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!
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!