Win a Trip for Two to Australia’s Gold Coast!

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1. Sign up for airfare alerts at as many sites as possible that cover your projected trips.

2. Choose one airline and credit all your miles to the one account.

3. Research and willingness to think.

4. Bookmark a site like evreward.com, and anytime you make an online purchase, check it out. It lists all airline/hotel points available for shopping at a particular site. The little miles add up, and are also great for keeping accounts “fresh.”

5. OK, one top tip: use the Internet to your advantage. There’s lots of useful info on the web. Keep reading and storing up the tips. I just found this blog courtesy of this contest – looks like I’ll have to spend some time here reading some of the older posts and brushing up on my knowledge.

6. Don’t be scared off by credit card annual fees. Look at the bonuses and the possible accrual, and most of them may be worth the potential earn.

7. 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.

8. Don’t forget the additional bonus ways to get miles and points. Never know when you might be justthismuchshort.

9. Life is short, use those miles!

10. Pick one carrier and earn all miles on that carrier.

11. Earn the miles/points in the cheapest possible ways and then burn them for the most luxurious travel!

12. I love to vacation in Hawaii. So, I applied for a credit card that earns points for purchases. I earn points through out the year for future flights to Hawaii. I would love to visit Australia. If there is a credit card that earns mileage on Quantas or V Australia I would apply for it to start earning points for a trip.

    Thank You.

13. They’re called “loyalty” programs for a reason–stay loyal to those that are loyal to you as a customer!

14. 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.

15. Fly one airline or one alliance, and make sure your points get credited!

16. 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!

17. Try to earn miles with the same airline. It’ll make reward redemptions easier.

18. To earn and use your loyalty points, plan ahead and be flexible. Having flexible plans, I’ve always been able to find flights to where, or close to where, i am trying to go.

19. To use your loyalty points when you want to use them, plan ahead. Way ahead.

20. look for hotels offering discounted point stays. That way, you make the most of your points. For instance, on certain dates 25k Marriott points can be used for a night at a Ritz-Carlton.

21. Stick with one airline alliance.

22. 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).

23. Starwood Amex indeed on every single purchase you do. Not only can you use those miles on hotel stays but you can also use them for flying to your dream destination!

24. American Express Membership Rewards is a good place to consolidate a lot of miles for use on a good selection of partners, and they have some good double/triple point promotions from time to time. Bonus idea – read blogs like this one for excellent tips and reviews – I’ve earned a lot of points from just a couple of easy ideas – information is your friend.

25. It never hurts to ask… just for asking I’ve recieved status matches, waived CC fees, gotten agents to round up total miles to book a flight or hotel when I was short. If you have a bad trip/stay be vocal, write a letter and an email, I’ve been well rewarded for my valued consumer feedback.

26. Take advantage of 2 stays=1 free night promotions by staying in 2 cheap local hotels and splurging on a high end luxury one for your free night (Hyatt and hopefully SPG again)

27. Set clear award goals to help prioritize earning and redemption programs.

28. Earn points with American Express 3x gold card or the starwood Amex for more flexability.

    Then try to get your award with the following information.

    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.

    Use your points for Business or First Class to get more bang for the buck.

29. Focus on one or two programs to maximize your benefits, then be flexible and plan ahead to get the most use out of the miles/points you’ve accumulated.

30. Keep everything in one family: Hotel stays, credit card usage, car rentals, airlines. Always ‘take the points,’ never the gifts.v

31. 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?

32. Have a goal in mind for those miles; it keeps you motivated to accrue and stay on top of it.

33. 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.

34. Scour the web and pay attention to program e-mails for promotions such as double points/miles, etc. I’ve found this to be a great way to increase my account balances for very little effort (often clicking/entering your account number)!

35. Book tickets or make reservations directly through airline/hotel rather then the agent (orbits, etc)

36. 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.

37. Adopt a multi-faceted approach in order to earn the most miles possible! Sure flying on the airline will get you miles but so can a host of other activities! Check out what airlines your bank or credit union has aligned with and get the mileage debit and/or credit card. When shopping online, check out your airline’s website first as many of them link to the e-commerce sites you shop most and allow you to earn miles as well. Check out sites such as http://www.e-rewards.com and http://www.e-miles.com to take quick and simple surveys to earn miles. Also, sign up for your preferred airline’s e-newsletter as they will send you chances to earn more miles when you fly or buy. Most of all, have fun and use those hard-earned miles on something great!

38. 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.

39. Don’t get too sucked in to the miles and points game as you may end up making uneconomical decisions just to push that extra status level. Take advantage of the good deals (us airways TIBs, BA card, US mint) and leave everything else to the die hards. Pay someone to do your award redemption research.

40. Concentrate your efforts on one or two programs. Use the Boarding Area blogs and FlyerTalk to find great deals and tips on making the best use of your miles/points.

41. Everyone’s got partners. Use those for extra mileage earning/redeeming opportunities.

42. My top tip for earning and using rewards points: focus, focus, focus! There’s no sense in spreading out 60,000 points to different airlines, credit cards, and hotels plans. Focus on the plan that makes the most sense for you, and work it. Check the plan’s site frequently for bonus opportunities, credit card signup bonuses, and other earning opportunities, and — if they make sense — take advantage. Secondary tip: don’t become so enamored with points that you spend uneccesarily just to earn points 😉

43. 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.

44. In the beginning, stick with one airline and one alliance so one can achieve status faster and have less orphan miles.

45. Checkin with boardingarea.com and Flyertalk daily, don’t miss out on the 100000 mile deals when they come around.

46. Using an airline specific miles credit card for all purchases and monthly revolving bills allows building of miles without flying and then booking flights with that card often provides double (or higher) miles.

47. Loyalty. Stick to one airline and/or alliance and your efforts will be rewarded with higher status and better perks! Or at least faster earning of miles!

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. Be flexible with your plans, and sometimes consider traveling somewhere near your intended destination