# Explain to me how this whole "frequent flyer" thing works... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 26, 2012, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178 "2012-11-26T18:22:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/21 "2012-11-28T14:40:02Z")
[quote=“Hippy\_Hollow, post:1, topic:642178”] … [li]Should I get an airline miles credit card? I hate messing with new credit cards. I quite like what I have now (Amazon)…[/li][/QUOTE] Mileage credit cards typically come with annual fees. If there’s one airline you generally fly with more than others, that’d be the one to go with, card-wise. As with your Amazon card (we have that as well), carrying a balance will wipe out the value of the bonus you get. Airline miles do expire, these days. So you’d need to weigh the details of the various programs to see how to keep those miles long enough to build up enough to actually use for something. Some may keep older miles as long as you’re still taking flights. That said, a card _can_ be a way to top up your flight miles. From 1991-1993, I flew quite a bit on both American and USAir. The USAir miles didn’t expire at that time, so I wound up getting an American-linked credit card. Between the actual flight miles, and the credit card bonuses, we had enough for two round-trip tickets, first class, in 1994 (which we used for a cross-country flight). Then we switched to a USAir-tied card. By the time we used those up (in 2002), we had enough for _five_ round-trip first-class tickets. In your case: How do you have to pay those travel expenses? Is it a corporate card (e.g. Amex)? If so, see if they have a bonus program. Amex has (or had at one time) a program where you pay a fee every year, and they save up points for you that can be transferred to miles on pretty much every airline. When I was using an Amex for those flights, I paid the fee myself (company wasn’t going to do so, nor should they). If you can pay for the travel expenses on your own card, then use either your Amazon card, or whatever other card you choose (e.g. an airline-tied card). Crapital One has a card (Venture Rewards?) where your bonus points can go toward any airline. Amazon may even do that now; I know they changed the program a couple years ago so you have a lot more choices with how to use the points, vs. just getting an Amazon certificate in the mail. Just being signed up with the frequent flier program can be helpful. A few years ago, a colleague and I were returning to Washington DC from Denver. Our flight was scheduled for 5 PM, but we heard weather was expected so we went early and tried to go standby on a 3 PM flight. I was given priority on the waitlist because I was a FF member. My colleague, right behind me in line, heard that - so he immediately signed up for it as well. We both made the flight (and were very glad of it; it left on time and the 5 PM flight was many hours late). ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/22 "2012-11-28T14:47:28Z")
My girlfriend (who likes to travel and does a lot of business travel) often requests that we book flights so she gets miles. If I were to get ambitious and begin accompanying her more, would there be an advantage to my getting a different airline’s mileage club, and using that to play for both our fares where that works to our benefit, and let her pay for both fares where that works better, and striaghten up with her at year’s end, or should we just pay for our own fares because it’s not worth all the bookkeeping? ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/23 "2012-11-28T15:00:47Z")
I just looked at the Chase (Amazon Visa) website and while there does seem to be a way to use the points for travel, there’s nothing obvious like “for 1000 USAir miles, spend 1000 points”. It just says “call such and such to book your travel”. Crapital One may be similar - from what I just saw on their Venture Rewards page, you exchange points for the ticket price (they gave the example of 21,700 points to pay fora $217.00 flight). Personally, if that’s the only way to get airline tickets, you’re better off purchasing the ticket, then converting the points to cash like you can do with Amazon (maybe Capital One as well). So you spend 21,700 points on that ticket, and you have no points left. If you spend 217 _dollars_ on the ticket, you earn 217 points. Convert the 21,700 points to cash and you have 217 dollars, which pays off the credit card bill and leaves you with 217 points. OK, it’s not a huge difference, but it might add up. Actual frequent flier miles can be a much better deal. We spent 250,000 points for those 5 first-class tickets. 250,000 miles would translate to 2,500 dollars. I’m quite sure the tickets would have been much more than 500 apiece/2,500 total. ---
**Author:** ![MeanJoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanjoe/32/5693_2.png) [@MeanJoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanJoe)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/24 "2012-11-28T15:03:53Z")
Another frequent flier, bordering on road warrior here. Most of your questions have been answered already so some of this is redundant. I have FF accounts with every airline but I primarily fly 1 airline only. This allows me to concentrate all my mileage on a single airline and elevate my status vs. having the total mileage per year spread across multiple airlines and not getting to a high enough status on any of them. For me, redeeming miles for free airfare is great and I usually do it once a year for my vacation travel. As a frequent flier though, I get more benefit week over week with the upgrades to First Class and when unavailable the preferred seats in coach. Early boarding and priority bag handling (and no fee to check bags!) is also a very nice perk that frequent fliers do not underestimate. 🙂 Another way to concentrate miles on an airline is that most car rentals and hotel programs will allow you to have the points acquired applied to your airline FF program. As my hotel stays are never with a consistent, single chain (same with car rentals), I just have those points all applied to my primary airline program. These miles generally do not count for maintaining status (Silver, Gold, Platinum, Chairman, God) but they do work towards that free airfare and are an easy way to pump up those miles. I’m not a huge fan of the airline credit card but it is a nice way to get a big bump immediately in your miles when the offer specials like 25K miles for opening a ABC Air MasterCard. With my work, I am required to use the company provided credit card that is in my name so I can’t use one of them anyway to charge my travel expenses. If you have the freedom to use your own card then I can see how that would be a nice multiplier for miles. MeanJoe ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/25 "2012-11-28T17:47:44Z")
One last thing to note about racking up miles on a single airline is that there are special rewards for long term loyalty as well. For instance, a million miles on [United](http://www.united.com/web/en-US/content/account/lifetime.aspx) gets you permanent Gold Status and several other perks. A million miles sounds like a lot, but I’ve been flying ~20,000 miles per year for 15 years now so I am already nearing 500,000 miles. My kids have 100,000 miles even. You won’t get many free tickets or perks in a single year, but you will eventually get some bigger and better perks. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178/26 "2012-11-28T20:27:38Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > No, they are absolutely not a scam if you use them the right way. You can turn the tables on credit card companies very easily if you take them up on their offer for tickets, never carry a monthly balance, and actually use the the perks. I have a friend who is an absolute super black belt in getting free things from all airlines, hotels, and every other vacation perk for little to no cost. > > He travels year-round for free but spends a lot of time getting the best offers. I told him to just feed me the absolute best of the best offers so I could see if it really works. I promise you it does with minimal effort. I went to Hawaii for a week for free with free drinks the whole plane ride over, a free hotel room and special treatment just for filling out a form and charging normal household expenses to a card for a month. I went to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut for a night with a free comped luxury suite plus I won $800 at the tables but the room was free no matter what. We are going to Las Vegas absolutely free except for airport parking in January. I still have three plane tickets left after that. > > You can play those deals hard and win every time if know what you are doing. The credit card companies want to suck into high interest rates in the long-term so just chew and screw then cancel and beat them at their own game. It is an amazing deal as long as you play it the right way. I know people like that. In fact, I used to be someone like that. Then I got a life, and chasing miles was one of the first things to go. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-to-me-how-this-whole-frequent-flyer-thing-works/642178.md?page=1)