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!
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)