Missed opportunities
The thing I feel the worst about, when it comes to earning miles, is missing opportunities to earn. These come for me in two favors: one where I never even knew I could have earned extra miles (or extra EQM) till it was too late and second where I did what I needed to do to earn the miles, but the miles never posted and I lost track, till it was too late.
The first is a discovery issue. How often should I track FlyerTalk, MilePoint and BoardingArea to make sure I am not missing out? I have chronic FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) and am on these sites as often as possible, but still I miss out. One way I miss out ever so often is on dining miles. Why did I eat Indian when the Thai place place next door is the one offering miles? If only I had known of the miles and I could have convinced myself that Thai food is what I really wanted. Why can’t restaurants put up a sign that says – get your miles here while you eat?
The second is a tracking issues. I talked about this in my post on tracking airline miles. Several readers offered up how they address this via comments. While most use AwardWallet to track miles and that is the best site to do so, it is not a reconciliation tool. I use a spreadsheet to track all activity that has taken place which I think should earn miles – eating out, filling out surveys, customer service events, signing up for promos, etc. I then mark these as ‘cleared’ as the miles post. Or alternatively, call the airline/hotel if they do not post in a reasonable time. Reminders on my phone help me with the calling part.
If you struggle with these and either have a solution on how to reduce these ‘missed opportunities’, we would like to hear from you. We here at UnRoadWarrior would like to document the ways people address these challenges for all to learn and explore ways to automate these in some way. Keep a look out… And of course, share how you avoid these ‘Missed Opportunities’ in the comments section below.
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I use a spreadsheet: program, offer, terms cost, dates.
i use conditional formatting to highlight empty “points received” cell so I know which ones need to be filled in. i also do some date math so overdue hits get highlighted.
impossible to keep it straight otherwise.
I simply add a flagged reminder to my calendar when I do an offer that requires follow up to be sure it posted. I use award wallet and when the reminder pops up I go check if it posted and if there are several in a short time frame I check them all off at once. Using a smartphone with reminders works best for me.