As some of you may have heard, Boarding Area is giving away a free trip to Australia’s Gold Coast. This trip includes airfare, hotel, excursions, meals, PLUS enough cash to cover the approximate taxes. What a great prize!! The official rules and information can be found here.
So, your immediate questions must be: How to I enter?? And how do I WIN????
The answer: Write a comment to this post about the following: What is your top tip for people who want to earn and use their loyalty points? Then one person who commented will be chosen by a random drawing. That person will then be entered in the Boarding Area drawing with the winners from the other blogs. So easy!!! Only one entry per person.
Good luck! I would LOVE for one of my readers to win this trip. Unfortunately, I cannot award it to myself (or my husband) but one of my readers would be the next best thing 🙂
(And for those who commented early–please don’t comment again, I will count those for the drawing. Thanks!)
If you are just starting, focus on one or 2 programs to learn the tips and tricks as well as building up points or miles.
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.
Don’t lose track! They are tricky when they expire.
Plan early, be flexible and be willing to pay your own way for part of the itinerary.
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!
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.
Details, details, check the details!
Use a single credit card for everything you purchase including travel, household and personal expense, utilities, and paying your taxes. The card you use should be the one that has the best rewards program and flexibility for your personal lifestyle.
Churn credit cards and bank sign up bonuses
Read the blogs for tips and follow their advise.
Make sure all your points and miles post accurately. Pay particular attention to bonuses you are entitled to.
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.
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.
When looking for award tickets on AA, sometimes coach saver awards aren’t available. If that’s the case don’t forget to check business saver awards since they are often the same price as anytime coach awards.
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.
Good things come to those who dedicate — in other words, fly one and fly often. Status on one airline (or alliance)brings enormous benefits including double and triple miles. But don’t get lost in just getting more miles — spend them!
If a loyalty program starts to give out (a lot of) miles/points for free, burn it as soon as you can. They will depreciate REALLY QUICK.
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 flight or stay; also, often cash & points can be your best option.
opening up a credit card with smaller airlines is better than bigger ones with alot of customers. southwest has good point earnings programs but smaller ones like frontier or airtran offer good deals cause they are smaller and more in need of customers.
I fly weekly on business, while my husband does not. So all of his spending on debit and credit cards is linked to MY frequent flier accounts — as are the debit & credit cards we give to our teenage and college-age kids. This way, every dollar spent on plastic by six people is credited to a single FF account. This really racks up the points.
We use our airline credit & debit cards for everything we buy that costs less than $250 — and our American Express card for everything over that amount, including college tuition, the mortgage, major home and car repairs, new appliances, and (my favorite) auction spending. (The number of points you can get buying great stuff at auctions is amazing — and I can often resell what I buy at a profit, AND get points.)
I also look for things I can buy and turn into cash. For instance, you can order mint proofs of U.S. coins in bulk ($10,000 at a time), get them shipped for free, earn points from the mint for buying them — plus earn points from your credit card company for buying them — then turn around and cash in the coins at the bank, and you wind up with points, but zero out-of-pocket cash.
If you aren’t a business traveler who flies a lot, I tell my friends in the US to gravitate towards Continental’s Onepass program. It’s the only program where miles never expire, so you can slowly but surely build towards a reward over however many years you need. Nothing is more discouraging for an aspiring frequent flyer than to have their miles erased for no good reason.
Read flyertalk and bogs like this one for savvy travel trip and advice on mile consolidaton.
Pay attention to promotions within your chosen program and consolidate your travel within the time periods of the promotion
Don’t waste points or miles on things you can afford. Spend them to upgrade your travel experience!
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
Frequent flier miles are only for those who are flexible, can plan far in advance, and know how to work the system. Stick to cash back cards if you are not.
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!
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.
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.
Tip: Start a mileage program only with the major airline serving your area, and search online for free mileage contests and promotions! (and check this site frequently)
For airlines, look at your flight cost to miles earned when deciding how to book an award ticket. I’ve found that when flying long distances you can get more miles for your buck, so it might be better to pay for the long flights and do award tickets for the short ones.
Calculators are helpful 🙂
SPG points to LAN kilometers is the best credit card deal out there per dollar spent, especially for short, expensive flights on OneWorld partners.
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 questions of 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.
Take advantage of all the benefits of award travel. Many airlines offer free stopovers and/or open jaw travel. Also, for international travel, a stay of less than 24 hours in a connecting city is generally not counted as a stopover.
Try to consolidate your points/miles in as few programs as possible, that way it’s easier to save up for the big award. I use Alaska and United as my two airline programs and I can earn (and redeem) miles on ALL of the major domestic airlines and many, many major international carriers. Where possible, use a program like starwood or american express membership rewards for your credit card so you can move the points easily into many programs. When booking an award, plan as far in advance as you can, and be flexible, never, ever, ever redeem miles for a non-”saver” award – if you’re going to be paying that many miles to get a trip for “free” the game just isn’t worth playing.
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 at the terms and conditions carefully.
Use a credit card that earns miles/points that can be redeemed for more than one airline/hotel program. With all the changes in the travel industry, it’s nice to have options.
If travel is flexable wait unil you find a good promotion before booking. I never travel unless I can get at least double points.
look into alliance partners and non-flight earning opportunities, such as miles for shopping online.
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 credit card that gives you airline miles 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 more miles–switch to 2nd 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!
1. WHen you fly with a new airline, check to see if they are a member of a FF alliance. If they are and you alreay have points with a partner, make sure you are earning for the partner. If not, then
always always sign up for a frequent flyer program, even if you think you will never fly them again. You never know when they might join a partnership, which might enablle you to use those miles.
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!!
Flyertalk is the single one stop database to get more info / deals on ff programs.
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!