The Deal Mommy

I was helping a friend today plan her upcoming trip to China and while she was frantically taking notes, I realized it might be helpful to create an entry level guide to collecting and using frequent flyer miles.  If you already know to use Air France’s search engine for Delta availability and that Asian programs allow family members to pool miles, fell free to skip this post.  For really deep knowledge into the subject, I suggest The Points Guy blog, but for this exercise I’ll stick to the basics.

1. You may have more miles than you think.  Your first task should be to check all of the old frequent flyer cards you have lying around.  If you have a Delta or Northwest, Congrats!  Those points never expire.  Northwest was purchased about three years ago by Delta, so you’ll need to go to delta.com to get your new Delta number.  The others expire after 18 months of no account usage (not flight, just account usage), but many (USAir for example) can be re-instated for a nominal fee.  Lonely Planet reports that $16 BILLION in miles go unused each year, so it’s worth the few minutes to track this stuff down.
2. Know where you go before you start to collect miles.  There are three alliances: Star Alliance (United, USAir), Skyteam (Delta), and OneWorld(American).  Each partners with airlines throughout the world, but each also covers a specific region best.  Dying to get to Central America?  Star contains Copa, which is based in Panama City.  Trying to get to France?  Skyteam is your best bet.  Consider where you travel and where you want to go before starting to collect miles.  Wikipedia contains a good listing by airport departure of direct flights: just punch in the three letter code for the airport.
3. Getting miles is easier than you think.  Airlines give away miles like crazy, but most people don’t know where to look.  There are two basic types of giveaways: shopping miles and travel miles.  I’ll cover both in later posts, but will give the basics here.
4. Find the credit card that tracks best to your travel patterns.  Many credit cards give miles (and bonus miles when you sign up), but I like the Discover Escape card for Newbies as it pays 2 points a dollar spent and offers a 25k bonus for no minimum spending. (See link at the bottom of this post). I get into this card deeper in this post but for the time being the thing to know is that their points are convertible to many other programs or useable as your travel budget!  If you do have a specific airline in mind and are ready to build in one program, I find that Chase tracks best to Star, Amex to Skyteam (with some exceptions), and if you’re a  Oneworld traveler, you may want to check out Citibank’s credit cards.
5. Charge EVERYTHING!  I’m not recommending you get into debt, but most of your bills can earn you miles!  Cable bill?  Charge it!  Cell phone bill?  Charge that too!  You may be amazed what bills you pay can be taken online.  You are literally refusing free money by not doing this!
6. Take as much of your purchases online as you can to get bonus points.  Airlines all have shopping portals that give bonus miles if you buy through their portal.  Before making any major purchase, check to see if your favorite airline or credit card will offer bonus miles.
7. Register! Register?  Yes, register.  As I mentioned, airlines give away miles like crazy, but the hoops you have to jump through to find them can also be crazy.  So, if you are planning a hotel stay, renting a car, or even re-financing your mortgage, be sure to check your airline’s frequent flyer program promo page to see what they have going on, and be sure to REGISTER for the promotion listed.  I’ve gotten miles for answering trivia questions, for opening a bank account, for going to restaurants, and for many other things I would have done anyway.  (Well, maybe not the trivia…)

With these basics, you’ll be flying in no time!

Please let me know your thoughts about this post, your successes (or failures) in getting FF miles, and any other topics you’d like to see covered!