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!
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.
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.
check out online forums for promotions and deals; apply a mileage credit card if you are a frequent flyer; always complain about your recent trip to earn some extra mileage!
Fly within one global airline alliance (Star Alliance) and credit all of your miles to one FF account. That way, your miles aren’t spread around to different accounts, making it hard to ever accumulate enough to redeem them for anything.
Try to build in an extra segment on your next trip to add in some miles and get closer to your next elite level.
Read and learn. Boardingarea has so much to offer! still reading and learning.
pick one airline and maximize your miles…with credit card, promotions, partners, etc…all in addition to whatever flying you do. plan your usage to get the maximum value to you, whether for upgrade, flexibility to avoid those cancellation fees, whatever is important to you.
Understand alliance. Stick with it.
Use a points/miles earning credit card as often as possible and pay it off each month, if your use of the charge card justifies the annual fee. If possible, use a credit card with a program that gives you flexibility and allows you to redeem the points/miles you earn in multiple programs.
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.
My tip is to wait, or! book early! 🙂
Get a Starwood Amex: low annual fee and earn 1.25 miles per $. Then charge everything.
Get a airline credit card
Plan as early as possible and be as flexible as possible.
Keep a spreadsheet of your accounts and point totals.
Collect miles as cheaply as possible in one program and redeem on partner travel.
Remember to sign up your kids for rewards accounts once they need to have actual tickets and seats. No use letting the earning opportunities go to waste even if your kid is two years old. Traveling with young kids is hard, but if the family can get a little something extra out of it, it makes the experience a little easier to swallow. Note: some airlines require that they have an email account.
My top tip? Always ask for the free upgrade.
…. and the Yankees suck.
This may seem like old news, but your airline creidt card is still s great way to earn miles add to that a dining rewards prgam and you are in great shape. I no longer write checks to anyone. I use my credit card for everything and pay it off in full every month to avoid fees. I am AA EXP. Last year I earned over 23k Miles on the American dining rewards program. Every meal I paid with my AA credit card which earned me at least 5x the $$ spent from American Dinning, PLUS the miles I get from the credit card. All in all I had 142K BIS miles, and over 80K miles from dining and credit card spend.
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!
Attend the 6th Annual Ann Arbor Art Fair DO. This year is devoted to discussing the ins and outs of award ticket booking. It is the perfect opportunity to network with fellow points and miles fiends. Details available at Flyertalk.com
Collect miles and points only for airlines and hotels that you really like and that are readily available for use.
SPG AMEX
be polite, but it never hurts to ask
I’m with David Manning … the Yankees suck. Oh, and my tip? Get work to pay for your travel and hotels and keep your miles yourself.
Understand the additional taxes and fees associated with each airline. For example, British Airways charges many additional fuel fees which can equal the cost of an entire ticket for other airlines. Factor in these fees. If you are with a company that charges high fees, look to use the miles on partner airlines that may not charge the fees.
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.
When trying to redeem miles for an award ticket plan on doing all the leg work yourself – most airline phone agents will search the simplest routings, find no availability, and stop. Know all your airline’s partners (both in and outside the alliance) and all hub and gateway cities, and tell the agent exactly what you want.
For example, Delta had no availability for a West Coast to Israel award. But the agent only checked Delta flights. By knowing ahead of time that Air France serves Seattle, SFO, and LAX, and that Alaska serves my city and the AF gateways, I got the outbound on the exact dates I wanted.
Similarly, secure the international flight first. There is only one SEA-CDG flight a day. Find availability for that, then work on getting to SEA – there’s likely many more options for the domestic flight. Many agents will not even search the international flight on a particular day if your first domestic segment doesn’t appear to be available.
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!
Initially focus on one or 2 programs to learn all the tips and tricks as well as building up miles or points.
watch flyertalk for the latest and greatest credit card deals – then take advantage!
Set up bills to be paid automatically using your American Express Card.
Never pass up miles and always make sure that your account has been credited correctly. Miles add up quickly if you are careful.
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.
Count me in! My top tip is to bank the miles for system wide upgrades, and then use them for international legs. Love the content – keep it coming!
Two tips for one entry.
1. Sign up for the newsletter — and actually read it every time you get it from both your airline and your credit card company. There are tons of bonus programs, partner programs, and special offers that will boost your mileage earnings. For instance, we get bonus miles this year for paying our electric bill (cash, check, or with a mileage card — in which case we get points from the card company AND the utility). We’ve gotten points for our Netflix subscription, buying new Bose headphones for our last flight to New Zealand, and sending flowers to friends who have been sick.
2. Share credit and debit cards within the family — most programs let you have multiple cards, all reporting to the same FF account or credit card program. We have 11 cards all sending 2 points for every dollar spent (or more) to my husband’s account. (Me, my husband, and three college-age kids, all have one debit and one credit card linked to the same account, plus my Platinum Amex, which gets miles on any account — I use that one for my business travel.)
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).
My top tip is to be persistent!
Don’t let your miles expire due to inactivity! To keep the miles current purchase something small with your miles such as a magazine subscription.
When dealing with the customer service folks on the phone – if you don’t succeed with one, don’t get discouraged. Thank the person who was unable to help you and hang up and call back. Many times getting a different person on the phone will get you a different answer. Failing that ask for a supervisor. Reasonable requests are usually met with reasonable responses.
Read online message boards, blogs, etc to learn some tips and tricks to redeem those miles. (like stopovers, other possible routing, other airlines, etc)
My top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points is to use a credit card that earns miles and to book an award ticket well in advance.
My top tip is BOOK AWARD TRIP EARLY! My experience is that you have better luck booking award trips if you have begin looking for the flights early. My miles are valuable to me, and I try to use them for the biggest bang for the buck, andt takes some research and effort but has been worth it. And read blogs such as this and the Flyer Talk forum for tips!