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

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1. SPG points to LAN kilometers is the best credit card deal out there per dollar spent, especially for short, expensive flights on OneWorld partners.

2. If you accumulate points mostly on spend and can’t decide on a card—- the American Express charge cards and the SPG Amex offer flexible points that can be redeemed for hotels, merchandise or highly sought after upper class international airfare.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Don’t forget to sign up for airline promotional emails to keep an eye out for bonus points.

6. Look at the terms and conditions carefully.

7. 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.

8. look into alliance partners and non-flight earning opportunities, such as miles for shopping online.

9. 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 AMEX credit card that gives you airline miles (for me Delta Plat) 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 the bonus miles–switch to a 2nd AMEX 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!

10. If travel is flexable wait unil you find a good promotion before booking. I never travel unless I can get at least double points.

11. Flyertalk is the single one stop database to get more info / deals on ff programs.

12. Charge everything to one card, have fun, and go with the flow and be flexible when you travel — every person who comes your way is an opportunity to learn something and an opportunity to share joy and kindness. 🙂

13. Make people around you and your family aware of the benefits of miles. You”ll be surprised to find how many people just let go of miles and don’t know how to take advantage of them. You can benefit from miles of your friends and family members too by doing certain promotions together and doubling your miles.

14. 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!!

15. Be flexible and always travel when schools aren’t on vacation if possible.

16. Pay attention to hotel points – they are often more valuable than airline miles.

17. When booking an award ticket with miles, use allowed free stopovers to get the most value out of your miles and see new places that you may not otherwise have seen.

18. 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!

19. Make sure every fare/hotel you stay at “actually” earns points, I don’t know how many times people book something and they end up not earning points on it. Look for promotions and BE FLEXIBLE when it comes to redeeming. The farther out you can book the better off you are!

20. Concentrate your loyalty to only a few programs(at most) and take advantage of all their bonus promos! They add up surprisingly quick.

21. Have flexibility with your dates, think outside of the box on routings, and be nice to the people helping you on the reservation!

22. Use a mileage tracking tool for a consolidated view of your portfolio of air, car and hotel accounts. It can be easy to miss expriring miles, etc otherwise.

23. Nothing beats the Starwood Amex card. Easiest way we’ve found to earn and use points. Starwood also has the excellent cash+points option which I haven’t seen from other loyalty programs.

24. Don’t pay the annual fee on a points based credit card unless you use it heavily or have earned a hefty bonus in that year. And NEVER keep a balance on your points-earning credit card.

25. Use your point earning credit card for EVERYTHING Yes, I mean EVERYTHING (but pay it off at the end of the month of course). I even use it in the soda machine at work. And be sure to sign up for all of the extras such as ‘dining for miles’, special airline promotions, and miles earning surveys. Fun to watch the miles add up.

26. Check your main airline’s foreign partner airlines for earning miles, not just alliance airlines.

    For example, one can fly direct to Taipei on EVA Airways and earn Continental One Pass miles, even though EVA is not in the star alliance. EVA is cheaper than United and United no longer flies direct.

27. Mileage cards are often the best bang for the credit card buck, and Amex often does have the better mileage offers than many other cards. I personally prefer to get cash back on my cards, though, and spend it as I choose. (Up to 4%).

    Can’t really come up with anything better for building miles than have already reported on. Choosing an alliance that services your local airport(s) to destinations that you tend to fly to, sticking with that alliance when possible, and picking the longer route if available that’ll still get you there on time.

28. Add the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card to your wallet and earn 3x points on airfare and 2x points on gas and groceries. Plus, if you spend $30,000 in a calendar year, you can earn 15,000 bonus points. There are more than 140 partners with whom to redeem your points for a wide selection of travel, shopping and dining rewards.

29. don’t ignore status in hotels. when i started, i collected united miles but still stayed at priceline hotels. after learning a bit more, i started spending a bit more money but also collecting starwood points. now, i might pay a bit more for my hotel stays overall, but instead of the room with the view of the parking lot i’m in a suite with free internet…and for vacations, my room is free! you don’t get that with priceline.

30. Starwood Preferred Guest points are powerful currency, especially since you can convert them 1:1 into most airline programs, allowing you some of the best flexibility for finding and redeeming awards, depending on which airline may have availability.

31. Watch out for SPG/Hyatt/Hilton/Marriott/Priority Club free night promos… burn those and save the points! Also, look for the best free night promotions: longer redemption period, less restrictions on hotel categories the free nights can be used for, less nights/stays needed per free night earned.

32. Pay for all purchases with a mileage earning credit card.

33. At the same time that you want to focus your earning on specific programs, remember — you didn’t get married to your primary frequent flier program. Sometimes you will be better off just buying the best available value even if that won’t earn points in your primary program.

34. use a mileage or point earning card for all your purchases, but get as many cards as you can for the sign up bonus and then cancel after the first year and get a different card.

35. Be loyal to one airline and it’s credit card

36. If your airline miles or hotel points are expiring, you can order something from a partner vendor to keep your account active (and earn points at the same time).

37. Make sure to subscribe to flyertalk threads to stay current on promos for your ff and fh accounts.

38. I go through my “travel checklist” before every trip that includes bringing a printout of all my FF and FH account numbers. Just in case I have to switch flights or hotels.

39. Use a credit card that awards points for money spent on it. It is an easy way to collect points each month without flying.

40. I use Priority Club PointBreaks when a travel around the country for my photography. Many times my driving itinerary allows a lot of flexibility in where I spend the night. At 5,000 points per night my points go a lot further than they would using them for a standard stay. On a recent four week trip I used PointBreaks fifteen times.

41. Find several (in our family, three) credit cards that are free or very low cost, and that have good points programs with elite (silver, platinum, etc) bonuses. Then split up your charges (for us, reaching $20K per year on each card does the trick to get elite status.

42. My tip is to use credit card offers as much as possible. I do that, earning sign-up bonuses, and occassionally retention bonuses. Some cards allow you to get the sign up bonus multiple times. I also transfer some AA miles I earn to Hilton to allow me hotel points also.

43. When dining out with a group of friends and the bill comes on one ticket they always choose to pay cash. I take all their cash and then pay the entire bill – along with my portion of course – on my credit card simply to get the miles.

    I’m disciplined enough to put the cash in my banking account and make a payment towards the credit card right away.

44. For those who really want to enjoy mileage bonuses, there are interesting mileages. There are places where you can fly miles who are out of proportion compared to their actual distance. These high MPM’s maximum permitted miles are are caused because no IATA airline operates between the two places. The strange thing is that the original airfare is used.

    I once flew Nauru-Nandi during that time no IATA airline was operating that route(the MPM was 7000 miles)the actual flight distance was 1388 miles. I first had to fly to Sydney and from there to Nandi for only $150. The only condition was: I could not make a stopover (+24hrs)because than an HIF higher intermediate fare would be used.

    Stay with one airline, learn the ins and outs of mileage and award programs, read Boardingarea.com and keep flying

    Best way to get miles is to make use of the MPM’s (maximum permitted mileage)on a route. Try to find destinations where no IATA airlines operate, that will boost up the miles as you need to use IATA routes to get from A to B. By using non IATA destinations you use the MPM, in some cases you can fly thousands of miles in a different way to get from A to B using an IATA route.
    How to find those

45. For those who really want to enjoy mileage bonuses, there are interesting mileages. There are places where you can fly miles who are out of proportion compared to their actual distance. These high MPM’s maximum permitted miles are are caused because no IATA airline operates between the two places. The strange thing is that the original airfare is used.

    I once flew Nauru-Nandi during that time no IATA airline was operating that route(the MPM was 7000 miles)the actual flight distance was 1388 miles. I first had to fly to Sydney and from there to Nandi for only $150. The only condition was: I could not make a stopover (+24hrs)because than an HIF higher intermediate fare would be used.

    Stay with one airline, learn the ins and outs of mileage and award programs, read Boardingarea.com and keep flying

46. Plan in advance to maximize award redemptions. For example, even though AA essentially eliminated stopovers, they still allow stopovers in North American gateway cities for international departures. So, although my base airport is a gateway city, I’ve tacked on what is essentially a one-way from another trip as the “stopover.”

47. Earn some points and use them wisely 🙂

48. When redeeming remember to use partner award travel options. Several times they will not be displayed online and the agent will not list them over the phone. Make sure you know the alliance and non alliance airline partners and try to create your own itinerary using a travel site. Once you have an itinerary call the airline and ask the agent for availability on those flights you’ve selected. Have several options in terms of airlines, dates, and flight times. For earning miles use your credit card for everything. I use my SPG Amex card for something as small as a 99cent purchase. The SPG Amex actually allows you to earn 1.25 miles per dollar as for every 20000 points transferred to an airline you received a 5,000 bonus.

49. Save. Go in style. If you have “world points” or any sort of airline reward points, use those for big trips. Use smaller trips you can pay for “out of pocket” on your credit card towards more reward points.

50. Focus Focus Focus. Two programs, a cc that generates reward points, put your hotel points into your airline program. I never buy anything, including a house, unless I get points.