines/alliances if your current one isn’t working for you. After being a loyal NWA customer for years, I am now getting involved with CO/Star Alliance which better fits my travel patterns/move from a NW hub city. Sometimes its hard to let go or look at another carrier when you are used to a certain one for years but you might be better off with taking a look at something different.
Educate the young. My daughter and her friends just started flying for work. Although her company insists on buying her the cheapest ticket on any airline, she is learning to consolidate her miles within alliances on a single airline.
Take advantage of as many of the credit card promotions for miles as you can. It is very important to monitor your credit religiously.
Use points frequently – don’t let them sit in your account too long.
Keep track of your credit score and if it can stand the small hit, apply over time, for a steady stream of credit cards that give you a sign-up bonus. Those bonuses are the foundation for building miles in many programs. You can easily earn 150,000 miles a year doing this, with no appreciable affect on your credit score. And you can do this for several years before exhausting all of the card possibilities.
Use your points before they get devalued. Concentrate on one program.
Transfer points that are going to expire into accounts you actually use.
Points have a cash value. Don’t get so blinded by earning a few more points that you spend way more that you may have. Sometimes a different brand may be a better value, even after loyalty.
My top tip is to try and accumulate miles in Membership Rewards by American Express since it allows you maximum flexibility to redeem the points and you can earn up to 10X points in the membershiprewards.com and earn 3X points when you shop through the Bonus Points Mall® website.
Earning: spreadsheet, spreadsheet, spreadsheet: helps you to keep the accounts ‘visible’ with exp. dates of miles, miles due, etc.
Burning: When you get the itch to travel, go big or stay home: very few people have happy memories of TATL Y, and very few people will ever forget TATL J.
Keep on top of points and make sure they don’t expire- there are more ways to keep your points expiring than just flying alone – a common misconception.
Go with friends! It’s amazing how far you can get if you pool group resources — one person’s hotel upgrade with another’s free car rental etc. Works on three levels (1) You can often score a “stay with your friends” freebie (i.e., two of you have access to the first class lounge, the third can usually come along) (2) Friends who don’t have miles are often happy to pay any cash portion of a status change etc. as their contribution (3) Travelling companions!
My tip is always be aware of partnerships for both earning and burning. I know a number of people who have lost out because they’ve collected in multiple placed when they would have done better by collecting in one location–i.e. collecting on both United and USAir, or not knowing about Alaska’s various partnerships. Status in one progam is better than halfway to status in many programs.
Come to the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO this July 24 and 25th. You’ll get great tips.
I like to use my miles for upgrades on long trips, although lately I’ve been using them more for trips I need to take NOW for personal business.
Read FlyerTalk, and if you’re new to the site, be sure to read the stickies at the top of the forum – they have a lot of collected wisdom. Also, when crediting partner airline trips to your “main” account, be sure to check what the mileage earning rate is before booking – that lower fare may not be worth it if you only get 30% of miles flown.
Run a few MRs or other enhanced itineraries in order to accumulate miles, once you have the miles redeem them for international Business or First class tickets… I spent 130,000 AA miles for a 20,000 miles RTW trip in Business Class
I have to agree with others, read FlyerTalk. There are some fixed costs to becoming familiar with the layout, lingo, etc, but it’s totally worth it.
Sign up for loyalty programs, even if it is just your first trip or stay. You may soon discover you’ve earned enough points with that program that you earna free trip!
Pick your loyalty programs, and learn their ins and outs at flyertalk!
When you are not sure whether or not you are going to take a trip, book it on Southwest. You can cancel for no fee and re-use 100% of the price for anyone (not just you) to travel up to a year from original purchase date. It’s a free option to cancel or change your trip.
Don’t be tempted to use miles for domestic travel– save them for international business or first to maximize value.
Diversify! Don’t get locked into one airline – but be open to all types to get the maximum mileage.
Get used to reading the fine print – learn to work with the system, it will be much easier and less stressful.
The best mileage advice I have ever received was how to extend mileage points if they are about to expire. The best and easiest way is to call the airline and reserve an airline ticket to be purchased using points. Ask the representative to hold the ticket and you will call back to confirm the ticket if you want to go ahead with the purchase and if you do not call back they should release it. The key is that upon holding the ticket the points are deducted from your account and then put back in when you let the ticket cancel itself. Therefore, all of a sudden you have point activity and your points are good for another 18 months (works at least for united and American points).
Try to fly only one airline most of the time. It is more likely that you will earn elite status than choosing the cheapest flights. It does eventually pay for itself.
Take the time to research and know the rules! Don’t rely on airline/hotel/car rental agents to know them for you. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been told, “You can’t do that, sir,” only to give the agent a profile code to look up in his/her system which explained that I was permitted to do exactly “that.”
Also, knowing where the rules can be “bent” is helpful as well. I’ve managed to talk agents into giving me free upgrades on countless occasions after delays/cancellations, only because I took the time to look up where the upgrade availability was beforehand and knew where these upgrades would be revenue-neutral.
Avoid Delta.
Sign up for every bonus, even those you think you may not use. You never know where you might fly or stay. You might have a surprise trip and then a 5,000 bonus posts and makes the surprise even better!
Stay loyal to one airline alliance or hotel brand. That’s the quickest and easiest way to accumulate points/miles and reap the benefits.
Concentrate your loyalty to one hotel or airline program and try to earn the highest status level as possible in that program.
Do your research to find the alliance that best meets your needs. Also, subscribe to blogs such as this one for tips and advice on maximizing points!
Think ahead. Plan to book your reward flight eleven months in advance to ensure you get the flights you want. Watch for promotions, too, to maximize your points.
Pool all your miles into one account; that way, you will have all the points in one place, so they add up faster. Use a credit card that give your the most miles for your dollar (Chase will double your miles for $140 a year!). You need to be flexible with your travel dates and seat assignments. Hold onto your miles for short or less expensive trips to save them for one that you really want that may be out of your reach financially!!
you’re the best
i wanna more miles and promos!!!!
credit card offers and things in general are getting tough…please help us find more ways to get miles
If you cannot be flexible with when and where you want to fly on your loyalty points, consider programs that will let you convert the points into gift certificates, newspapers, hotel stay, and anything you’d normally pay cash for anyway.
A bonus tip: if you are planning on buying US Mint coins for a major boost to your points totals, reconsider. Credit card issuers are lowering credit limits as a result of such transactions. If they aren’t already, some may start processing them as cash advances resuling in high fees.
Read both Boardingarea and flyertalk to learn from veterans. They have lots of great infor.
When you’re looking for award travel on a route that’s difficult to score — say, business class to Australia — also look for a higher class of service (in this case, first class.) Sometimes, the increased cost is a very reasonable price to pay for a confirmed itinerary vs. waiting for a waitlist or upgrade to clear.
Get an Starwood amex card. Out of all loyalty programs, SPG is the one I cashed in the best awards with the least amount of hassle. Airline points are much more difficult to redeem.
Use points/awards you earn traveling for business to take your spouse on a deluxe vacation! A business class trip to Asia and a week at a fancy hotel helps to ease the pain of being away from home another night.
Strategically use your everyday spending to earn miles or point. Put all your expenses onto a credit card that earns frequent flyer miles at your favorite airline and watch for generous signup bonuses!
If the flight you want isn’t available, before paying double miles to get what you want, check business and first class, even for short domestic flights. Sometimes there’s unexpected availability for no extra miles.
Read Flyertalk to learn all the ins and outs of your mile and hotel programs.
Don’t ever let miles expire. My sister spent under two dollars on iTunes at the UA Mall and kept her miles from vanishing. She’s not a big traveler now, but some day those could be the points that make the difference.
Redeeem your miles for the more expensive flights, like International, Caribbean and Hawaii. When redeeming Marriott Rewards, book a travel package that includes miles and hotel nights.
choose one or two programs and concentrate your earning into that. Learn the rules so you can maximize your earning and redemptions, and redeem for things that make sense for you, with the most value to you…
Choose one program per alliance based on your travel patterns, program rules, etc., then follow the BoardingArea blogs and flyertalk to stay current on available promotions and participate in them, and use your rewards as you earn them – they won’t earn you interest.
Friends don’t let friends use Delta!
credit card, credit card, credit card…even if you don’t fly much you can rack up a ton of miles just by putting everything on a mileage earning credit card.
Do a bit of research and decide which airline or airline alliance network is best for your travel style. Look at your travel style, frequent locations or desired locations and chose the airline alliance that is most likely to serve your needs the best. Then, Join and work to put all your flights through that alliance. This way all your points are put into one source. Additionally, finding a credit card with the main airline of this alliance increases your base of points and sometimes your status. When you purchase tickets make sure that the tickets count towards your points! Happy Travels!!
Conserve at any given time at least 50,000 miles on an airline with serving a broad variety of desinations, like United, Delta, or American, for that “rainy day” travel when you can’t book a flight within 14 days (funerals, last-minute bookings, heavily booked dates and events). The savings can be enormous because award travel can be booked with little or no notice at no additional cost.
In my experience there are 2 types of travelers who collect and use miles; 1. those that are very occasional travelers and collect for a long time and 2. those who are frequent travelers and collect and use often.
My advice would be to those who collect for a long time, to either use large chunks of miles to travel in business or first class (choose your airlines carefully as the products vary greatly!) or save up and use 1/2 the miles for an upgrade. For those who travel frequently I would use my miles almost exclusively for upgrades as your value for the money is much greater. It only costs twice the miles to book a reward business over economy but the cost in money is more like 4-6 times more. So for the same miles you can upgrade instead.
Above all do your research and know that you can get 2 completely different answers on availability from 2 different agents.
If you combine your loyalty program with a credit card then you will quickly earn enough points to use.
Lastly, it is always best to collect and use miles with airlines that are part of an alliance. That way you have much more seat availability at your disposal.
Set-up reminders to yourself 2 or 3 months before your mileage may expire. Then you can do some on-line shopping (or something else simple) to keep your “lightly used” accounts active. For example, I hadn’t flown on DL for a couple of years, but I kept my miles by shopping via their on-line store for something I was going to buy anyway.
Stick to one airline and aim for elite status!
Always K-I-S-S, or Keep It Simple Stupid! Stick with one or two companies to use regularly (i.e. one or two airlines, hotel chains etc.) in order to create some brand loyalty. That way you got all your miles/points/eggs in one basket. Do a little research too that way you pick hotel/airline/car rentals that have partnership programs.
Sign up for credit/debit cards with airline miles. Alot of the credit cards offer bonus miles when you shop at specific retailers.
SPG AMEX
Collect miles and points only for airlines and hotels that you really like and that are readily available for use.
First, always watch for your airline promotions! I know we got tons of miles on Delta last year with very little effort just for signing up for miles promotions. All it takes is ten seconds to enter your number on the website.
Second, and this isn’t worth very many miles, but I do e-miles surveys to earn a few extra miles. I go in every few weeks, spend a few minutes looking at ads and answering simple questions in exchange for miles. Pretty easy and doesn’t cost anything.
Choose your primary frequent airline based on your airline usage patterns.
Focus on one hotel program to concentrate your loyalty point earning. Oftentimes, once you reach top tier status, other hotel loyalty programs will match status with a minimal night/stay requirement. Some hotels say they will only match status once, but in the past few years, status matching has been easier than ever…follow-up and don’t take no for an answer.
Always pick comfort over mileage. I’m trying to get MVP Gold for Alaska Air’s program, and I already reached MVP with a grueling itinerary on Delta (SEA>ATL>DXB>BLR). I could have taken a shorter routing on AF to get the miles I need, but their Biz seating simply sucks (I’m 6’6″). Delta’s 777-200LR has the new Business Elite lie flat seats…great sleeping.
Join several programs
Learn to use industry tools to find award tickets and availability, as well as build more desirable itineraries.
Get the best value with your hotel awards by comparing the redemption value with the cost of the actual hotel.
For example, if a hotel A is regularly $180 a night, but costs say 10,000 points and a hotel B is regularly $250 a night but costs 15,000 points, it would be a better value choosing hotel A (disregarding the location factor). It is a good idea to look at the value-to-worth factor when banking in those hotel points.
Top tip: Flexibility. Be willing to be a little bit flexible when it comes both to dates and destinations. Also, be flexible about using the points at all – keep an eye on the costs of booking the hotel or flights that you have chosen, and be willing to cancel if the economics are reasonable.
My top tip is to be disciplined about point collection. If on credit cards, limit yourself to 2 cards (one Amex, one V/MC, since not all places take Amex) — when you hit the threshhold amount for loyalty bonuses, switch to the other card primarily. If on airline sites, make slight convenience sacrifices (use a nearby airport instead of the closest one, if needed, etc.,) to maximize points to earn elite status. I don’t fly a lot so I have to be very efficient at this, but it IS possible.
It never hurts to ask – nicely! I asked for student discounts as long as I was eligible, even when the vendor had no obvious policy. I don’t plan to memorize all of the partnerships and opportunities that are involved with each network or alliance; instead, I ask the vendor with whom he cooperates and select my preferred program among them. Patience and lateral thinking go a long way. Happy Travels!
Check out how easy it is to redeem airline miles for actual seats! I have found it far easier to redeem points with Continental and Alaska Airlines than with many of the other mileage programs.
Just read the flyertalk forums and the boardingarea blogs!
Get yourself a credit card that helps you earn miles on your airline/alliance of choice, then use it for everything!
I use Google’s intext notification service for free mileage deals, and use my preferred airline’s shopping site to always purchase any online purchases before I buy.
A little research goes a long way–think outside the box and find your way with miles to the destination of your choice!
on staralliance awards it appears some award partners allow combination of classes at one way prices while others don’t.
I’m a novice at accumulating miles, not ever having traveled enough to accrue a lot of miles. However, last year I did more travel for work and ended up achieving elite status for this year. One key was being signed up for emails from the mileage program and actually paying attention to them. The winner for me last year was the one that had me register for double credit toward elite status. That’s what put me over the top and is making my travel this year a bit more comfortable. Now I’m looking forward to having enough miles to actually do something fun in a couple of years.
Suppose you need to fly from Cleveland to Venice. Never ask whether award seats are available from Cleveland to Venice. Instead, start with the hub-to-hub routes flown by the carriers in your alliance. Say it’s the Star Alliance: Look for availability on flights from Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, Toronto, or Washington, D.C. (hubs for Star Alliance partners Continental, United, US Airways, and Air Canada) to Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich, or Copenhagen. That gives you more than 20 possibilities. Once you’ve found a hub-to-hub flight with award seats, tack on the short-haul spoke-to-hub or hub-to-spoke options (Cleveland to Chicago or Dulles, for example, and Frankfurt or Vienna to Venice).
I only use my amex card for purchases and earn miles by flying and promos on airlines that i can transfer rewards points to. that maximizes my options since we’ve stopped flying like we used to.
Read the newsletter and the website for your program — there are TONS of bonus and partner programs. We get miles for Netflix, our electric bill, sending flowers (including paying for wedding flowers when our son got married last year), our cell phones, and nearly everything we buy — and we usually get double or triple miles from the partners and promotional opportunities that show up (free) in our email box. Also, we dump all our points for every credit card, every debit card, into ONE frequent flier mile account instead of splitting my points and my husband’s points. Makes a HUGE difference — and who cares whose name is on the “award certificate” if you are both flying first class for free?
My tip is to plan early and be persistent. In order to maximize your points, you have to be patient and organized.
Use ITA Software’s site (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/ , log in as guest) to search for flights and routes which fit your criteria and the conditions of award fare in your reward program.
Set up a Google Alert for a specific web search related to your awards program so you get notified of offers automatically (for example, set up a phrase like “miles and more bonus miles”)
BEST WAY
BEST WAY to earn and burn is to spread out to every program you can find without trashing your credit. Work every angle, and avoid fees like the devil. Sometimes is just cheap to PAY to fly and earn rewards too. I have earned over 2 million miles with very litle cash out of pocket. Miliage runs are just for FREQUENT fliers, not the average joe. Enjoy
Trying get to get the best deals, be very flexible.
Many semi-frequent flyers don’t realize that they can often credit their flown miles to a different airline miles program within an alliance or through other reciprocal agreements. Doing so can keep all your miles in one place (or at least just a few places), with a potentially significant impact on how soon you’ll have enough miles for award travel.
Transfer AMEX Points to ANA for low mileage premium awards from the East Coast of US to Europe on great carriers like Virgin Atlantic.
Earning miles quickly is much easier than you think! Every time you have to pay for something, think of gaining mileage points. Get a credit card (like AmEx) that gives the most mileage points for your favorite airline every time you use the card; I use that one card for just about everything. Then, check out what companies your airline partners with and shop through them (for i.e. hotel stays, car rentals, and even for significant things like home loans, larger purchases, loans, insurance and even home purchases). Many airlines have “dining for miles” programs (linked up to your credit card). You can also shop at your regular stores online but go through mall sites (like Delta’s SkyMall) where you get points for money spent (that’s in addition to the miles your credit card will give). You can also rack up the points by completing online surveys for companies linked up to your airline (like erewards.com for Delta miles). Also, check your airline’s frequent flier webpage every now and then for specials offering points. It all adds up quickly!
Once you have enough miles on an airline, plan to use them, but do your planning well in advance, like making reservations 2 months early, to ensure availability of your preferred travel dates. Remember: once made, the reservations cannot be changed. Lastly, make your hard-earned $$ work for you and enjoy your free reward trip to the max!
read boarding area blogs; browse flyertalk discussions; use Starwood Preferred Guest Card from America Express.
[Full Disclaimer: I am one of the founders of the site, so consider this a shameless self-promotion!]
My hint is to use Grativis.com to manage all your frequent flyer program information – it’s like Mint.com for points.
It will pull in all of your points (flights, hotels, car, and others) and show it to you in a 1-page dashboard, while also showing the detailed information just 1 click away. What makes it different (and better) than other point management sites is that, in addition to showing your points, it will show what you can buy (eg “how many round trip coach tickets to Europe can I buy?”) with your points!
It’s in private beta right now, but I’ve set up 100 invites for BoardingArea.com users so that they can test it out themselves and see how it makes managing points easier than anything else out there.
To Sign Up:
https://www.grativis.com/index.php?step=newuser
Referral Code: BOARDINGAREA-FRIENDS
Thanks for a great site!
Michael Komarnitsky
Grativis.com
My two power strategies are to select a few travel partners and be loyal to them to maximize your benefits. Secondly, use a single credit card with a good reward program for everyting. Yes I mean everything. You should have heard me and the Acura salesman negotiating over a $42,000 purchase being put on my American Express card!
As for the travel partners, I have a friend who has used Hyatt hotels exclusively for 25 years. He hasn’t paid for an exotic luxury hotel detstination vacation in 12 years and he can get a great room at any Hyatt anytime – they never tell him they are sold out!
If you get an agent that is unhelpful – hang up and call back until you get an agent who is knowledgeable and willing to help. Be nice to the rep – that goes a long way.
The best idea is to read this blog at least once a day.
My top tip for using airline points is to be ready to plan several months in advance, be flexible and pick a few dates and surrounding airports to chose to fly into, and if you’re unable to find a flight by yourself online, try calling a points representative. You may have to pay a small fee but often they are able to search with partner airlines and get you where you want to go! You may want to check back a few times if you aren’t able to get it on the first try, as sometimes ther is an extra special agent that will go out of their way to help you a litte more. Be nice!
If you are just starting, focus on one or 2 programs to learn the tips and tricks as well as building points or miles.
My miles-earning tip is to frequently try to use the shopping portals offered through airline and hotel sites (for example, Mileage Plus Mall for United Airlines, or Priority Club Shopping for Priority Club Rewards) to buy things that I need. Not only do I earn miles on my airline or hotel affiliated credit card, but also an additional minimum of 1 mile per $1 spent. Even better though is when you come across an item that you might not particularly need, but after the free shipping and mail-in rebate, the item is free. I then immediately post it on ebay and walk away with more money in my pocket that I started with, and a bunch of miles or points.
Sign up for your airline’s Dining Rewards program and sign up for every bonus there. It’s an easy way to make miles on stuff you’d do anyway. Always offer to pay the bill, you’ll look like a nice guy and get the miles, you can double dip if you have a mileage earning credit card.
Try to consolidate travel and therefore mileage earning into one airline program and make sure that the airline is convenient to your home location. That way elite status is more within reach.
Establish a habit to check flyertalk.com at least Twice a day!
Details, details, check the details!
Sign up for every hotel/airline/train loyalty program out there. Just because you think that you aren’t going to actually fly on a particular airline or stay in a particular hotel chain, does not mean that’s a reason not to sign up for these programs. After that, make sure that you participate in every bonus, sign-up promo or opt-in promo available (think Continental’s frequent 100 mile promos). You never know when those couple hundred miles or points will come in handy for a larger promotion that is being offered. Often you can transfer points or miles to other programs via points.com to get that last necessary partner participation.
One tip that has served me well: be aware of opportunities to transfer miles/points from one program to another for free without devaluation.
A good one is Amtrak Guest Rewards -> Continental OnePass. Limit of 50K per year – and even that might only be for Amtrak elite pax. It’s a steal. Eg right now there’s an offer for the co-branded Chase MC that yields 18K Amtrak points upon activation and another 18K with $2K spend. Easiest 36K Continental miles I’ve every heard of.
Similarly know how much the miles/points are worth to you so you know when to earn and when to burn.
Join Thanks Again and become their friend on Facebook. Every few days or so, they post something that gives you an easy way to get 100 miles, like naming your favorite football teams.
NEVER use your miles for domestic travel!
Set up a Google Alert with keywords for your favorite airline’s name and something like “frequent flier miles” or “miles promotion”–go crazy and do all the combinations–it costs nothing and can help make sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity you might not have otherwise noticed.
“What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?”
Think again.
Sticking to the same airline and flying often pay back, most practically and enjoyable in the form of class upgrades especially for long-haul flights, while a few do manage to earn free short trips.
Now in today’s progressively cost- and, hence, benefit-cutting economy, non-business travelers could discover more flexibility, savings and peace of mind running conglomerate search for low-cost flights, and finally say good bye to the stack of frequent flier cards hiding out between their desk and wallet, barely ever in use.
Always be sure to keep up to date with promotions and special offers of your favorite loyalty programs. These promotions allow you to earn points, miles, and rewards at greatly accelerated rates. Read the T&C’s carefully and be sure to follow up with Customer Service if any bonuses do not post.
Try to be rational on *both* ends of the mileage/points equation. It is easy to be rational when it comes to redemption: miles and points often allow us to travel to places we would never go in a style we would never personally pay for. But when it comes to earning points, being rational is even more important. It is all too easy to get caught up increasing a miles/points balance while indulging in irrational exuberance. While flying IAD-JFK on United will net you 500 miles, sometimes it just is not worth paying $200 more than JetBlue on that route. 🙂
Get multiple debit and credit cards for members of the family — teenagers, college students, both spouses — that all credit points to the SAME frequent flier account. Not just the same airline, the exact same account. That way, every dollar every person spends with plastic earns points on ONE account. I was amazed how fast this added up.
We also use our American Express card for really large payments and purchases — from the mortgage on our vacation home to car repairs to college tuition — and earn miles on that, too. It costs us nothing except the annual fee, because we pay the balance promptly, but it earns a LOT of points.
Enjoy reward flights sooner with a Household Account.
You and up to six other members of your household, including children, can earn and spend British Airways Miles together. Each member has an individual account, which is linked with the others so you can pool BA Miles, making it easier to take reward flights sooner.
Jumpstart your miles by getting status on one airline. AA offers a Platinum challenge that can help you get status very quickly. Once you have status with AA, many other airlines are willing to match it. When you fly with status, you get more miles. Now you just have to earn it the hard way next year. 😉
When trying to redeem miles for an award ticket plan on doing all the leg work yourself – most airline phone agents will search the simplest routings, find no availability, and stop. Know all your airline’s partners (both in and outside the alliance) and all hub and gateway cities, and tell the agent exactly what you want.
For example, Delta had no availability for a West Coast to Israel award. But the agent only checked Delta flights. By knowing ahead of time that Air France serves Seattle, SFO, and LAX, and that Alaska serves my city and the AF gateways, I got the outbound on the exact dates I wanted.
Similarly, secure the international flight first. There is only one SEA-CDG flight a day. Find availability for that, then work on getting to SEA – there’s likely many more options for the domestic flight. Many agents will not even search the international flight on a particular day if your first domestic segment doesn’t appear to be available.
Bring your own entertainment. Although hillarious, the same episode of 30 Rock gets old after teh 5th viewing in 3 weeks.
Keep a spreadsheet to track stays/flights/car rentals and anticipated points/bonuses. It really helps when doing a lot of travelling over a short period of time and assists with follow-up, when required.
Keep an eye on the rail awards. Amtrak has double and triple points promotion now and it has a good redeem rate. Their credit card usually has a good offer.
Earn- Sign up for a credit card affiliated with miles,(if possible CHURN!), always makes sure that your hard earned miles actually post, travel when double miles are being offered, and look around at boardingarea.com, and FT, for the many bonuses out there.
Spend- If you’ve got the miles, USE AND ENJOY THEM, unless the price to pay is the same value as the points or cheaper, when then you might as well save your miles for a different occasion, and actually earn miles on your current fly or stay.
certain travel days such as a monday, tuesday or thrusday are cheaper to travel than say friday, saturday, sunday!
My #1 tip is to really BE loyal to a single coalition program that lets you use miles on multiple airlines. Combine that with a high-limit American Express card you can use for spending on everything from cars to college tuition and paying utility bills, and it’s easy to rack up points on stuff you buy or pay every day.
Always keep a look out for promotions!!!
Use your points-earning credit card for all of your purchases (and pay it off religiously). Concentrate your travel as much as possible to one airline and one hotel chain. Decide how you want to use your points ahead of time (lots of cheap travel vs a few luxurious trips) and then execute – don’t hang onto them forever.
ALWAYS sign up for airline text message notifications and/or get FlightTrack Pro or other applications to keep up to date about your flight. When things go irrop, my phone starts buzzing, and usually before the GAs make any announcements. Minutes count when a flight gets canceled, and it is super nice to know about gate changes before others do!
I really like the credit cards and utility offers that earn miles just by doing what you would do anyway. A very fast way to collect additional miles.
Always have a spouse/partner/friend take part in the promos and deals so you don’t have to fly first class all alone!
If your long distance flights are fairly inexpensive pay for them and collect miles. Use your miles for shorter flights, which in recent times haven’t been costing a great deal more than long distance/international flights, may leave you with more miles for your buck!
Just takes a little cost to mile comparison to figure out the way to go 🙂
She’s a no brainer mate- use a the same credit card for ALL OF YOUR PURCHASES and the same for travel – you will say DANG! I EARNED ALL THOSE MILES!? Fair Dinkum?
Don’t limit yourself to a hotel chain…there is no worse way to travel…be free…go where the road leads you. It is about the journey not the destination!
Since airlines and hotels sponsor “loyalty programs” it pays to be loyal! Never jump form one airline to another just because you can save a few bucks. The benefits, in terms of awards and elite status are far more valuable than the $10-20 dollars you might save on one flight.
When booking a hotel in a busy city location or at a busy time of year, hotels are less likely to let you use points for free nights or upgrades. Many programs,like SPG (Starwood) allow you to pay cash + points. I’ve found this a great way to book a nice room ( usually the free rooms are by an elevator, ice machine, lower floor etc). But by using the points and cash option, the rooms are usually upgrades. You still earn points on the portion of the room paid in cash so it’s a win/win.
Another Quick Tip: Start a mileage program only with the major airline serving your area, and search online for free mileage contests and promotions!
SPG points to LAN kilometers is the best credit card deal out there per dollar spent, especially for short, expensive flights on OneWorld partners.
If you accumulate points mostly on spend and can’t decide on a card—- the American Express charge cards and the SPG Amex offer flexible points that can be redeemed for hotels, merchandise or highly sought after upper class international airfare.
As a newbie to this, I’m sticking to one airline and doing everything I can to accumulate miles on that airline. Now that I have elite status, it makes it much easier to stay elite and now I can start to branch out to other mileage-earning opportunities on other airlines.
Save BIG, go BIG
Don’t neglect mileage credit on partner airlines – sometimes really small lines are affiliated with your program. It’s worth a little extra time on the website to ensure that you can be credited for trips on small carriers.
My top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points is to do their research and utilize as many resources as possible. For example, utilize partnered dining websites and shopping websites. If you are going to buy something you might as well get points for it. Additionally, always ask if a loyalty program is doing a promotion for bonus points (there is always one going on). For those looking to use their points my best advice is to research forums and ask question sof experienced travellers. We are a community we are always there to help! Also, see if there are combined packages that are available. It may cost less points to transfer your airline miles to hotel points and take advantage of a combined vacation package. In summation, ask questions! The worst answer you could get is no, and usually you will get tips and advice on how to maximize your points.
Start building your mileage bank by joining every program, earning miles or points on every $ that you spend, and taking advantage of every promo offered.
I’m totally new to all this, so frequenting travel blogs, flyer talk forums, signing up for Amex Starwood, and entering promotions have all been the best way to start accumulating miles.
Non-frequent fliers can still find great ways to spend miles. Examples: 1)Wall Street Journal print subscriptions are an excellent value. 2)Amtrak Guest Rewards (no annual fee) lets you travel one-way in Northeast for only 3,000 points.
I would like to enter as well.
Look at the terms and conditions carefully.
Use RSS feeds and SMS alerts on your phone from favorite travel and deal websites to ensure you see the best points deals and promotions that you can take advantage of while you are traveling.
look into alliance partners and non-flight earning opportunities, such as miles for shopping online.
If travel is flexable wait unil you find a good promotion before booking. I never travel unless I can get at least double points.
Be flexible with travel dates–experience new places when the price is right and earn miles along the way 🙂
Use farecompare.com searcher to get best deals regarding cost per mile and to find those new places to see. http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html
Stay loyal to one airline to get even more miles with elite bonus miles!
Take advantage of promos & join flyertalk.com community to keep up with the latest.
Always look for the new route bonuses!
Get a AMEX credit card that gives you airline miles (for me Delta Plat) per $ spend and charge everything paying balance off at end of the month. Track what you spend and when you hit the annual spending that gives you the bonus miles–switch to a 2nd AMEX point card (for me SPG Amex).
If looking for award tickets to Europe, always call the agents and be patient and very kind to them–they will work it for you and search all of the partner sites too. It has taken me some time on the phone but they have always been able to find me a low mileage award ticket even on short notice for Europe in the summer 🙂 If by chance they can’t find anything then at least you were nice to them anyway as I am sure that is always welcome.
Don’t overlook discount European airlines if you can not get into your desired European destination–fly into where the award is low if you can coordinate a cheap flight to your desired destination.
And most importantly—Enjoy life & the adventures!
Having belonged to several programs over the years:
– consider what you want to get out of the program (where do you want to go), spending and patience help you accumulate points;
– belong to 2 programs, accumulate points domestically and use internationally to upgrade;
– re-evaluate your programs every year;
– lastly spend your points.
Flyertalk is the single one stop database to get more info / deals on ff programs.
Make people around you and your family aware of the benefits of miles. You”ll be surprised to find how many people just let go of miles and don’t know how to take advantage of them. You can benefit from miles of your friends and family members too by doing certain promotions together and doubling your miles.
Don’t forget to provide car rental companies with your FF# to earn additional points. Last year, one company gave 9,000 miles per rental! Makes it worth driving out to the airport to pick up a car, only to park it in the driveway overnight before returning it (three times!)
When booking an award ticket with miles, use allowed free stopovers to get the most value out of your miles and see new places that you may not otherwise have seen.
I give this advice to my family members and friends, especially those who aren’t going to be earning elite status: pick a program that offers the best redemption value and availability. E.g., accrue US and UA to CO (or maybe US, due to crazy routing possibilities) and DL to AS.
Don’t let your miles expire due to inactivity! To keep them active, either buy some token miles or redeem a small amount for a magazine subscription. Or better yet book a flight!!
Pay attention to which of your FFPs have miles/credis which can expire, and do what you can to preserve them: e.g. United requires activity every 18 months, so make sure to participate in their dining program at least once per year or plan to buy 1000 miles each year or do something else to extend the validity of the miles you have already earned. For FFPs in which miles/credits earned disappear after a fixed time limit, either use them fast or see if there is a way to extend their life. As an example, AirTran credits expire one year after they were earned UNLESS either 1) you earn A+ Elite status with them or 2) you get the AirTran Visa Card.
Good Luck to everybody posting!
Pay attention to hotel points – they are often more valuable than airline miles.
Pick your loyalties and stick with them! Switching around between airlines and hotel chains will scatter your points around and probably not earn you elite status anywhere. It’s worth it in the long run to not always go with the cheapest price in order to maintain your loyalty to that carrier or brand!
Make sure every fare/hotel you stay at “actually” earns points, I don’t know how many times people book something and they end up not earning points on it. Look for promotions and BE FLEXIBLE when it comes to redeeming. The farther out you can book the better off you are!
Focus on BONUS offers (especially but not limited too credit cards) and create a system of organization which allows you to follow up on bonuses that you have earned. Be aggressive in pursuing bonus opportunities.
Use a mileage tracking tool for a consolidated view of your portfolio of air, car and hotel accounts.
Concentrate your loyalty to only a few programs(at most) and take advantage of all their bonus promos! They add up surprisingly quick.
For international trips I always buy lowest upgradable economy fare and use miles to upgrade to Biz Class. You still earn miles to add to your account for the next trip.
Have flexibility with your dates, think outside of the box on routings, and be nice to the people helping you on the reservation!
Nothing beats the Starwood Amex card. Easiest way we’ve found to earn and use points. Starwood also has the excellent cash+points option which I haven’t seen from other loyalty programs.
Pay attention to promotions! You’d be surprised at how easy it is make your points go farther when combined with existing offers from Airlines / Hotels. You do need to be flexible, though!
Use United points for USAIR/Continental flights when close in. Use the phone number, United charges 30.00, but you save the 75.00 near-departure ticketing fees (on US Air. I have booked a flight two days ahead of leaving.
stick to one airline (and alliance) to earn elite status. even the lowest level of elite status with united gets you free economy plus, which is a huge benefit if you are in economy.
Don’t forget to register for all those point promos as well — e.g. Marriott Mega Bonuses. Registration is free.
Just check all the websites of your preferred program ona regular basis.
Aside from the obvious (read the blogs each day; it’s the quickest way to learn about promotions and earn all the miles you can), if you end up with miles across various programmes (for work travel, work decides my hotel and airline), use software like pageonce to track your expiry dates so that you never forget.
Remember to spend your points; they’re worth nothing if you don’t spend them! (Ask anyone with Ansett points.)
Some people don’t fly as often as business travelers so racking loyalty points/miles for a flight or hotel reward might take YEARS to happen. Here’s a tip: you can redeem your loyalty points or miles for other things such as gift certificates, electronics, and even magazine subscriptions. Not all people can earn enough miles for multiple flight rewards so for those who are limited in budget or time – it’s another benefit of having loyalty points/miles. Sometimes instant reward gratification is so much better than waiting for months or 5 roundtrips before you can get your reward.
Keep in your mind a list of places you’d like to visit, and when those hard-to-find award seats to a place on your list pop up, book the trip and go. Picking a specific date and a specific destination and *then* looking for award tickets is a recipe for disappointment and frustration.
It also helps, of course, to keep enough miles for a trip in programs in each of the three major alliances.
win please
Use your point earning credit card for EVERYTHING Yes, I mean EVERYTHING (but pay it off at the end of the month of course). I even use it in the soda machine at work. And be sure to sign up for all of the extras such as ‘dining for miles’, special airline promotions, and miles earning surveys. Fun to watch the miles add up.
Check your main airline’s foreign partner airlines for earning miles, not just alliance airlines.
For example, one can fly direct to Taipei on EVA Airways and earn Continental One Pass miles, even though EVA is not in the star alliance. EVA is cheaper than United and United no longer flies direct.
Mileage cards are often the best bang for the credit card buck, and Amex often does have the better mileage offers than many other cards. I personally prefer to get cash back on my cards, though, and spend it as I choose. (Up to 4%).
Can’t really come up with anything better for building miles than have already reported on. Choosing an alliance that services your local airport(s) to destinations that you tend to fly to, sticking with that alliance when possible, and picking the longer route if available that’ll still get you there on time.
Stay away from delta.
Tip: Earning: Do your homework before you buy anything (travel-related or not) to make sure you know all of the latest promotions and are getting the most miles. Using: Same as earning – do your homework. Start with FlyerTalk.
when redeeming points, be patient, and know the schedule of your airline and its partners.
Starwood Preferred Guest points are powerful currency, especially since you can convert them 1:1 into most airline programs, allowing you some of the best flexibility for finding and redeeming awards, depending on which airline may have availability.
Take the time to understand the program and work on taking advantage of the bonuses.
Pay for all purchases with a mileage earning credit card.
Watch out for SPG/Hyatt/Hilton/Marriott/Priority Club free night promos… burn those and save the points! Also, look for the best free night promotions: longer redemption period, less restrictions on hotel categories the free nights can be used for, less nights/stays needed per free night earned.
Sign up to have travel blogs delivered to your Rss feed to keep up on the latest special in mileage, hotels and airlines. Stay loyal to airlines with hub in your area
As amateurish as it sound, I go through my “travel checklist” before every trip that includes bringing a printout of all my FF and FH account numbers. Just in case I have to switch flights or hotels.
subscribe to flyertalk threads to stay current on promos
If your airline miles or hotel points are expiring, you can order something from a partner vendor to keep your account active (and earn points at the same time).
Register in many programs, and see which ones have promotions (e.g., bonus points) going on. If you have options, choose the one that will maximize earnings. Also never say no to registering for a new program… there’s nothing to lose.
Enjoy your time. Reading blogs and forums on how to earn and spend miles is as much fun as the earning and spending. This is you new hobby, have fun!
Use a credit card that awards points for money spent on it. It is an easy way to collect points each month without flying.
I use Priority Club PointBreaks when a travel around the country for my photography. Many times my driving itinerary allows a lot of flexibility in where I spend the night. At 5,000 points per night my points go a lot further than they would using them for a standard stay. On a recent four week trip I used PointBreaks fifteen times.
Plan for credit card sign up bonus especially for people in the U.S. Do it twice or once a year can get you a lot of miles / points even you don’t travel much.
Credit card bonuses are by far the fastest way to earn points/miles, and keep an eye on View From the Wing and flyertalk for special promotions that can be very lucrative! Keep miles in as many loyalty programs as possible and you will seldom have trouble finding an air/hotel award. Book as far out as possible and watch those expirations! Free travel has changed our life!
When dining out with a group of friends and the bill comes on one ticket they always choose to pay cash. I take all their cash and then pay the entire bill – along with my portion of course – on my credit card simply to get the miles.
I’m disciplined enough to put the cash in my banking account and make a payment towards the credit card right away.
Earn some points and use them wisely 🙂
If you have “world points” or any sort of airline reward points, use those for big trips. Use smaller trips you can pay for “out of pocket” on your credit card towards more reward points.
Save. Go big. Go in style.
Focus Focus Focus. Two programs, a cc that generates reward points, put your hotel points into your airline program. I never buy anything, including a house, unless I get points.
Use your miles for Economy class travel and you’ll get a lot more trips. Business/First redemption is only good for those that have TONS of miles.:-) Also, pick an alliance and stay with it. Credit card bonuses can also help a lot.
Accumulate as many as you can, and use them as fast as you can for big ticket redemptions. And the cardinal rule — never let them expire!!
Don’t let your points expire! It’s a great idea to get and hoard as many miles as possible, but make sure to know the rules of your particular program as they can all go to waste if you don’t meet minimum activity requirements…
You don’t need to be a customer of an airline to take advantage of their loyalty programme – think alliances. For example, I am one of BMI’s best customers despite having never flown on one of their flights. The same has been true of Air Canada in the past.
1.Apply for a credit card that offers bonus miles after the first purchase. Watch for cards that offer bonus miles after the first purchase, and then an additional “spend” bonus if you spend $xxxx.xx within a certain time frame. Get that one.
2.Run everything, and I mean everything, through your credit card so you can rack up the miles.
If you are not using your credit card to pay for gas, food shopping, dining out, and auto insurance, you are not getting the most bang for your buck.
You can even pay your mortgage and utility bills by credit card (https://www.chargesmart.com), just beware if there are additional fees or charges, then you might not want to do that.
If you own a home, ask your tax collector if you can pay your property tax bill with your credit card. Some allow it. Ask if there are additional charges to do that, and decide if it’s worth it.
If you rent, inquire if you can pay your rent with your charge card. Some allow it, some do not.
If you are going to make a major purchase, like a car, USE YOUR CHARGE CARD and rack up the miles. You can also ask the dealer to place only a certain amount of the purchase on the card – they will do it.
Pay off your charges each month.
3.When you travel, try to stay at a hotel that will offer you the most points. If you travel for work and will be reimbursed for the stay, better yet.
4.Read all travel blogs daily and watch for new deals, promotions, and other exciting offers. When you get into it, it is actually fun!
4.Enjoy!
Know where you are going, research the award chart, get enough miles (a much easier job with Amex MR), finally be flexible and secure the award seat EARLY!
Keep a spreadsheet of all your point activity. That way if the program makes a mistake- and it happens- you can get it corrected.
If you need airline miles more than hotel points, you should still consider the starwood american express card. Combined with stays at starwood properties you can quickly generate a healthy spg balance. This in turn can be converted to aa miles with a bonus 5k for every 20k transferred
Use your miles to travel to exotic places, such as some small airports in Norway or South Africa, where the tickets are extremely expensive, but you need to plan ahead. Well, sometimes you don’t have to, because not many people book award tickets to those places 😀
Anyway, this usually yields the best value for the miles.
It is often easiest to redeem awards when you have higher status. If next year is going to have higher status, burn them then; the savings in fees, and increased availability can really pay off.
Be smart about what you use your points for. International tickets and international upgrades tend to be the best uses of points.
Get yourself a mileage earning credit card!
If you are going to spend money, then why not spend it and earn something back at the same time?
Take advantage of low fares to boost up your mileage total. Quick weekend trips can rack up the miles if you pay attention to what you earn versus what the trip costs.
You at the cost first. Sometimes its not worth going for miles all the time.
SPG card is great for redemption. The 5k bonus miles + cash + points options are terrific.
When buying stuff on-line, make sure to buy through mileage awarding links. For example, in Canada, use the Air Miles portal and use your credit card (MasterCard or AMEX) that gives you Air Miles…..
Redeem your miles for premium class tickets to overseas, or Hawaii, and Alaska. These are among the best value of your miles. Always plan ahead, usually you can book your award travels 330 days in advance. Keep that information in mind whenever you are thinking a nice trip. Good luck to us all!
My top tip is to maximize your rewards is by combining flight miles, credit card spend, and hotel points – meaning if you are earning miles by flying in a certain program, go ahead and sign up for that program’s credit card. Additionally, sign up for any credit card program such as American Express membership rewards or the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card, in which you can earn points in the program and potentially transfer the points into miles.
I agree, 5000 Priority Club hotel specials are a great way to venture to new-found destinations ! My family regularly seek these reward offers 🙂
The best tip is the simplest: read and post on Flyertalk to get advice on the best possible deals for your miles.
One specific tip is to use Amex Mileage Rewards to convert to ANA miles for intra-Asia flights to and from Tokyo. These flights are normally very expensive; it’s quite possible to get a ticket valued at 10 cents/mile!
Make friends with other mile/point collectors from different programs or alliances. That way you can try staying at other fancy hotels and flying first class outside of your alliance (and vice-versa).
Sometimes, travel companies have some incredibly lucrative promotions (like the LatinPass promotion, through which we earned a million miles, most of which were used on USAir, or transferred to Hilton and Marriott). When these promotions happen, DON’T delay! They frequently get pulled, or closed to additional entrants. You have to figure out the benefits and pull the trigger quickly.
May availability always be with you!
Stay up to date with the ff promotion boards with your chosen providers! The best bonuses can be hard to find/hidden
Try to use some of the new one way awards, often these have more availability than the regular standard (25K) awards. I have found them to be available when I cannot a round trip.
1 Consider using your airline rewards for upgrades to first class or business class.
2 Read flyertalk and the blogs like this
3 Plan ahead for better availability
4 some good luck
Concentrate on quickly gaining the highest elite status in one program, because you can parlay that into status at others through matching. Plus it makes the travel that much more comfortable
Burn them when you can. Points/miles will devalue over time.
Purchase paper gift certificates at a Mom and Pop supermarket with a mileage earning credit card and redeem by buying a couple of small items; mine gives me change in cash. Rinse, repeat. (This is useful when you need to hit a spend threshold on a credit card)
Follow blogs with an RSS reader to efficiently keep up with promos and deals.
Maintain points with a variety of different providers — different hotel chains, different airline alliances — so you can find a good match for where you’re going/staying. More flexibility helps significantly with finding availability.
Find a program and stick to it. Pay very close attention to the expiration dates on your rewards, especially the free car vouchers and such (like the 1 2 free promo by National, those things expire really fast.
Especially when dealing with rental cars try and break into a higher tier as you’ll get better service and better cars usually.
For what it’s worth I’ve found points don’t matter as much as the perks to me. I would much rather get upgraded on 20 domestic flights than get one free international flight.
My advice is for those of us who don’t travel enough to have elite status but want to reap some of the benefits of mileage plans.
1. Know the airline program: alliances and other partners where you can get mileage credit. Choose one airline in each of the three major alliances (star, sky team, one world) and work through that mileage program to work up your balance and avoid losing miles to experation.
2. Know the mileage costs for redeming miles in the different programs: I recently redeemed miles from my British Airways Executive Club for a round trip to Hawaii on AA for 10,000 miles less per ticket than if I had booked it using AAdvantage miles.
3. Last but probably most important for those of us that travel less frequently. Know what airlines that offer the best mileage bonuses for travel and credit cards: regularly you can find credit cards that offer 25,000-30,000 miles (sometimes with the first year’s fee waived). That will get you a free domestic round trip in economy. Fly one or two international flights on that airline or their partner and you will be ready for a free economy international round trip.
4. Bonus tip: I have found that bonus miles are more available for US airlines and other western airlines (especially with my favorite: credit card bonuses).
The top tip I give my friends is to //always// collect the miles, even if you don’t think you will be collecting more in the future.
Earn your miles locally, burn your miles globally. It’s surprising how many people don’t know about all the existing partner awards around…..
Do your homework! Know EVERYTHING about the loyalty rewards program you chose: one-time promotions, how to get bonus points, who are the partners, etc.
Every time you make a reservation/pay for something (store, hotel, restaurant, purchase on-line, concert, trip to a museum, etc) remember to check if you can use your loyalty card. EVERY LITTLE BIT ADDS UP!!!
When you have a lousy experience with an airline, CONTACT the airline immediately; often you will receive double miles or at least courtesy miles. And if you don’t, you’re not being descriptive enough!!
I’ve had great experiences with Delta’s customer service responding to some horrid flight experiences (when you fly 80,000 miles a year, you’re bound to have a few ugly ones!)
Don’t procrastinate when pursuing deals! They are frequently get pulled long before their supposed end date and that makes many a Flyertalker sad.
Sign up for AwardWallet.com to keep track of your mileage balances if you are a member of several programs (like me!). The free version is great, but for as little as $1 for 6 months, you can also keep track of expiration dates for your programs, so that you don’t lose your hard-earned miles & points due to inactivity.
Man, what hasn’t been said? Don’t just look at for travel partners to earn miles, but to retail partners. Earn a few extra points on everyday stuff you would buy anyway.
Make sure you have a CC for both Hotel and Airline miles that complement each other.
My advice would be to “get loyal” with a favorite hotel chain/ airline/ rental car company – higher level loyal members, Starwood Platinums, Hyatt Diamonds, United 1ks, for example not only earn base points but bonus points for these member classifications, as well as other perks and upgrades (free) that rewards the loyal frequent traveler. Also, using a branded credit card to pay for these hotel rooms and plane tickets (United’s Visa, Starwood’s Amex, for example) have a way of being a point multiplier for increased earnings ad well.
Keep it simple! Choose one loyalty program that best suits your personal needs. They sometimes change so get updates, because what you don’t know about your loyalty program can hurt you.
Commit your account numbers to memory and always make sure they appear on your boarding pass!
Earn airline miles with one carrier/alliance but with at least two hotel chains to ensure that there’s a location you can use points on a trip and in case the hotel of choice has no rooms available, that way you have a backup to use when you want to cash in points for a trip.
My top tip for using mileage points is to plan well in advance and to fully understand the specific restrictions of the program.
Do the math. Even if a domestic ticket seems expensive, it’s almost never worth it to burn miles. Save them for your international trips.
Double-dip or triple-dip by using a site that gives you points just for using the site, and then pay for it using your points credit card, and if you can, use your frequent flyer number.
For example, I had a recent trip where I used MyPoints to navigate to United (rather than going to united.com directly, earning me a few hundred MyPoints), I booked the travel using my FF number (earning air miles), and I used my Discover card which was offering a 5% cash back on any travel charges. Triple dip!
ALWAYS look for easy ways to double and triple dip for miles. Hotels, rental cars, credit cards — even restaurants and grocery stores — offer miles for purchases, and you can often have those SAME miles applied to multiple programs. Just by making a simple purchase or by dining at a restaurant where you would normally dine, you can maximize your points. No lifestyle changes required!!
If you get a rep that says it cant be done, hang up and call again until you get a rep that will work with you and is knowledgeable. Try try try again. Often reps just dont know their own loyality program. Make sure you get one that does.
As I’ve gotten older, my time has become more valuable and I’ve had more disposable income. Therefore, I recommend being a little more willing to spend money instead of sacrifice time to build mileage balances.
On Continental, I have the Presidental Plus credit card, which gives a 25% redeemable miles bonus. I pay in advance for the Extra Mile bonus, which is another 50%. I have Platinum status, offering a 100% bonus. And I frequently purchase B fares, which are upgradeable at booking and earn 150% EQM, good for keeping status.
Points are in the details, understand where the bonuses are and how to get them as cheaply as possible. So don’t spread yourself to thin between too many programs
Then to spend them, plan as early as possible and do the research on miles required, could find a steal where you least expect it. (e.g. when nwa.com was still up during transition)
Find the program that has the most reach (e.g. premium class international award availability) like a USAir or Air Canada’s Aeroplan. Credit your miles to those plans (potentially forgoing status on another airline).
If possible, use a credit card that is affiliated with your airline’s program(s) or one that can transfer to your program (Amex Gold, Starwood Amex).
When it comes to redemption, use the knowledge base and be patient. There are many routes between points A & B, so be creative. Refer to FF blogs and forums to get the most out of your redemption. Chances are, someone has done it before.
Use an award tracker such as AwardWallet (pay for the premium, it’s worth it) to make sure you know when all your miles expire and other details.
Be friendly with hotel/airline counter agents! You just may get upgraded – especially if you are traveling on a special occasion such as your honeymoon, anniversary, etc. Let them know!
Don’t forget to read your emails from the airlines to find out about special promotions! And return to the best travel blog to get all the scoop. I use my miles credit card for everything! I get miles for all purchases and it keeps any of my miles from expiring! Thanks.
follow travel sites on Twitter for special offers and be sure to know loyalty programs partners
my email was wrong on my post
Know what your programs’ expiration rules are and what it takes to keep your miles/points from expiring. Even if you don’t have enough miles in your account to take a flight, you may have an opportunity in the future to get enough for a ticket. Keeping miles alive in many programs can also be done cheaply. For example, buying a song on iTunes keeps United miles alive for another 18 months.
Many airline carriers allow for one-way award redemptions. If you have trouble finding round trip award availability at the lowest redemption level, do some one-way searches before ponying up the higher amount of miles
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points? At Christmastime, do all your shopping online for FF miles! I’ve racked up lots of points this way and have traveled to Europe and California using my FF miles.
Keep your points alive, even if you have not taken a flight recently, by using the airlines version of “the mall” or “marketplace”. Earning even a few points/miles will extend their life.
Burn baby burn… Burn and churn points like they are going to expire tomorrow. If it is redeemable for your choice of dates, don’t hold back. Enjoy a redemption!
Earn/consolidate to one frequent flyer program of an alliance. Always check the ‘Fare basis code’. Starwood Preferred Guest card is best credit card for earning miles, gives 5k bonus for redeeming 20k miles to 30 different FFP program.
My top tip:
Never let a mile go waste: Never pay cash when you can charge to a mile earning card, never let any miles expire, never miss a mileage promotion and never use miles for free flights for yourself.
Consolidate to one or two rewards programs, enter all promotions, and use points as they accumulate so much as is reasonable to counter any fears of inflationary pressures the points may face (and limits the need to worry about expiration dates).
Air miles and some hotel points expire. When you sign up to earn these miles, ask the related parties how long you have to accrue the points, how long they are valid and if there are policies on extending earned miles or awards. Be careful!
Lesson learned the hard way: Always make sure to read your airline’s upgrade policy closely before booking a flight! (For example, USAirways will upgrade you on international flights but NOT trans-atlantic. That’s a tough 8 hours in coach.)
If you only travel a moderate amount, make every hotel stay one night and then switch hotels for the next night. This is the quickest way to elite levels at the hotel chains. The hotels always require less stays than nights to reach elite levels, so by switching hotels nightly, you can earn elite status with just 2-3 stays per month. Once you have status, you’ll start earning additional bonus points and upgrades.
The best advice I ever received is to pick one carrier/alliance and one hotel chain and stick with it. It’s much better to be the top of one program than the middle of many. You want all of the points you achieve to get you the most you possibly can, not spread out across different alliances or chains.
If you find you are getting “spun” by the hotels and airlines when you try to use your points/miles, write directly (and nicely) to the CEO of the company (registered mail), with all the facts and details, enclosing all relevant documents. We had hundreds of thousands of points and miles but couldn’t use them for one reason or another for years… UNTIL I did that. We were contacted Immediately and got to have the honeymoon of our DREAMS, and the hotels and airlines treated us like GOLD! I have used this technique effectively with CEOs from several major corporations (inc. Marriott and Delta) to resolve a variety of issues. As my dad said “You don’t ask, you don’t get”! But ask Nice!
Stick with one alliance to maximize your mileage earning abilities; make sure you check mileage earning on partners (you never know which airlines/rental car companies/hotels/credit cards/etc. partner with one another!). Save those miles for your dream first-class trip anywhere! Luxurious air travel is the best way to get the most out of your miles. 😀
Thanks!
Pick an alliance, use it. Pay for everything with your miles card. Use any opportunity for double and triple miles offers. Use up the miles before the airline goes out of business.
Focus on a few – preferably one loyalty programs – for flights and hotels and try to maximize the amount of points you can gain for these programs. Like George Clooney says in “Up in the air” – never spend a dime without trying to gain points for it. Taking advantage of the excellent resources on the web – like boarding area blogs that will help you find all the ways to earn those points. Then use ’em quickly and enjoy!
Earn every chance you can and credit to as few programs as possible (consolidate). For example, credit flights to one airline program per alliance and when staying at a hotel outside your “preferred” hotel program(s), try to credit to an airline rather than holding just a couple of points in every program.
Stick with one program and BE FLEXIBLE!!
Read Boarding Area blogs – they boil down the fluff into the nitty gritty. Join Flyertalk and forge invaluable friendships with people who can help cover all the bases. They got my back!
I use my rewards card to pay for almost everything, and then have my wife book trips. It just works better that way.
Study flyertalk.com and sign up for every program. I sharply regret the stays and flights I made before enrolling thinking a one night stay here and there it was not worth it.
My Tip:
Finding award availability on the internet is not always easy – each airline website has its own quirks. Some don’t show partner award availability, some have a very poor search feature, and some don’t make it easy to look at multiple days at a time. I like ANA.co.jp for most Star Alliance availability, BA.com for OneWorld, and you have to work a combination of Airfrance.com and Delta.com to find SkyTeam awards. Each has its pluses and minuses. Sometimes you have to search segment by segment and piece together the whole trip. It can be frustrating, but assembling this information will be essential to finding the award you want.
Once you have the data – and a few alternatives – pick up the phone and call an agent. You will pay a few extra dollars, but if you are looking for Business Class or First Class it will be well worth it. And, try not to overpay for awards: often times the easy way to find a seat is to pay extra miles for the “Flexible” awards but with patience and the right search tools you can usually do much better as long as you are flexible.
Miles mean different things to different people. Don’t let your accumulated miles take on too much OR too little importance; use them as a tool that fits your personal circumstances. If you don’t often travel internationally, resist the urge to hoard miles for international vacations. If you need a quick, last-minute flight to visit an ailing relative or get to a job interview, use your miles! Put your miles to work for the things that matter to you.
I tell my husband to buy lots of stuff on our rewards card and then I use the rewards for trips!
Don’t ignore the hotel side of award trips. A one-week vacation will set you back just as much in hotels as airfare, so maximize your hotel stays. I like the Starwood American Express card because of the flexibility of the points, good award availability and options (eg. cash+points, redeem 4 nights and get 1 free), and the nice properties. And you can transfer the points to airlines if you want.
Kim
Leave good instructions for your heirs on how to access your miles in all your accounts. You don’t want them to go to waste– rather, you want your kids to be able to use them should you die unexpectedly. Once the airline knows you’re gone, they will probably lock your miles.
Try and sketch out your years travel at the start of the year. This lets you calculate your flight miles goal and predict when you’ll reach it. You can then estimate when you’re likely to reach your goal and look into other methods (hotels, car rentals etc) to speed things along.
When planning travel analyze your plans to make sure they maximize key point goals while minimizing cost and reducing your hassle factor. I am very happy with my decision to switch from Hilton to Priority Club based on cost, product available and points promotions. When United is too expensive for a specific flight, I will book via points on my credit card, use any discounts or book a comparable flight on another star alliance partner. I long ago decided that car rental loyalty promotions were of no value to me and stick with Enterprise who gives me good prices, great service and lets my husband drive at no additional cost. To reduce hassle, I do my research in advance of a trip and put all of my information in a clear plastic sleeve for easy reference including flight, hotel car, reward dining, and entertainment/sightseeing plans
Try not to lose yourself in the accumulation of miles- I spent hours once trying to get a 6,000 point Priority Club bonus…
When I travelI do two things to make my journey more enjoyable and less stressful!
The first is to pack my oldest (and potentially throw away ) clothes. Wear’em and leave’um! I will buy all new clothes and enjoy my trip even more….
The second trip secret is to ship my clothes by common carrier like FedEx or UPS. It is cheaper, faster and guaranteed to arrive before I do.
Enjoy the trip and there person you are with!!