I fly a couple of times each year (a few thousand miles total) so you would think I would have checked into this already, but I am ashamed to say that I haven’t. In fact, I don’t even know what it is other than airline miles you accumulate and use for future flights.
How do you sign up to earn these miles? Are miles transferable between me and my kids? Can I get credit for flights I have already taken?
Where do I start?
You turn me on. But maybe it’s because I just spent 20 years in the jungle, getting it on with anything I could attract with a piece of fruit.
Basically all the info is available from the airlines you fly. Some arlines have partnerships (Delta and United) others do not.
As for credit for past flights, no, you usually cannot get miles unless you purchase or show your miles card at the time of flights.
You usually get some bonus miles just for signing up, and many companied (Delta for example) make partnerships with other companies (Like MCI, Visa, Amex, E*Trade) to offer free miles when using their services.
I am unaware if you can swap miles. I believe that would be determined by the company.
Be aware, you usually have to accumulate 20k+ miles before you earn a free trip. And the one class upgrades are usually useless, as most any flight you book will have a full first class section.
Voted Biggest Smartass by all you beautiful people!
You always use violence. I should’ve ordered glutinous rice chicken.
I belong to two or three frequent flyer clubs, and I’m not aware of any of 'em that allow “swapping” miles. Some will allow you to donate miles to a charity.
I’ve gotten several free domestic tickets, for myself and my family. Two years ago we sent Middle Son to visit family in Western New York – all by himself (this is the “big trip” each kid gets to take in the summer between fourth and fifth grade – to fly out to Aunt Debbie’s house and stay a week without members of his immediate family around. It’ll be Youngest Son’s turn this summer). I had gotten him a free ticket on United, and because it was a “Premier” account that the ticket was off of, they bounced him up to First Class – they had available space there and a bunch of standbys for the flight.
I personally think First Class is wasted on a ten year old, but the flight attendants all thought he was cute and he had a great time.
I’m sitting on about 175,000 United Miles at the moment, and am making plans for either the Bahamas or Hawaii with the family – haven’t decided which yet.
You may want to sign up with a carrier that has lots of code sharing partnerships with other airlines and with third party vendors. I’ve found that American Airlines is linked to just about everyone. Also, MCI and Citibank MC/Visa have tie-ins with them.
Regarding past flights (at least with American), you can get the miles for them if you still have the boarding pass stubs which you can xerox and send in. Like you, I was a little late in signing up, but because they had this policy, I sent in all the miles from my honeymoon which alone was almost enough for two free tickets in the continental US.
Also, plan really far ahead when you do get enough frequent flyer tickets to go somewhere (I believe 25,000 is the first break point for the continental US/ 30,000 for Alaska, Hawaii/ 35,000 for the Caribbean and South or Central America). The airline blackballs you big time on frequent flyer tickets and has blackout dates for everything. We are going to the Caribbean this Spring and had to book it last November to get my wife and I both on the same flight at a normal time (i.e. not flying at 2:00am)
Frequent flyer miles generally no longer expire (which was previously a problem) so sign up for all the airlines. Then you won’t find yourself always having to pay more for a ticket just because you are trying to earn miles on any given one if they are not already the cheapest deal you can find on PriceLine or other travel site.
You may be able to receive credit for past flights taken if you just signed up for an account and you didn’t fly that long ago. What you will need is a copy of either your itinerary or ticket and your frequent flyer number. Mail it into the said airlines FF department and hope for the best. All it will cost you is the cost of a stamp. If it has been over a year, it won’t happen, but it’s worth a shot anyway.
i was able to get credit for flights with British Airways taken before I joined the FF programme. I had no ticket stubs / itineries, but all the flights had been booked through a travel agent, who was able to get the flight number and date for each journey. If you can produce this information, the airline may give you credit.
If it’s any consolation, I flew 3-4000 miles / month for almost a year before I thought to join the programme. At the time, though, BA did not offer any points / miles for discount price tickets, which most of mine were.
British Air has the nice feature of a family “membership,” so that all the miles flown by me, my wife, and my kids go into one account. None of the other airlines do that, as far as I know.
Most flights have a limited number of seats for which they will accept the free mileage tickets, so the earlier you can book, the better.
The upgrades depend on how high up you are in the frequent flyer hierarchy. They give preference to the highest levels, so if you’re just a 5 or 10,000 mile a year flyer, you probably will not have much of a shot at upgrades. Depends on the flights, though.
I’ve found that the auxiliary stuff (hotel and rental car discounts) are almost never available… the conditions are limited and the availability low. Waste of energy.