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

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1. Stay organized and document every promotion you enter/sign-up for.

2. Always consider an airline’s partners when trying to book award travel. More likely than not, this will open up new possibilities to redeem at the lower mileage levels.

3. Use partner AMEX cards to rack up points in a jiffy

4. Don’t just credit flight miles to your FF program, but also take advantage of partner offers where they make sense – credit cards, dining, etc. This can go a long way to earning those rewards, particularly for infrequent fliers. Through credit card use and partner offers, I earned enough miles to fly myself and my wife to Hawaii for our one year anniversary. Although I’m now mid-tier (Premier Exec) on United, I was a 3-4 times a year flier at the time.

5. Don’t overlook earning opportunities that may not be obvious. Sometimes all that is required to earn miles is a single purchase (e.g., 750 miles from deluxe.com through e-miles.com). While the cheapest items on websites may be hard do find, our friend Google will allow you to search a single domain (e.g. deluxe.com). Try searching for terms like “$1.”, “1.”, “$2.”, etc. to find cheap items. With this method, I earned 750 US miles for buying a $3 check cover shipped free. .4cpm!

6. Concentrate your miles and flights 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. Subscribe to ExpertFlyer. Check Flyertalk obsessively.

7. 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.

8. Be loyal to one of the global airline teams (which has the many flights from your point of origin) and try to have all of your miles credit to one Frequent Flyer account. Also, try finding different credit cards/ programs that give you non-flying miles/points bonuses on that account This will ensure that your miles are always dumped to one account, making it easy to accumulate enough miles/points to redeem anytime and anywhere.

9. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of your miles/points. You never know when the company might make a mistake, and it will help you plan your travel to make sure you get the most out of each trip.

   Also utilize online tracking consolidator websites like http://www.yodlee.com to keep track of multiple travel accounts in 1 convenient location.

10. Use your points-accumulating credit card(s) for every possible purchase including household bills and the entire meal bill with friends (hopefully they’ll pay you back in cash or by check!).

11. Maximize your miles by using programs tracked by “miles” for long trips and using programs tracked by “segments” for shorter trips. This works great for Southwest Airlines vs. US Air in Philadelphia!

12. Accumulating miles takes a bit of work, much like making money. So continue doing your homework & overtime you will be successful as I continue to be.

13. If you have miles that are about to expire, it’s usually pretty easy to extend them my purchasing something small (preferably something you would have purchased anyway) in the airline’s online mall.

14. SPG…The best points program ever! Earn points through American Express and then use them for a lot of different programs. I use mine to get discounted hotel rooms, for example, I’m staying using a few points and only $60 bucks to stay a night in Hawaii! And they convert to a lot of airlines miles programs. I gave 20K SPG points to Hawaiian Air and got 25K miles!

15. learn from those who write these blogs and post on flyertalk. the information available can put you on your way to frugal, while luxurious, travel

16. *** Learn the intricacies of status matching ***

    Occasionally there are promotions with hotels and airlines that temporarily boost elite status in their program. Take your new elite status level and match to competing programs! With some careful planning you can quickly attain elite status in several programs with an opportunity to “challenge” and further upgrade or keep your new level of status.

    Once you reach the higher levels of elite status in a program, you will earn bonuses and your redemptions will be more valuable.

17. 1)Make sure your miles program matches your award goals.
    2)If you have a mileage credit card make sure it allows you to redeem awards with numerous carriers.
    3)Start looking for your award seats 6 months in advance of your trip.
    4)Don’t forget to check code-share partners for award seats.
    5)Look for award seats on midweek days.
    6)Since carriers change their award inventory on Friday & Saturday nights at midnight, check then for award seats.
    7)Try BookYourAward.com. Worth the price to get the seat you want.(According to Wendy Perrin at Conde Nast Traveler.)

18. Use a mileage-earning credit card for *everything*.

19. Take advantage of credit card sign-up bonuses for new card applications.

20. Buy a subscription to Mileage Manager and use it to keep track of all of your balances. If you want to redeem for a trip to a specific destination, it will do a daily check of all your qualifying programs to see what’s available, when, and in what class and keep you up-to-date by email.

21. Don’t always choose the frequent flyer program of the airline you fly on. Check their alliance partners, another program may be better suited to your needs and wants.

    Happy Flying!

    -Fish

22. Set a goal and work towards it. This year, my goals was free travel in F to Africa. Best way for that, is BA mileage card from CHASE and spend my 30K a year on that card. Badabing, we (yes, two is better than one) will have two F tickets to SA.

23. I use Yodlee MoneyCenter to keep track of my miles. It’s free.

24. When the CSR says no, don’t give up!

25. Try to recruit your wife or husband to become elite in a miles or hotel program. Take mini-vacations to close by destinations to build up your point balances.

26. 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!

27. Ask my friend Sandy Y. She knows everything about frequent flying. That, and read FlyerTalk.

28. 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!

29. 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.

30. Focus. Do you research and figure out which cities you visit often and what airlines you tend to take the most. Then try to rack up as many miles as you can with those airlines by flying and through their credit cards. Don’t spread yourself too thin by having couple thousand points in different accounts, but not enough to get a trip or qualify for a status. Limiting yourselves to two or thre alliances will do you a lot of good.

31. Always apply for credit cards when they have high mileage promotions for opening a new account.

32. to maximize earning, put everything you buy on a mileage earning credit card, no matter how small the expense. To use miles, be as flexible as possible. I usually call and ask the agent to find seats at a specific airport, and anything within 100 miles and within 2 or 3 days. I’ve always found seats, even to Italy in the summer on Delta.

33. Get a credit card to go with the program–even if only for the signup bonus. It gives you a big head start on miles, and makes the whole game seem a lot more worthwhile.

34. Top tip is to make sure you choose one airline partner and stick with the program. If you really want to maximize points, make sure that partner is one which has partnerships with hotels.

35. Consolidate your miles

36. Read the blogs then practice what they preach.

37. If you are a student or under age 26, use sites like student universe for cheap fares. Also if you are a college or graduate student, enroll in college plus and get 10,000 free United miles after you graduate!

38. Don’t use your points on low cost/distance trips! Save them for the expensive ones!

39. With respect to airlines – 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.

40. Pay Attention!!! Watch your statements to catch any errors or missing trips, keep an eye out for promotions to increase your miles/points or standing, read the blogs and message boards, don’t forget to check for cross-promotions with credit cards and other companies…

41. Think outside the box. Accrue miles on the best partner of the airline you are flying, not the necessarily the airline itself.

42. Pick a milage program and stick with it. The milage program you chose depends on the type of traveler you are – what kind of hotels do you like? Rental cars? etc. If you ever have questions about milage programs, checkout flyertalk.com.

    Jonathan

43. I don’t always get to choose who I fly, so I make sure to maximise my miles by using companies with partnerships.

    Be sure to keep an eye on those expiration dates! Sometimes simply renewing a magazine or buying flowers online will extend your FF miles expiration dates.

44. One useful trick is to register for very promotion you come across on these blogs. Even if you think it cannot possibly apply to you (it may in the future), or if it’s just 50 miles (wouldn’t it suck to be 50 miles short for an award?), or for a program you don’t participate in (there are ways to transfer miles)… one never knows.

45. Read blogs like this one and grab the deals when they are there. Be sure to only apply for the most rewarding credit card and combine offers with your travel plans. If you don’t have one, just create.

46. Pick a program that you like and stick to it, even if it ends up costing a little more. They’re not called loyalty rewards for nothing.

47. Plan ahead of time and grab the deal before figuring out what it is! Stay tuned and be loyal.

48. Pick the best alliance for your travel needs, and back that up with another airline. For me, in Seattle, United (Star Alliance) and Alaska offers a good mix of earning and redemption choices.

49. It may take a long time to save the miles for two international premium class awards, so if you’re just a casual flier don’t worry about spending the miles on a domestic coach ticket – just make sure you’re getting a good value for the miles, such as using them for a late booking or a holiday period!

50. Use miles to live big. Domestic flights are (relatively) cheap, so aspire to earn enough miles for international tickets only. The kind of trips that will make your friends jealous.