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!
Focus spend on SPG credit card
Be flexible with your plans, and sometimes consider traveling somewhere near your intended destination
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.
Think about which account to use when flying partner airlines.
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!
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).
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
Join Flyertalk.com
Focus on a single airline alliance and hotel chain as much as possible, having 50,000 miles in one program is infinitely better than having 10,000 in 5 different programs. It sounds basic (they’re loyalty programs after all) but the first decision as to which program to focus on is the most important.
Go ahead and collect the scrap miles/points for the others too, but donate them to charity or order magazines or other cheap redemptions.
Also – burn those points as soon as they reach a significant value you can use! Saving money today is better than maybe saving slightly more in six months.
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.
it’s not that exciting, but my top tip is to be sure you’re in the mileage dining program– it makes it easy to quickly top off points and keep accounts “alive” while you’re building the balance.
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.
Practice using the reward booking engine, so you have an idea of what kind of flights you can get both within a few weeks and a few months out. This helps when you are discussing possible vacations times with others!
If you travel for work, see if your company will let you charge air fare on your card, and reimburse you. That way, you’ll get the miles without actually having paid for the flights in the first place.
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.
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.
Use miles for redeeming premium class air ticket. Economy is just a waste of miles.
Keep updating the promotion so you can get the first class ticket without flyong with them.
For some frequent flyer program keep calling until you get what you want
Don’t use your miles for domestic trips, save up for a big international trip in First or Business class and your miles will be worth much more.
Combine your airline and align your hotel rewards card with it. If you travel frequently and can manage to stay in the hotel that grants airline miles, what a way to go and grow your miles more rapidly.
Pick one airline and one hotel chain and use them all the time. Once you have preferred status on the airline and at the hotel you get the most bonuses possible.
When trying to reserve a room with hotel pointes remember that while all dates might not be available for points most days might be. Be careful to ask the question.
If you have status on one airline you have them on them all. Just call up the participating airline and tell them you want to switch over. The will usually match your status on the other airline.
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!
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! 🙂
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!
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 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.
For someone just starting out, figure out which airlines you would be flying most. Then choose one that has the most flights and most partner airlines available for your desired routes. No matter which partner airline you fly, make sure to always credit your miles to the one frequent flyer program that you signed up with. Eventually you will have enough miles for your first award, whatever that may be.
Don’t let anyone tell you how you should use your miles. In my opinion, your miles are worth whatever they are worth to YOU. Use them to fly coach, to fly premium, for upgrades, for merchandise, or for magazines. Redeem them however you wish, and enjoy your hard-earned work!
Plan ahead of time and grab the deal before figuring out what it is! Stay tuned and be loyal.
USE A SPG CARD!
be flexible on your award boodings
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…
Sign up for a couple of credit cards and get all the sign-on bonuses!
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.
I hate to say it, but if there’s something wrong (legitimately), complain about it. The Airlines will likely give you miles or credit as compensation.
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:)