Gadling’s tips for frequent flyer miles

by Grant Martin on

I talk about frequent flier miles pretty often on Gadling, mostly because I think that many people under utilize and underestimate the power of their miles. The fact of the matter is, airline miles are a useful tool that can save you a ton of money if used properly. The key is to know when and how to use them. Here are a few quick tips:

  • You can accrue miles towards a different program on your flight. All domestic legacy carriers subscribe to alliances, and you can enjoy unilateral benefits among them. The three big alliances are Star, Skyteam and Oneworld. Star Alliance hosts carriers such as United, US Airways and Ted, Skyteam has Delta, Continental and Northwest and American Airlines’ Oneworld’s team members are largely overseas. So suppose you’re trying to accrue miles on United to get to a domestic reward, 25,000 miles. If you’re flying on US Airways next week, you can put your United frequent flier number into US Airways’ system and your miles go to your United account.
  • Keeping all of your miles in one places makes it easier to redeem awards faster and to achieve elite status over one calendar year. It’s kind of like keeping all of your savings in one account – you get higher interest (or in this case, rewards).
  • Always make sure that your frequent flyer number is in the system when you book your ticket. In addition to being another cross reference for which you can find your ticket, it’s much easier to put the number in during booking versus at the gate or even retroactively. Bear in mind, however, that you can get your miles after you fly. As long as you had an account at the time you flew, you can usually fax your boarding passes in to get miles accounted for. Check with your carrier to find that number.
  • Mileage rewards are best used on expensive tickets. Many people use miles sloppily in place of an inexpensive short-haul ticket. But with the flexibility of a reward ticket, you can travel anywhere the ticket dictates for your miles at any time. Compare the market value of two tickets for example: Winter to Paris from New York versus the 4th of July. On a good February day, one can find a ticket into the City of Lights for 400$. Over the 4th of July weekend, it’s about 1500$. But the reward tickets are the same price: 50k miles. Granted, availability of miles rewards will be a little tighter over summer months, but you can be flexible. I’m still finding 4oJ tickets between Detroit and Paris, and it’s just over a month away. So if you travel with any reasonable frequency, it just doesn’t make sense to blow 25k on a random weekend between Detroit and New York if the ticket price is 200$ anyway. Wait for the price to go up on your itinerary or an emergency to crop up before you blow your miles – then strike when the time is right.
  • Mileage rewards are refundable. Any flight you book with frequent flier miles is refundable, and depending on your level of status with an airline, rebook fees can be as little as free (or as much as around 100$ or so). So if you decide you want to leave a week early or late and there is availability? Call up the airline and switch it. If you want to stay later? Make the change. Compare this to a “fully refundable” fare that you would need to purchase if you wanted this flexibility with a regular ticket. You could easily spend 1500$ on a ticket that would be 200$ in economy.
  • Stopovers are permitted on many mileage awards. Suppose you want to fly from Washington DC to Japan but need to stop in Hawaii on the way for a wedding (this actually happened to a friend of mine recently). Booking three legs is ridiculously expensive. But fare rules for mileage tickets between DC and Tokyo (NRT) stipulate that one can take a free stopover on any itinerary. In this instance, the airline of choice had availability from WAS-HNL-NRT-WAS, so a three legged ticket was booked for 60k miles, versus the 4000$ that would have been spent on the open-market ticket.
  • If your account stays active, miles don’t expire. This doesn’t mean that you have to fly either. Depending on your miles program you can do as little as buy flowers, earn 40 miles and keep your account active for another calendar year.
  • You can buy tickets for other people with your miles. Even if you aren’t traveling in the near term, you probably have friends that are. If you’re short on cash (or just want to extort your friends), you can always book a ticket for them and take favors in return.

Is that it? Nah. I could spend a half hour talking about each of these bullets and probably bore you to tears. What’s critical to learn from these points is the value of your miles. Always make sure that you have a frequent flyer number and always make sure that it’s in the system before you travel. They accrue faster than you think!

United Airlines abolishes minimums to mileage earning

by Grant Martin on

The day of airline corner cutting is upon us. United Airlines just announced that they reduced the minimum miles that you can earn on a flight to the actual flown distance. Let me explain:

Until now, most fares that you booked that were under 500 miles as the crow flies were automatically rounded up to earn 500 miles for each flight. The perk was created to award the poor saps who have to fly short distances frequently over the course of a year — for example, if you had to fly from Detroit to Chicago and back every week for work, its only about 250 miles one way or 500 round trip. Rounding up though, you would get 1000 miles/trip, meaning every 25 itineraries you would be able to redeem an award for a 25,000 mile ticket.

Similarly, if you’re connecting from Flint – Detroit – Chicago, you would get 500 + 500 miles.

But under these new rules, you would only earn miles as for the exact distance you flew. So on the first Detroit-Chicago itinerary you would get 250 miles one way and on the second route you would get 40 + 250. Cool huh?

United is the first legacy carrier to break rank and start scooping into its mileage program. I wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of the carriers slowly fell, much as they all did with the extra bag policy.

Expect mileage accrual to change July 1. Between now and then you can check out United’s new policy here and weep at the loss of another great frequent flying perk.

Credit for the ironic picture of the day goes to Jason McHuff on Flickr.

American Airlines passengers — get double elite miles through June 15!

by Grant Martin on

Perhaps in the wake of Delta Airlines offering double Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs) to their passengers a couple of weeks back, American Airlines just launched their own double miles promotion.

Passengers who register for the promotion have between April 16th and June 15th to qualify for their extra miles, which don’t count for award travel, but do count for elite status. That means you only have to fly 12.5k, 25k and 50k miles to earn AAdvantage Gold, Platinum and Executive Platinum status — a fantastic deal.

What’s the big deal with miles if you can’t use them for awards? There are myriad benefits to achieving elite status on any airline, from first class upgrades to priority check in and boarding to special customer service lines. If you invest any time in the skies, elite status is definitely worth the investment.

Check out American Airline’s guides to elite benefits here for further details on their programs.

To register for the promotion, go to American Airline’s promo page and use code AADER.

And my condolences to those of you elite AA members out there who already have status and who’s ranks are soon to be diluted with thousands of causal travelers. Now you know what life is like in the Delta/Northwest world.

How do I upgrade my airline ticket with miles?

by Grant Martin on

We had a question from a reader here at Gadling about upgrading a purchased ticket with miles into first class. Reader Ashley writes:

“My husband and I are blessed (cursed) enough to live in an area almost completely served by Northwest Airlines, and are trying to get a grasp on the requirements to upgrade an upcoming Europe trip to first class. We have enough miles to cover even the highest “cost” for upgrades according to the website (60,000), but are confused by the stipulations placed upon the “class” of ticket. It appears that, by selecting the box that allows you to upgrade, ticket prices more than TRIPLE!

Is this really the only way to upgrade? Is this one of those ploys that experienced travellers can find their way around?“

Unfortunately, Ashley, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. But let’s back up real quick.

On most carriers, it’s possible to buy an economy class ticket with cash or miles then upgrade that ticket at a later date into business or first class. It can be an economical way to fly in first without having to pay the often-ridiculous prices for a full fare.

The trick is, however, that airlines require you to be booked into a certain fare class in order to upgrade your fare — that is, you can’t upgrade the 170$ budget ticket to London that you bought in the super discounted fare class. Airlines do this on purpose to make it difficult for you to spend your miles; after all, miles you don’t spend are dollars in their coffers.

In your case, Ashley, you need to book a Y or B fare class in order to upgrade your ticket with miles, the former of which is “full” while the latter is “slightly discounted” economy. And I’ll bet those prices are significantly more than a regular “deeply discounted” economy ticket.

One long shot that you can use to get around this is by tracking down a System Wide Upgrade. Super-elite members are given vouchers that allow them to upgrade any ticket to first class. If you can find one of those members and make him or her a deal, they might give away their voucher. But you have to fly at least 120,000 miles per year to get these vouchers so they may be sparse.

In that light, I’d recommend you use your 60k miles to buy one economy ticket for the pair of you and pay out of pocket for the other. If you’re proactive, you can book a bulkhead or exit row on an A330 giving you unlimited legroom and in-seat entertainment. Then, use the money you saved to get a nice hotel room in Europe when you get there where you can sleep away your jetlag and any recollection of your flight in coach.

Why Is It So Hard To Use Frequent Flier Miles?

by Willy Volk on

Last year, I needed to fly to Alabama for a funeral. On the phone with the customer disservice representative, I learned I had two choices:
1.) I could fork over nearly $1000 for the round-trip (non-stop) flight.
2.) I could surrender roughly 70,000 frequent flier miles I had saved up.

Ultimately, I chose to give up the FF miles, because I was afraid Delta would confiscate them anyway during their restructuring.

Over on the Huffington Post, frustrated traveler Jason Bartholomew tells a ridiculous and shameful story (for the airlines) about trying to cash in some of his miles for a flight from JFK to Orlando. Ordering the tickets 7 months in advance, he’s told there are no frequent flier seats left for the legs he wants. Then, he’s told it’ll cost him 100,000 miles to make the flight work. Later, he learns that the airline wants to charge him to correct their error and change reservations he didn’t even make! His experience is at turns hilarious and irritating, but the screwball comedy of Kafka-esque proportions has a (somewhat) satisfying ending.

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Jason, and take comfort in this: according to Consumer Affairs, the availability of seats for frequent fliers will increase throughout 2007. If you’re looking for some other tips about how to negotiate the messed-up world of frequent flier miles check out these tips: