Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 5

Earning Frequent Flyer Miles

This week, we will finally discuss earning frequent flyer miles.  There are many ways to earn frequent flyer miles and some are more complicated than others.  We will go in order from most simple to most complicated.  

Note: This is not in order of most lucrative because I don't think most people want to play that game
more than every once in a while, but scroll down to credit card bonuses if you interested or curious.

Earning Miles through Flights

The easiest way to earn miles is to sign up for frequent flyer programs.  Make sure to give your frequent flyer number when you fly and collect the miles.  Otherwise, you could be leaving thousands of miles on the table.

• For example, this past Summer I flew from JFK to Tel Aviv via Istambul on Turkish Airlines.  I earned 11,440 United Airlines miles for the roundtrip ticket for both myself and my wife.

• Considering that a roundtrip flight to Israel on Star Alliance partners is 80,000 United miles, I am essentially getting a free ticket after 7 fights (80,000/11,440 = 7.02).  If you don't sign up for the program, you just forfeit those miles.

Earning Miles through Regular Credit Card Usage

Just about every airline has their own credit card.  For example, here is the United, US Airways, and JetBlue credit cards.  Many airlines even have multiple cards, like the American Airlines Visa, American Airlines Mastercard and American Airlines American Express and the many Delta American Express credit cards (All the cards on this page are non-affiliate links)

Airline credit cards have many perks for when you are flying, but I don't use them for regular spending.  Airline cards almost all have annual fees and usually earn one mile for every dollar spent. They often come with perks like free checked bags and airlines lounges that can make up for the annual fee, but only if you use them enough.

Instead, go with the Starwoods credit card from American Express.  You get the same 1 point for every dollar except that for every 20,000 Starpoints, you will get 25,000 miles into the program you transfer to.  Here is a list of transfer partners.  If you have a American Airlines card, you can only earn American Airlines points.  With a Starwoods card, you can be earning United, American, US Airways or Delta points depending on how you want to transfer your points.  Keep in mind that for United, you will only get 1 mile for every 2 starpoints.  Big bummer.

• Personally, I would rather earn 2% cashback minimum for every transaction through my Fidelity American Express.  Then, I can use that money to buy a flight without any blackouts and earn miles on the flight (flights booked with miles do not earn miles).
• Let's do the math - If I spend $64,000 on my Starwoods at 1.25 miles per dollar I will have 80,000 miles, enough for a roundtrip to Israel on US Airways, which will almost definitely be with a stopover and I have to flexible in when I can fly.
• If I spend $64,000 on my Fidelity Amex, I will have $1,280 in my Fidelity account to spend a flight which will almost definitely be enough for a direct flight (probably not enough during high season), with money left over for a non-direct flight, and I will get an extra 11,000+ miles, which has a value of at least $150 in my book.  

In addition, Chase Ultimate Rewards points can transfer into United Airlines miles with certain credit cards.  You can earn 5% on rotating categories through the Chase Freedom card and earn 5 points per dollar at office supply stores with the Chase Ink Bold card and transfer the points to United.

Earning Miles through Shopping Portals

Most Frequent Flyer programs have shopping portals that are similar to Ebates or Top Cashback that give you extra miles if you start your purchase from their site.  

For example, if you are planning to shop at sears.com, you can first go to the United shopping portal and click on to sears.com and you will get 4 United miles for every $1 you spend.

Earning Miles through Credit Card Sign up Bonuses

This is by far the most lucrative way of earning miles, but it requires discipline, time and organization.
You can spend an entire year spending $20,000 on your Starwoods card, earning 25,000 American Airlines miles or you can sign up for an American Airlines Visa Card, spend $1,000 in the first 3 months and come out with 31,000 American Airlines miles after just $1,000 because of a 30,000 mile sign up bonus and spend the rest of the money on other credit cards.  This is pretty typical of sign up awards.

The more lucrative sign up bonuses tend to have higher annual fees so you will want to cancel your cards before the next annual fee kicks in.  Some cards waive the annual fee for the first year and some do not.  Pay attention to that.

Continuously opening and closing accounts is time consuming and requires a good spreadsheet.  This is not for everyone, but signing up for 1-3 a year isn't particularly difficult and can still be pretty rewarding.

Only take on what you feel comfortable with.  Start slow, see how the system works and only then decide to keep going.


If you haven't already read them, check out Part 1- An Introduction, Part 2 - Finding More Information, Part 3 - Airline Alliances and Part 4 - Booking Flights with Miles

Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 4

This week's short post will discuss the basics of how to find available frequent flyer flights for the various Airline Alliances.  In part 3, I discussed the significance of the alliances so look there if you are a newbie or if you want a refresher.  You can also look at the introduction in part 1 and how to get more information in part 2.


It isn't always easy to find available flights that can be booked for miles.  Obviously, it is in the airlines best interests if you use money instead of miles so the options are there, but most don't go out of their way to make it simple.



Here is a breakdown based on Alliance:

• Star Alliance - 
• Star Alliance makes it the easiest.  Go to United.com and on the home page, click on "search by award travel" and a new menu will show up.

Put in the dates you want to fly and click search.  Here is what comes up for traveling from NYC to Tel Aviv (TLV) from July 24th to July 35th.  You will get a list of every flight on any airline in the Star Alliance that fits your criteria along with how many miles it costs in Economy, Business and First.

Notice that there are two categories for economy, business and first.  One is Saver and one is Standard. They get you the same seat, but savers are a lot cheaper and are therefore not as common.  If you are flexible in when you want to travel, here is how to do it.  

Right on top of the flights, there is a color coded calendar with that looks like this:

If you want a saver award in Economy, you need to click on a date that has a yellow or green color.  I will click on July 7th and here are the new sets of flights that come up.  When you scroll down you can find flights that are saver awards that cost only 40,000 miles each way, instead of 75,000 each way for the same flight.

This flight is not a direct flight.  It is much more difficult to find a direct flight that is in the saver category, but you would do it the same way, except you would click on "non-stop flights only" on the homepage.


If you have united miles you can book these flights directly through the united website, if you miles from another star alliance partner you can use the united site to find the flight you want and then call up your airline and have them book it for you.

• Sky Team Alliance 
•  More difficult than for star alliance.  There is no way that I am aware of that you can see every available flight.  Here is how to spread the greatest possible net.  Sign up for a free KLM Flying Blue frequent flyer miles account or sign in
• Click on the "Flying Blue" tab and put in your destination as before and here is what it comes up with:
  

You can see on the chart that it is frequently only 25,000 each way, but there is a $270 surcharge each way which adds a significant cost.  Once again, if you have flying blue miles (mostly like from Starpoints) you can book from here and if you have another airline's miles (Delta, for example), you can use this as a guide before you call up Delta.

• One World Alliance 


• The best way to find flights on one world is through qantas.com.  Join here for free (unless you are from Australia or New Zealand, in which case there is a fee - sorry) Don't bother with American Airline's website, even if you have miles with them.  Go to quantas first and then call up American Airlines and tell them which flight you want.  
• On the dropdown menu at the top click on "Award Flights"

Click on "Book Now" under "Partner Classic Awards" and you will be able to find flights on many different airlines and use that information when you call up the airline you have miles with.

You can do the same thing with British Airways and once again, you need to join the British Airways Frequent Flyer program for free.

In part 5, we will get to the easiest way to earn Frequent Flyer miles.

Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 3

This is part 3 of a series on Frequent flyer miles, part 1 was an introduction and part 2 explained how to find more information from other sources.

Airline Alliances

Almost all major airlines in the united states that have international flights are part of an alliance of airlines that include other airlines from all over the world.  There 3 main airline alliances are: Star Alliance, OneWorld Alliance and Sky Team Alliance

• Star Alliance - This is the largest alliance with 27 members.  The most important members for most readers are United Airlines, Turkish Airlines and US Airlines (at least until it merges with American Airlines) because they all fly to Israel somewhat regularly.
• Sky Team Alliance - The second largest with 19 member airlines.  The most important are probably Delta, KLM and Air France.
• One World Alliance - The smallest with only 13 member airlines.  The most important are probably American and British Airlines

What is an Alliance?

An alliance allows individual airlines to expand their reach without having to expand their fleets. Airlines partner together and share some aspects of their business. 

• The major advantage for passengers is that frequent flyer miles from one airline can usually be used to fly on partner airlines of the same alliance.  Let's take an example:

• United Airlines and Turkish Airlines are both part of the Star Alliance.  This means that I can use United Mileage Plus miles to fly on United Airlines flights or Turkish Airlines flights or any other member of the Star Alliance.

• The second great benefit is that one can miles earned from one partner can be credited to your account from the other partner.  Once again, here is an example.  If I fly on Turkish Air and I provide my United Airlines Mileage Plus number, I will earn United miles for my Turkish Air flight even though I didn't take a United flight. 

Here is a picture from my United Airlines account: You can see that I earned United Mileage plus miles for my Turkish Air flight

The most important point to take away is that you only need to have a frequent flyer account with one member of an alliance and combine all of your miles into one account.  In fact, using multiple accounts can be detrimental as I will explain.

For instance, in our scenario let's say I had a United account and a Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles account.  If go on a United flight direct to Israel and a Turkish Airlines flight to Israel with a stop in Istambul, I would get 11,320 miles in my United account and 11,410 miles in my Turkish Airlines account.  If, however, I gave my United number for the same Turkish Airlines flight, I would earn all 22,730 miles in my United account and I am now much closer to earning my next flight through miles.  I can then use my United miles to fly on any Star Alliance partner with those miles (Booking will be explained in a later post).

Does it matter which Airline I choose within an Alliance?

We have now established that it is important to have at least one airline in each alliance that is your miles currency for that alliance.  Does it matter which airline I choose?  Big-time, and here's why.

Even though each airline is partners with the others in the alliance, they do not treat their miles equally.  Each airline has a different calculation of how many miles it "costs" to go to the destination of your choice.  

I will take flying to Israel as an example again.  (All of the following information can be found from milez.biz). Flying Economy with United miles usually costs 80,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket, while using Turkish Air miles usually costs 105,000 miles for the exact same flight.  If you goal is a free flight to Israel, you will get there 20% faster by collecting United miles than by collecting Turkish air miles.

In addition, many programs charge fuel surcharges for redeeming frequent flyer miles that can cost a few hundred extra dollars.  For example, within the One World Alliance, British Airways charges a major fuel surcharge for flying international on their Frequent flyer program, but doesn't charge a fuel surcharge for using their miles to fly within the US on American Airlines flights.  Their miles are not too valuable flying internationally, but can be quite valuable flying domestically.  American Airlines does not have a fuel surcharge for flying internationally, unless it is on a British Airlines flight.  Therefore, if you are collecting One World Alliance points and are interested in international flights, you are better off with American Airlines miles and if you are interested in domestic flights, you are better off with British Airways points.

For an example of how confusing surcharges can be and for much more detailed information, look at this dansdeals forums post.

Next week in part 4, I hope to talk about booking frequent flyer miles and to find available flights.

Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 2

Last Sunday, I gave a basic introduction to Frequent Flyer Points and Miles in Part 1 and I hope to continue that tradition every Sunday until I run out of helpful hints and tips.


As I already mentioned, I don't consider myself an expert in travelling cheaply.  I don't travel more than a few times a year and they are usually short haul domestic flights.  If you want to get real expert information, I would suggest the following blogs and forums.  Their authors travel a lot and really know the ins and outs of the different programs and are able to make a living blogging about it.  Much of my knowledge comes from them as well:

Here are my favorites:

• dansdeals.com - My favorite blog to read by far is dansdeals.com.  I check his blog every day, often a few times a  day, and his knowledge is unquestioned.  His amazing skills are especially on display in knowing how deals can be used by orthodox jews, but it is certainly not limited to that. 
• He knows more about airlines than the employees of those same airlines.  This is just one example from this post
• -If the agents in the airport are all clueless you should direct them to look up “gg onestandby” in their system (they’ll know what this is) and look around lines 85-89 which spell out the details of the procedure for this award. (Parenthetically, when trying to get a gate pass to access a club when I’m not flying I sometimes need to tell an agent to look up “gg checkpoint line 53″ which instructs agents to give you a security pass for you and your guests to access post-security United and USAirways clubs even if you aren’t flying.) 
• If you can get past some of the airline jargon, you will learn a ton.
• forums.dansdeals.com - After that comes forums.dansdeals.com or DDF (Dans Deals Forums) where like minded people come to share their insights and stories.  Since it is a forum not every member is quite as trustworthy as Dan, but there is quite a bit of information that never makes it onto the dansdeals site that is still great.
• extrapackofpeanuts.com - His information is great, but his writing style is wonderful as well.
• boardingarea.com - This is one site that has a lot of bloggers that write for it.  My favorites are dealswelike and frequentmiler but I always go to boardingarea.com and check the latest posts to see if anything interests me.
• flyertalk.com - flyertalk has by far the most information out there.  It is a forum site with over 470,000 members who just about only talk about flying and miles.  It is an overwhelming site but if you can learn to navigate it, you will learn more there than anywhere else.  Once again, since it is a forums site, you can't trust everything everyone says but you will quickly learn which members know what they are talking about and they will correct any errors.

There are lots of other sites out there as well, but I don't personally read them regularly so I can't personally recommend them.  What I can say is read, read, read.  Knowledge is key to learning how to maximize your rewards.


If you missed last week, here is part 1

Also check out  Part 3 for a discussion on the big Airline alliances and how that affects how to collect points and miles.  Stay Tuned


In Part 4, I discuss finding frequent flyer flights

Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 1

Since I started my blog I have rarely talked about miles even though I have been learning more and more about them.  I don't talk about it because I don't consider myself terribly knowledgeable on the subject.  Despite this, I have been reading a lot about them for the past year and I have learned some basic things that can be very helpful so I hope to have a series of posts about earning and collecting frequent flyer miles.

I am personally not a huge fan of miles.  I believe that cash is king for a number of reasons.  The most important is that I can get better value with cash and use the cash to buy airline tickets or anything else and if I have miles I can only use the miles for specific items like hotels and airlines.  Also, there are no blackout dates when you pay with cash.

That being said, I understand the feeling of "getting a vacation for free" when you book it with miles.  Also, there are times where you can get even greater value by using miles than by using cash, especially in business/first class and last minute tickets.

Earning and Using Frequent Flyer Miles - Part 1 - The Basics

Earning and using frequent flyer miles needs a litte preparation.  Here are a few items that are important to think about before you get into the game.

• Know where you plan on going most frequently.  For myself, this means Israel as I plan to move there and I am sure I will have to come back and forth a lot for occasions and to see family, but it can be whatever destination you want

• Find out which airlines fly there and how many miles it costs to get there.  Milez.biz is a great website to help you figure this all out.  Just put in your staring airport and destination and they will tell you all the airlines that fly there.

• Figure out the best way to earn miles for your airline of choice.  For instance, if you think that United miles are the best way to get to where you are going, getting certain Chase credit cards are very important, even more important than the United credit card.  If you think that British Airways miles is what you want then a card that earn Avios miles (British Airways currency) is the way to go.

Hopefully over the next few months, I will add a lot more information, starting from the most basic and slightly more advanced as we go.


Check out Part 2 which discusses which websites will help you find in more information

Also, check out Part 3, which discusses the various Airline alliances

In Part 4, I discuss finding frequent flyer flights