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!
Try to fly only one airline most of the time. It is more likely that you will earn elite status than choosing the cheapest flights. It does eventually pay for itself.
Read BoardingArea blogs!
Pay all your household and bills with one credit card that provides you points or miles, including your house payment, taxes, insurance etc. Also make sure to that your other memberships cross over, i.e. hotel points also go toward airline points. Don’t forget to sign up for every bonus avaialble.
Stay loyal to one airline alliance or hotel brand. That’s the quickest and easiest way to accumulate points/miles and reap the benefits.
Do your research to find the alliance that best meets your needs. Also, subscribe to blogs such as this one for tips and advice on maximizing points!
Concentrate your loyalty to one hotel or airline program and try to earn the highest status level as possible in that program.
If you have the opportunity to use hotels/cars/airlines which allow inter-changing of miles, you can earn more quickly and then use the miles as you choose. Also use a mileage credit card to keep adding up those points!
I charge everything to American Express, you can use if for travel, merchandise and my favorite, gift certificates.
I charge everything to American Express, you can use the points for travel, merchandise and my favorite, gift certificates.
Dont forget to keep a record of the credit cards sign-up bonus page.
An excellent way to earn maximum points is to layer or couple as many as possible. For instance join your airline of choice frequent flyer program, thier airport (Presidents) club membership, utilize their credit card. All these earn points and increase your loyalty points.
Use airline & hotel shopping portals for online purchases.
If the flight you want isn’t available, before paying double miles to get what you want, check business and first class, even for flights where the cabin makes little difference. Sometimes there’s unexpected availability for no extra miles.
Research what destinations you would like to travel to the most, and figure out which carrier/alliance will get you there for the best/easiest redemption.
Collect miles as cheaply as possible in one program and redeem on partner travel.
I agree with Ryan: Do a bit of research and decide which alliance network is best for your travel style. Join and work to put all your flights through that alliance. This way all your points are put into one source. Additionally, finding a credit card with the main airline of this alliance increases your base of points and sometimes your status. When you purchase tickets make sure that the tickets count towards your miles.
In my experience there are 2 types of travelers who collect and use miles; 1. those that are very occasional travelers and collect for a long time and 2. those who are frequent travelers and collect and use often.
My advice would be to those who collect for a long time, to either use large chunks of miles to travel in business or first class (choose your airlines carefully as the products vary greatly!) or save up and use 1/2 the miles for an upgrade. For those who travel frequently I would use my miles almost exclusively for upgrades as your value for the money is much greater. It only costs twice the miles to book a reward business over economy but the cost in money is more like 4-6 times more. So for the same miles you can upgrade instead.
Above all do your research and know that you can get 2 completely different answers on availability from 2 different agents.
If you combine your loyalty program with a credit card then you will quickly earn enough points to use.
Lastly, it is always best to collect and use miles with airlines that are part of an alliance. That way you have much more seat availability at your disposal.
stick to one airline and aim for elite status!
Collect miles and points only for airlines and hotels that you really like and that are readily available for use.
SPG AMEX
always use your miles, do not hesitate. Miles are constantly being devalued, so the earlier you use your miles, the more value they will have.
Focus on one hotel program to concentrate your loyalty point earning. Oftentimes, once you reach top tier status, other hotel loyalty programs will match status with a minimal night/stay requirement. Some hotels say they will only match status once, but in the past few years, status matching has been easier than ever…follow-up and don’t take no for an answer.
Check your account regularly to make sure all miles get posted. Keep your boarding passes to retroactively get any miles to post that slip through the cracks.
I’d suggest reading up on all programs offered by those you most frequently use, and spend points smart…get the most out of it, but also be aware of all the rules involved with spending the points.
Top tip: Flexibility. Be willing to be a little bit flexible when it comes both to dates and destinations. Also, be flexible about using the points at all – keep an eye on the costs of booking the hotel or flights that you have chosen, and be willing to cancel if the economics are reasonable.
Focus your travel in a single program, but always be open to earning bonuses and taking advantages of great promotions in other programs you don’t typically use.
Just read the flyertalk forums and the boardingarea blogs!
Set up your bills to be paid automatically using your American Express Card.
Choose a loyalty program that allows you to earn points over a wide variety of opportunities, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, shopping opportunities, as well as bonus offers.
Share a credit card that gives reward points with your spouse, and any teens or young adults in the family. By putting everyone’s spending on a single credit card with reward points, you put more points toward your rewards than if each family member has a card of their own.
Buy items that offer reward points for purchase — and also use your reward credit card to buy them. For instance, you can buy mint sets of U.S. coins directly from the U.S. Mint, and get reward points for buying them in quantity — and they ship to your home for free. So if you buy $1,000 in U.S. coins from the mint, you get points from the mind for buying the set of coins — you get points from your credit card — and you can cash the coins in immediately at the nearest bank, so there is no cost for thousands of reward points.
If you are close to elite status on an airline from business travel, spend the money (on your reward card, of course) to take some “puddle jump” trips that will help you qualify. My husband and I have taken Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation trips that let us hop around (Dallas to Santa Fe, Santa Fe to Las Vegas, Las Vegas to LA, and back, for example) — on airlines that offer “minimum” award points for short-hop flights to help people qualify for elite status. Your frequent-flier club newsletter and emails are the source for this.
Stay in hotels that offer airline miles instead of hotel points.
Use two basic credit cards — an American Express Platinum card that allows you to put your miles on ANY airline for major purchases, hotel stays, and daily purchases like groceries, medication, gas, etc. By paying the balance in full every month you (a) earn mileage points on any airline (b) avoid interest fees and bank fees and (c) build a stellar credit rating. Use a travel rewards card (like one of the Amex cards that allows you to pay over time, or an airline mileage card — credit or debit) for purchases that you want to pay over time. This gives you the ability to pool your points on one airline, but the flexibility of a high-limit Amex card that costs a lot less than even the lowest-interest bank card.
Last, but not least, don’t waste your points. A lot of people never get enough points for travel, because they spread themselves too thin. So they wind up wasting their points just before they expire on things other than travel. Watch the expiration date — and save them for travel. (If you can’t use them for travel, consider donating them to a worthwhile charity like transporting sick kids and their families. ;->)
Suppose you need to fly from Cleveland to Venice. Never ask whether award seats are available from Cleveland to Venice. Instead, start with the hub-to-hub routes flown by the carriers in your alliance. Say it’s the Star Alliance: Look for availability on flights from Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, Toronto, or Washington, D.C. (hubs for Star Alliance partners Continental, United, US Airways, and Air Canada) to Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich, or Copenhagen. That gives you more than 20 possibilities. Once you’ve found a hub-to-hub flight with award seats, tack on the short-haul spoke-to-hub or hub-to-spoke options (Cleveland to Chicago or Dulles, for example, and Frankfurt or Vienna to Venice).
Periodically check for special promotions and sign up….you can miss out on a lot of “bonus” points if you’re not registered.
My tip is to plan early and be persistent. In order to maximize your miles, you have to be patient and organized.
Don’t let more than a couple of days go by without checking into boardingarea.com, flyertalk.com and your favorite carriers to see what offers are currently available and then sign up and/or take advantage of what you find!
Earning miles quickly is easier than you think. Every time you go to pay for something, think of gaining mileage points. Get a credit card (like AmEx) that gives the most mileage points for your favorite airline every time you use the card; I use that one card for just about everything. Then, check out what companies your airline partners with and shop through them (for i.e. hotel stays, car rentals, and even for significant things like home loans, larger purchases, loans, insurance and even home purchases). Many airlines have “dining for miles” programs (linked up to your credit card), and also online shopping sites (like Delta’s SkyMall) where you get points for money spent (that’s in addition to the miles your credit card will give). You can also rack up the points by completing online surveys for companies linked up to your airline (like erewards.com for Delta miles). Also, check your airline’s frequent flier webpage every now and then for specials offering points. It all adds up quickly! Once you have enough miles on an airline, plan to use them, but give yourself good planning, like 2 months advance reservations, to ensure availability of your preferred travel dates. Remember: once made, the reservations cannot be changed. Lastly, enjoy your free trip to the max!
Many semi-frequent flyers don’t realize that they can often credit their flown miles to a different airline miles program within an alliance or through other reciprocal agreements. Doing so can keep all your miles in one place (or at least just a few places), with a potentially significant impact on how soon you’ll have enough miles for award travel.
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 – use them for a flight!
1) Pay the $40 a year for a mileage reward card. We earned two round trip tickets to Europe last year.
2) Then watch that airlines site and subscribe to their newsletter for mileage deals. In the winter, for instance, you might be able to go farther or get more tickets than in the busy Summer. Watch for mileage deals.
3) Book in advance. Rewards seats fill up very quickly.
read boarding area blogs; browse flyertalk discussions; use Starwood Preferred Guest Card from America Express.
Log onto Flyertalk.com every day and learn.
[Full Disclaimer: I am one of the founders of the site, so consider this a shameless self-promotion!]
My hint is to use Grativis.com to manage all your frequent flyer program information – it’s like Mint.com for points.
It will pull in all of your points (flights, hotels, car, and others) and show it to you in a 1-page dashboard, while also showing the detailed information just 1 click away. What makes it different (and better) than other point management sites is that, in addition to showing your points, it will show what you can buy (eg “how many round trip coach tickets to Europe can I buy?”) with your points!
It’s in private beta right now, but I’ve set up 100 invites for BoardingArea.com users so that they can test it out themselves and see how it makes managing points easier than anything else out there.
To Sign Up:
https://www.grativis.com/index.php?step=newuser
Referral Code: BOARDINGAREA-FRIENDS
Thanks for a great site!
Michael Komarnitsky
Grativis.com
My two power strategies are to select a few travel partners and be loyal to them to maximize your benefits. Secondly, use a single credit card with a good reward program for everyting. Yes I mean everything. You should have heard me and the Acura salesman negotiating over a $42,000 purchase being put on my American Express card!
As for the travel partners, I have a friend who has used Hyatt hotels exclusively for 25 years. He hasn’t paid for an exotic luxury hotel detstination vacation in 12 years and he can get a great room at any Hyatt anytime – they never tell him they are sold out!
If you get an agent that is unhelpful – hang up and call back until you get an agent who is knowledgeable and willing to help.
Be flexible in planning award travel. The best
redemption rates almost always for off-season
trips. Keep trying !
My top tip for using airline points is to be ready to plan several months in advance, pick a few dates and surrounding airports to chose to fly to, and if you’re unable to find a flight by yourself online, try calling a points representative. You may have to pay a small fee but often they are able to search with partner airlines and get you where you want to go! You may want to check back a few times if you aren’t able to get it on the first try, as sometimes ther is an extra special agent that will go out of their way to help you a litte more. Be nice!
My miles-earning tip is to frequently try to use the shopping portals offered through airline and hotel sites (for example, Mileage Plus Mall for United Airlines, or Priority Club Shopping for Priority Club Rewards) to buy things that I need. Not only do I earn miles on my airline or hotel affiliated credit card, but also an additional minimum of 1 mile per $1 spent. Even better though is when you come across an item that you might not particularly need, but after the free shipping and mail-in rebate, the item is free. I then immediately post it on ebay and walk away with more money in my pocket that I started with, and a bunch of miles or points.
If you are just starting, focus on one or 2 programs to learn the tips and tricks as well as building up points or miles.
Sign up for your airline’s Dining Rewards program and sign up for every bonus there. It’s an easy way to make miles on stuff you’d do anyway. Always offer to pay the bill, you’ll look like a nice guy and get the miles, you can double dip if you have a mileage earning credit card.
Be very flexible. Be willing to travel to another airport on your own dime to get an international flight to your desired destination.