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!
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