(JohnKit)
Lifehacker has some good reminder tips about how to get the most mileage out of your frequent flyer miles. Just like how you book a regular ticket, being flexible about your airports, adding connections, and flying on slow travel days can help you stretch their miles to their max. What frequent flyer mile strategies do you use? Sound off in the comments.
Get More from Your Frequent Flyer Miles [Lifehacker]
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I don’t care about the article, but I would like to know more about the photo posted with it. Fantastic shot. I’d like to know how it was taken and how much it was retouched.
Just look on the Flikr stream for that user and the meta data and maybe comments will be there.
Contrary to the article, on UAL I try to ALWAYS eliminate connections when flying with miles. Every leg is an opportunity for weather or overbooking for you – the freeloader – to get bumped. You are at the bottom of the priority list when something goes haywire.
United has a great program where you can spend United miles on stuff. Just bought a $4-500 Miele vacuum for 40000 miles. Needed the vacuum more than the points.
I’ve frequently arranged my travel based on days when I could use the reduced points (super saver awards) airfares on united. Saves about half the points.
So far, three free RT flights to Europe..AND…I have a great tip if you’re a frequent flier and have elite status. On United I get frequent upgrades AND access to Economy Plus which provides extra legroom.
When I book award travel, I use the award miles for my friend’s flight and I pay cash for my flight (so I can earn Miles). My friend then pays me for the cost of my flight. This way I use miles and earn miles at the same time. I sometimes cut them a break because I’m getting the miles. ALSO, because I used my mileage plus account to book their tickets I get them economy plus access so they benifit from getting better seats on the plane or a possible upgrade if I do.
So it’s a win win situation.
I did this the last couple trips and earned almost enough for another RT ticket to Europe!
International First or Business Class trips are the best value. Domestic coach flights the worst.
PRO TIP. Do not collect Delta miles. They are virtually worthless and impossible to redeem at “Low” levels – that is the levels that they advertise in the tee vee and such. I haven’t paid 25,000 miles for a domestic ticket since before the Northwest measure. Most recently, a ticket between Minneapolis and St. Louis was 50,000 miles(!).
They don’t call it the SkyPeso for nothin’.
Uh, that’s what the rest of the Skyteam alliance is for. Get a mileage card with Korean Air and collect Delta miles on that.
book WAY ahead of time – I had 100K usair miles and they were unredeemable on any flights that I wanted in the near future, so I used them to book a trip in August 2011 – 10 months ahead of time – at least I snagged a deal with first class tix for 25,000 miles each way…. just used the leftover miles to upgrade other tix – upgrading is much easier than cashing in for full tix.
Can you redeem your miles if you use a website like Travelocity to book your flights?
If you aren’t going to use your miles, donate them to this excellent organization: http://www.lbeh.org. They fly military men and women home for the holidays when they couldn’t otherwise afford it. Friend’s brother was flown from Alaska to Illinois in 2008 for his first Christmas with his parents in nearly 10 years.