Win a trip to Australia!
Thanks to the generosity of American Express and Boarding Area, I am pleased to offer this contest to readers of Pearls of Travel Wisdom. You have an excellent chance to win a 7-day trip for two to Down Under. Total value of this contest is about $13,000.
To enter, simply post a comment here answering this question: What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
Increase your chances of winning by posting a comment on all of the 20 participating blogs. Each blog offers great content with a different perspective on travel, all worth a regular read. Keep an eye out for their posts about the contest.
Also, you can follow the blogs with an RSS feed. If you use Twitter, a great source to keep up to date on all the Boarding Area blogs is @BoardingArea and feel free to follow me on Twitter, @smartwomentrav.
Please hurry, the last day to enter is Sunday, March 28, 2010.
The contest is open to anyone who is a US resident at least 18 years old. Very sorry, but this does not apply in Canada, US Territories, or the rest of the planet.
One lucky random winner will be chosen from all qualifying entries. Complete rules and details are here.
Again, many thanks to American Express and Boarding Area for offering this opportunity to my readers. Best of luck to each and every one of you winning what will be the trip of a lifetime!
Choose one airline and credit all your miles to the one account instead of spreading them all around. You will have a hard time accumulating enough miles to redeem them for an award in they’re spread around in different account.
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.”
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.
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.
Life is short, use those miles!
When using any airline, hotel, or car rental, try to earn the miles on a carrier whose program you’re already a member of. Consolidate your earning on one or a couple of carriers rather than spreading out the points.
Don’t forget the additional bonus ways to get miles and points. Never know when you might be justthismuchshort.
Earn the miles/points in the cheapest possible ways and then burn them for the most luxurious travel!
The grass is always greener on the other side of the aisle!
When traveling Europe, don’t immediately think a Eurail pass is the cheapest and easiest way to travel. I
rarely planned ahead, but was still able to travel cheap by flying on budget airlines. Beware that they do have a weight requirement. This can keep you packing light and buying things you don’t need.
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.
Know the rules of your frequent flier program. You’d assume that the airline’s customer service representatives know what they’re talking about, but sometimes they’re just plain wrong. Don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself if you’re correct.
Fly one airline or one alliance, and make sure your points get credited!
Use ANA to research award travel and expert flyer/KVS for other airlines. Do NOT rely on the agent to find you a routing!
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.
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.
To use your loyalty points when you want to use them, plan ahead. Way ahead.
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.
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).
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?
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.
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.
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)
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!
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.
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.
Set award goals to help prioritize earning and redemption programs.
Keep everything in one family: Hotel stays, credit card usage, car rentals, airlines. Always ‘take the points,’ never the gifts.
Have a goal in mind for those miles; it keeps you motivated to accrue and stay on top of it.
If you earn hotel points, spend them on that hotel. Same for airlines. Never spend on a partner award.
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.
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)!
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.
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!
question: What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points? Points can be earned on all kinds of purchases. If a merchant accepts credit then use it, no purchase too small!
Save the things you read and learn on your computer. There is so much information out there, sometimes I find that I have to go back and review something that I’ve seen previously.
Find the best reward program that best fits your needs. Try to keep everything within one reward program. Starwood offers great hotel points and bonus points when you convert your points to miles. Stay on top of things and make sure you always check your balances to ensure proper credit.
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.
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.
Allow free transfer of points to other programs! That way, I can use the points for my airline of choice.
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 sens 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
stick with one airline and one alliance at first so one can achieve status faster.
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.
Checkin with boardingarea.com and Flyertalk daily, don’t miss out on the 100000 mile deals when they come around.
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.
Pick your airline and/or alliance and stick with it. Then read all about the inside details in FlyerTalk forums and the various BoardingArea blogs!
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.
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.