Want To Win An All Expenses Paid Trip To Australia? ENTER HERE!
A few weeks ago Boarding Area & Hilton Hotels allowed the Boarding Area bloggers to each give away a free night any Hilton in the United States. Well apparently that was so much fun, Boarding Area has now teamed up with American Express to give away something even better…
…what could be better than a free night in a hotel? How about an all expenses paid trip for two from the United States to Australia’s Gold Coast for eight days and seven nights.
Is that not good enough for you? What if Boarding Area and American Express were covering not only your airfare and hotel, but also your transportation, your meals, some activities … and also just for the hell of it, covering all of your taxes (since most contests like this require the winner to pay the taxes).
For the mileage run geeks, there is an added bonus … you’ll get full mileage credit and hotel stay points for your journey. If you’re flying from New York, that’s roughly 19,272 frequent flyer miles!
How could this get any better? You can enter 20 times!
Well you can only enter once on Flying With Fish, but you can enter once on each of the participating Boarding Area blogs.
Musings of The Global Traveler
I hate fine print, but American Express requires some fine print be added. This fine print includes entrants must be legal residents of the 50 United States and be aged 18 or older. One winner will be selected from each blog to be entered in the final drawing. From those 20 eligible entrants, one winner will be selected at random. Yadda yadda yadda yadda. For complete rules of entry and eligibility click HERE.
To enter simply leave a comment below detailing your top tip for earning or using airline or hotel loyalty points.
Remember you must enter with your real name and an email address you can be contacted at if you win.
I’m pulling for one of my readers to win for two reasons. One, I like my readers – Two, the blog with the selected winner takes home a new Apple iPad.
All entries must be received by the 28th of March … so what are you waiting for … ENTER!
Happy Flying!
You can transfer SPG points to over 30 different airlines at a 1 to 1 ratio. Transferring 20,000 SPG points gives you a bonus of 5,000 miles, for a total of 25,000 miles — enough for a domestic award ticket.
Use car rentals (which often earn pitifully small miles bonuses) to reset the clock on expiration of miles accounts in which you lack activity. This works not only for mile accounts in your name, but for family members too: the rental companies report only the FF account number you give them, and not the renter’s name. I’ve used this many times without a hitch.
Churn credit cards and bank sign up bonuses
Every mile counts so try to get every mile possible from dining, shopping etc. Use SPG as your primary credit card for easy ability to convert to other programs.
Decide on an airline/alliance, get the miles/points credit cards + PLAN AHEAD!!!!!!
Airline miles are usually more valuable than hotel points, in addition to all the perks reserved for elites. So the quickest way is to get an airline-branded credit card and shoot for the bonus miles.
Concentrate on one of the airline alliances, and funnel all of miles to one frequent flier program within that alliance. This way, you don’t “orphan” miles over several different programs.
Use loyalty guest programs to experience things you normally would not or could not do.
get to know lan, it can be great for short hop one way tickets. a few thousand spg points can earn you trips from ny to toronto.
There are so many ways out there to earn miles to get activity credit. Don’t let those hard earned miles expire. Use the shopping malls to earn with minimal purchases. Just remember to use the airline specific links to ensure you get credit for the spend.
(1) Never miss an opportunity to earn points, no matter how small; (2) Earn and burn — miles and points are only going to lose value with time.
Sign up for your points provider’s newsletter- and actually read it! You’ll often be pleasantly surprised by chances for bonus points. Consider buying points in small denominations when they are sold at a discount- I see them often listed at 20-30% off.
And follow your faves on Twitter,
IHG_Deals & Lufthansa_USA have in the past offered points or flights as promotions- If you have a good experience with a travel provider, talk them up on social media sites since they all like to build their reputations up with positive comments, etc. And it’s a good way to keep up with special offers.
Choose vendors with consistently good pricing (airlines, vehicles, hotels) and use them exclusively whenever possible.
Sign up for your points provider’s newsletter- and actually read it! You’ll often be pleasantly surprised by chances for bonus points. Consider buying points in small denominations when they are sold at a discount- I see them often listed at 20-30% off.
And follow your faves on Twitter, IHG_Deals & Lufthansa_USA for example have in the past offered points or flights as promotions- If you have a good experience with a travel provider, talk them up on social media sites since they all like to build their reputations up with positive comments, etc. And it’s a good way to keep up with special offers.
Read up on the “other partner” mileage earning options. Groceries, utilities, shopping (of course) are all mileage earning opportunities.
Pay for everything, no matter how small, with a mileage earning credit card.
Make sure to keep up with these blogs and other FF sites: although many of the frequent writers and posters are far beyond most travelers, they have great ideas for earning miles/points, special deals, and tricks of the trade.
Network with frequent fliers.
Open airline credit cards and get those large number of bonus miles for first purchase on the card.
Get a Hilton Amex, which offers 6:1 on gas and groceries, and hoard points until you get to 225,000 – then use them to book one of Hilton’s GLONP rewards, which is six nights in a Category 7 swanky Hilton, free, for much less than the standard redemption rate. This is best used in the UK or somewhere the US dollar suffers in comparison to the local currency.
Be sure and make all purchases with a mileage earning credit card and purchase as much as possible through a mileage earning shopping portal also.
Best way to use the miles/points is to call plenty early, and be patient. Alot of times the airlines release the seats later, but if you plan ahead, you can usually get the best deals on everything.
The best miles are the ones you get for stuff you were going to buy anyway. Check your favorite airline’s partnerships every so often. You can get miles for paying your electric bill, opening a bank account and lots of other stuff people do every so often. Not to mention many airlines have retail partnerships as well, so if you buy a TV from Best Buy, you can get miles for it. If you have a credit card that earns miles, it’s a double win.
United visa cards are very helpful if you want to reach elite status faster. 5000EQM per year is more than generous.
Get a mile-earning credit card and use it for everything
Choose the one airline you’ll fly more than 75% of the time, and concentrate on earning miles for that airline; having multiple accounts means there’s an increased chance you’ll not earn status with any of them.
Same for hotels. If you mostly stay in one hotel, earn points with them; but lots of other hotels may allow you to make your points go to miles with another airline (Choice Rewards comes to mind), allowing you to get points even if you’re not staying with your first choice.
Auto pay all bills to your rewards credit card. Make to use it on all your “double miles / points” purchases like groceries, etc.
Make sure your miles aren’t expiring.. redeem for a magazine or use the iDine service
Use your amex points and convert them to mileage for your favorite airline. Then, of course, buy everything with your amex card!
My tips are simple: First, make sure you are earning miles/points on the major airline serving your home airport. Secondly, do the research on the best credit card for earning miles/points for the way you travel. There are many websites that will help you compare the various credit cards programs
Read Flyertalk and find all the earning opportunities.
Using a rewards credit card is a great way to pick and choose which programs you use your points towards. Also, using the points on something worthwhile; upgrades on long haul flights, or long distances flights themselves, instead of a flight that wouldn’t cost much out of pocket.
Be willing to take a look at other airlines/alliances if your current one isn’t working for you. After being a loyal NWA customer for years, I am now getting involved with CO/Star Alliance which better fits my travel patterns/move from a NW hub city. Sometimes its hard to let go or look at another carrier when you are used to a certain one for years but you might be better off with taking a look at something different.
Get a debit visa card that has a mileage rewards program attached and use that for your normal daily and monthly expenses. Miles add up while you buy groceries and gas 🙂 .
Keep track of your credit score and if it can stand the small hit, apply over time, for a steady stream of credit cards that give you a sign-up bonus. Those bonuses are the foundation for building miles in many programs. You can easily earn 150,000 miles a year doing this, with no appreciable affect on your credit score. And you can do this for several years before exhausting all of the card possibilities.
I’d love to go down under and visit a few photographers!
Cheers, Joe
Points have a cash value. Don’t get so blinded by earning a few more points that you spend way more that you may have. Sometimes a different brand may be a better value, even after loyalty.
Use your Miles before they devalue.
Save your boarding passes. After your travel is finished, check your frequent flier account for the miles you traveled to show up. Once they do, you can toss the boarding passes. I use my boarding passes as bookmarks since I often travel with one or more new books. See, there’s two tips for the price of one!
My top tip is to try and accumulate miles in Membership Rewards by American Express since it allows you maximum flexibility to redeem the points and you can earn up to 10X points in the membershiprewards.com and earn 3X points when you shop through the Bonus Points Mall® website.
Earn miles on AAdvantage and burn them on Oneworld business class awards. Great bang for the buck
Go with friends! It’s amazing how far you can get if you pool group resources — one person’s hotel upgrade with another’s free car rental etc. Works on three levels (1) You can often score a “stay with your friends” freebie (i.e., two of you have access to the first class lounge, the third can usually come along) (2) Friends who don’t have miles are often happy to pay any cash portion of a status change etc. as their contribution (3) Travelling companions!
Read read read! Educate yourself! Learn the ins and outs of the mileage and award programs so you can get the best bang for your buck. Only a savvy customer gets the best deal.
Come to the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO this July 24 and 25th. You’ll get great tips, including how to book elusive award tickets. Past speakers include Viajero Joven, gleff, Ingy, Lucky9876Coins and wanaflyforless. Details in CommunityBuzz forum on flyertalk.com.
some FF account linked to credit cards allow you to extend miles expiration dates with a qualifying purchase – charge that $2.50 croissant if you must!
Use miles only for upgrades. It’s the biggest bang for the buck. It’s a total waste of miles for hotel nights etc. as well redemption reward tickets.
Don’t overreach. If your travel is moderate, stick with one program and milk it all you can.
When looking to book, use a dollop of ITA, gobs of patience, plenty of flexibility and a good dose of bull headedness.
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.
Read BoardingArea blogs!