Frequent flyer miles: How to beat the system into submission
April 4, 2008
by Suzanne Keay
With summer vacation looming, many of us will be traveling on airplanes. Actually, many of us seem to travel on airplanes during most of the year, and we accrue miles from the various rewards programs that the airlines offer . . . or we don’t. That second scenario would be a shame, as the miles we earn, with some patience and knowledge, can be quite valuable.
For example, my husband and I will be going to Mongolia in June to visit our daughter. The entire business class flight cost us basically nothing (a few fees for a tax here and there amount to about $100). Had I purchased those same tickets with my good old cash, the whopping bill would have been over $12,000 for each ticket! Granted, we could have flown coach and still have gotten there at the same time, but even that fare was over $1,500 per ticket. $100 sounds a lot better than $3,000 in my world!
10 Tips on how to reap the full rewards of your frequent flyer miles
Most of these tips are common sense and many of them might be something you already know about, but haven’t bothered to do. Even so, I thought I’d remind you of some valuable information. I recently met with a friend who was feeling overwhelmed by the plethora of rewards clubs and what they offer (or don’t).I realized that this might be true of many people, which has prompted me to write this.
I’m not an expert, by any means, but with a little time and organization, I know you can save a heap of money, and not just on airline tickets. Here are my tips, and I’m sure there are many readers who can add to these, so I hope you’ll share them in future issues of NewCastleNOW.org.
Sign up for every program, it’s easy!
Tip #1: Be sure and sign up for the rewards program whenever you fly any airline. Most have them and many of them have partnerships with other airlines. You can do this when you book your reservation. Most airlines require you to sign up via their websites if you want to have a password, pin number, or login name, which you will need for tip #2.
Subscribe to an online company that will keep track of all your programs
Tip #2: Subscribe to one of the online companies that will keep track of all your various airline rewards programs. I use “milemanager.com,” which costs $14.95 a year. Go to http://www.mileagemanager.com to find out more or to sign up. (No, I’m not a paid representative of the company.)
If you forget to sign up when you are due for renewal, they will either send you a reminder email that your subscription is about to expire, or you can set up an automatic renewal option. Each person needs their own account with this service.
As mentioned above, to register the various airline rewards programs on this site, you need a password and/or login name and/or a pin number. This gets a bit confusing because some airlines don’t have passwords, some don’t have user names, and some don’t have pins. But don’t throw up your hands at this point. Your patience will be rewarded.
The biggest advantage of this site is that it will remind you when a particular program is about to expire and it will inform you of various bonus programs. I typically get two or three emails from them each day, so don’t worry about being inundated with lots of junk mail.
Note: you have to tell them which information you want to receive by email. I suggest you familiarize yourself with the website before you decide to sign up.
Link your various bank cards to other merchants to accumulate miles faster
Tip #3: Link your various bank cards to other merchants so that when you dine or grocery shop or order flowers, etc., you’ll be earning miles. You do this by going online to a particular airline rewards program and following the link.
For an example let’s use Continental Airlines. If you go to their website at http://www.continental.com and click on “OnePass Frequent Flyer,” up comes a page telling you how to earn miles. Among those options is “Grocery Partners.” If you click on that you’ll see “Shoprite.” You will read that for every $2.00 you spend at Shoprite, you’ll earn one mile (No, I don’t work for Shoprite either).
In order to take advantage of this, click the link right there on the page to go to Shoprite’s website to register your bank card(s). It’s really quite easy, but you do have to remember which card to use when you go to Shoprite. To help, I keep a little card in my wallet that reminds me which card to use for various merchants.
I do the same for local dining. Some of the local restaurants that are linked with airlines are Grappolo, Quaker Hill (top of King Street, across from the D’Ag), Riviera (in Pleasantville), Paulie’s (in Thornwood), and a few more.
Some bank cards allow you to transfer miles with no black out dates
Tip #4: American Express, as well as certain other bank cards, have the wonderful feature of allowing you to transfer miles you’ve earned to their partner airline with no blackout dates. This also is true for hotels and rental cars. Call your credit card company to inquire about this feature.
Don’t lose out on earning miles on online purchases
Tip #5: Go to the airline websites and search around the site for what they have to offer. You’ll be amazed at how many times you could have gotten miles when you purchased things online. For example, Delta offers miles if you order grandma flowers for Mother’s Day from 1-800-FLOWERS. You’ll need the code they’ll send you via an email and just follow the steps. Most likely other airlines offer this same service for other merchandise partners.
Keep your account active, don’t let your miles expire
Tip #6: Don’t forget, you can keep your account active either by accumulating miles or using miles. The most important thing to remember is that after 18 months, if you haven’t had any activity on most rewards programs, you could lose your miles. They will go away, never to come back again. You can keep them active by doing something as simple as “purchasing” a magazine subscription for 300 miles. See the various airline sites for further information.
Donate your miles to a charity if you don’t plan to use them
Tip #7: Donate those valuable miles to a charity if you don’t want or need them. Anyone can use your miles if you let them. Not only a charity, but also a friend or a family member could benefit too.
Book early and be flexible to have the best chance of using your miles
Tip #8: Typically you will need 25,000 miles for a round trip domestic ticket. If you upgrade or fly internationally, be prepared to use at least double that amount for your trip. For our trip, we used 130,000 miles for each round trip business class ticket from New York to Beijing. I had transferred those miles from American Express.
The airlines only set aside a certain number of seats on each flight for rewards tickets. So, if you can be flexible or if you can call far ahead, that’s good. Otherwise, if you wait until the last minute, the chances of being able to use your miles are slim and you might miss that chance to visit grandma in Florida.
We had to cancel our trip to Mongolia last year and because I had transferred the miles from American Express to the airline, I had to keep them there and they had to be used within 12 months or I would lose them. Needless to say, I didn’t let that happen. And I’m sure grandma would love to thank you in person for those flowers you sent her!
Set aside enough time to get yourself completely organized
Tip #9: Do yourself a favor and keep your sanity throughout this whole process. Set aside a day, or half a day if that’s all you can stand, to just get your various rewards programs organized. It can be very confusing and if you don’t have all your ducks in a row and want to use the mileagemanager site, you’ll only be wasting your money. They require specific information for each rewards club. (See Tip #2.)
Remember to thank me when you’re airborne!
Tip #10: Book that flight and hotel and rental car with miles and then buy me a nice present when you’re on vacation because I’ve saved you so much money! (Or you can just buy me flowers instead of grandma.)
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