Win a Trip for Two to Australia’s Gold Coast!
G’day Mates,
Its here! The contest to win a trip for two to Australia’s Gold Coast starts today! This is an all expense and ALL taxes paid trip. The contest is being arranged by BoardingArea.com and is sponsored by American Express Gold Card. And in the true Mileage earning spirit of this blog, this will be a trip that earns you full miles!
Here is how you enter
Leave a comment to this article with your answer to this question:
What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
That’s it. Leave a comment and you are entered. All details of the contest and trip are on the official contest page at BoardingArea Gold Coast Contest.
One fine print point to note is that this contest is only open to US residents. Sorry, rest of the world, not in our hands.
Leave and comment and may the best reader win!
You can also get regular updates on this contest and this blog via email or RSS by clicking on the RSS link here. Do follow us onTwitter and Facebook for updates on Airlines, Airline Miles and other Loyalty Programs.
Chose one airline programs and get their credit card which will earn miles. Charge everything you can to the card and pay off at the end of the month. My favorite is AA.
Check your program expiration dates and keep track of them! Put reminders on the calendar for those programs you’re not using as regularly – expiration dates will creep up on you and it’s a horrible shock to see your hard-earned miles and points get taken away. Even a small purchase or other activity can keep them alive!
I’ve always tried to work out deals with friends where I’ll pay for their travel via awards, and then they give me the money for what they would’ve paid (within reason). That way, you can essentially convert your miles into cash (at a rate acceptable to you), and you don’t lose out of miles that you could’ve earned by paying for trips that you would’ve spent miles on.
Use your Amex to earn points (especially the places that give double points) and then use them for the longest flight posible. A transcontinental flight is the same as a flight to the next state.
Think about which account to use when flying partner airlines.
Focus spend on SPG credit card
Hire Gary to book your award ticket!
Points = Money
Earn’em, Track’em, most importantly Spend’em!
If you fly with several airlines, maintain loyalty with only one carrier per alliance. Consolidate those miles so awards come faster and easier.
When booking award travel, be flexible and be EARLY!
The magic number is 330. Most airlines load new inventory into their reservations system 330 days prior to the flight date. If there are any award seats on the flight you want, they will be available right after that flight is loaded into the system.
Of course, popular travel days (i.e. holidays, spring break, etc.) and popular travel routes/destinations may cause these seats to disappear nearly immediately after release, but be patient, plan well in advance, and mark (and double-check) your calendar for the correct day to start your search.
Happy travels!
Sign up for special promotions (i.e. Continental’s Twice as Fast promotion) that will get you double miles on all trips taken during a specific period. It’s also useful when you need to meet elite mileage requirements.
Always sign up for loyalty programs, even if you don’t think you’re going to fly with the airline/alliance a lot. They’ll collect over time, and you never know when your situation might change (along with your primary carrier or alliance).
Join Flyertalk.com
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
Try to consolidate your points/miles in as few programs as possible, that way its 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 the game just isn’t worth playing.
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.
Compare mileage requirements across alliance partners. You may get the ticket for fewer miles on the same flight through a codeshare partner.
Make sure to take advantage of promos and don’t let your points expire.
If you are starting to fly a lot more, plan ahead a little. Learn about the different airline alliances, and wiki them. Then choose the airline with the best rewards / elite qualification, because you can earn points anywhere in the alliance, but it’s not as easy to spend them if you are in the wrong program.
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.
Don’t just travel, be an adventurer. One year while booking reward travel to Athens, the agent told me she could get us to Athens, but couldn’t find a return flight. I asked, is there anything available from a nearby city. She responded, “Two days later, I can get you out of Bucharest Romania.” Without thinking how I was going to make it work, I told her to book it.
That trip to Greece ended up taking us through Turkey to Romania. We traveled on boat, bus, prop airplane and taxi to complete the trip. It became one of the best vacations of our lives.
Use miles for redeeming premium class air ticket. Economy is just a waste of miles.
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.
My tip is to avoid Delta Skymiles since it is impossible to use those miles for awards at the lowest tier level!
Read FlyerTalk every day.
If you can swing it, use your own credit card that gives you the miles for the purchase which gets reimbursed by your employer, then get miles from the flight.
Also, make sure the FF program you sign up for is actually useful in your region so you can actually use the points from your location.
Try to focus your miles/points to a few programs (don’t spread yourself too thin). Get a mileage earning cc and charge all your bills/expenses to it to earn miles/points towards vacation travels!
Fly within one global airline alliance and credit all of your miles to one FF account. That way, your miles aren’t spread around to different accounts, making it hard to ever accumulate enough to redeem them for anything!
If you’re a business traveler, ask if your company would allow you to charge your air fare to your own card, and reimburse you. That way, you get the frequent flier miles without having paid for the initial (work travel) air fare in the first place. Then, when you cash out your frequent flier miles, it is truly a “free flight.”
What a great incentive to take a vacation!
This is easy – I use one card for everything 🙂 Keeps track of all my points and when it’s time to use – so easy! 🙂 PLUS I’m always looking out for specials where I can get double the points or even free along the way!
Safe travels and Happy flying! 🙂
Use your card for everything but be sure you can pay it off monthly. Also, make sure the loyalty card you use has miles that never expire.
If you have a family mileage account, make sure that your dad doesn’t dip into your balance and steal miles for his business class upgrades
Pick your primary plans carefully and don’t forget the expiration policies.
Looking to upgrade a full-fare economy trans-pacific? Thai often has Y/B fares on LAX-BKK which are much cheaper than full-fare economy on UA or AC. Use a Star Alliance upgrade award and enjoy 15 hours of almost-lie-flatness.
USE A SPG CARD!
I can only speak for Air loyalty programs, but my best advice is to pick one carrier and aim for Elite status. Once you travel as a top tier elite, you will never want to go back.
If you are elite in multiple airlines, make sure they are in seperate alliances so that all of your bases are covered for trips that your one carrier may not fly to. Eg… Oneworld and Skyteam.
Burn as you earn…
Be Happy
Think Positive
Read FlyerTalk
use a mile-earning credit card for everything you buy!
Use your Delta AMEX earn lots of miles!
Actually be loyal – within monetary, time, and location constraints, shift your spending to concentrate on a small number of brands. This also allows you to read up on promotions that are specific to your brands and learn the ins and outs of redeeming from that brand, instead of spreading yourself thin to the point where you never have enough points in a single program to redeem anything, nor any idea what the good values are and how to get them.
Points = Money
Earn’em, Track’em, most importantly Spend’em!
You don’t need to plan 364 days in advance for award travel. But 150 days is a good rule of thumb, I’ve found.
Do your homework. Read as many travel blogs as possible and register for as many promotions as possible, those points will add up!
I use the American Express Starwood Card to earn points. I also have a mileage card from an airline, which I rarely use, because the rules and restrictions to actually earn a flight have taken a turn for the worst.
Key benefits of the American Express Card through Starwood:
1. Unless I am mistaken, you’re automatically upgraded to Gold Status if you spend xx amount of dollars per year. I’ve received a ton of room upgrades, even governor suites, simply by being a Gold Preferred member with Starwood using the Starwood Amex. The bonus is that I have always been offered a free upgrade & haven’t had to ask. If I don’t get one, that’s fine…I’ve received more than enough.
2. I earn even more points when I stay at a Starwood property.
3. Starwood has multiple redemption options (cash + points, or just points).
I spend a great deal of time in Southeast Asia, which means I can get some rooms for as little as 2000 points per night. If I want to stay at a great 4-5 star resort as an option, I can generally stay for $45-60 USD per night if I use some of my points towards the rate (this can drop the price from 100 USD + per night up). I also tend to get special offers from the hotels/resorts simply be being a member.
You can also earn extra points by shopping on the American Express site and/or earn additional discounts:)
Don’t let points or miles expire unused! You can easily credit a car rental that you’re already going to make to extend the life of miles in most programs, or use many programs’ online shopping malls to buy a giftcard or something as small as a single iTunes song.
Keep an eye out for bonus promotions from airline credit cards or frequent flier programs sent in email or snail mail. Don’t forget to register for the promotion. Once I bought a $2 cookie on a flight with the airline’s credit card and received 1000 miles.
Make sure that you are receiving notifications from the airlines rewards service. Too many people lose their points before they get a chance to use them, because eligibility rules change and points unexpectedly expire.
Stick to your favorite companies (airline, car rental, hotel) to really rack up the miles! Sometimes they will offer their most loyal customers really great bonus mile options.
My tip is to have the credit card with the program you are in. This will be most efficient in earning points per spending. For instance, if you are platinum, Marriott credit card allows you to earn 20 points / $1 spent at Marriott (10 base pts + 5 Plat pts + 5 credit card pts); Amex Starwood allows you to earn 5 points / $1 spent (2 base pts + 1 Plat pts + 2 credit card pts), etc…
My tip on spending is to be flexible and make use of the benefits offer by each program, such as staying 4 nights and get 1 night free, pointsaver stay. Plan and make reservation early since more options are available and the reservation can be cancelled should your plan changes.