They say things like ‘1-2 miles per dollar spent’, or 20,000 bonus miles with your first few thousand dollars.
However I don’t see how that could be a 1-1 ratio of airline miles and actual miles (since a cross country flight is about 3000 miles). I think they are something like every 100 miles is worth $1. Is that a rule or just a rule of thumb?
Do the cards work for international flights? How do blackout dates work (are they as bad as the commercials imply)?
I was reading a trip to France is about 60,000 miles, which would imply about $20,000 in credit card purchases.
Has anyone figured out tricks to get the best out of airline miles? My brothers are (probably) going to move all around the country soon and I was also wanting to travel to europe sometime.
I recently cashed in a bunch of AA miles to fly to a soccer game in Columbus. I think theirs was 12,500 one way in the continental US. So 25,000 both ways for coach. They don’t collect terribly quickly either.
I’m not sure what the confusion is here. You spend $1000 and you get 1000 bonus miles. You’ll need 25,000 or so to get a free domestic flight so if you combine your purchases with miles you earn on other flights you can get enough points for a flight reward in a reasonable amount of time. Some people put an awful lot of money on their cards, others not so much.
If you want to earn an international flight either you need to spend a whole lot on your card or combine it with flights that you take. They work best for business travelers for that reason.
Blackout dates and available seats make these cards mostly worthless IMO unless you travel a huge amount for business. But even then your flight earned miles will outweigh your CC miles. The combination can be useful.
I’d get a free card that gives you cash back and save up for your flights rather than try to earn it though bonus miles.
My brother did that ten or fifteen years ago. His company let him keep his FF miles, and he was in Brazil for the company for 6 months or so. He flew home almost every weekend, meeting his wife for dinner near the airport. His return flight was right after dinner. They did several Hawaiian vacations that way.
Most of the airline mileage programs will sell miles to you, (This can be useful if you’re close to achieving a given award level or if your company wants to give miles away to employees or customers.) For example, United MileagePlus will sell your company miles at the rate of $0.025 per mile. So I wouldn’t value the miles at any more than one or two cents. Note that millions of people belong to frequent flyer programs. The total number of miles out there is in the trillions. The airlines can’t possibly award enough free tickets to soak up all of those miles. And, commercial flights fly very full lately, so they aren’t going to given away a seat when they can sell the seat.
That’s how I do it, although not nearly as often as once a week. Still, I should end up pulling about 85,000 ass-in-seat miles this year for work. Combined with mileage credit cards, Starwood bonuses, and other stuff, I’ll end up with about a quarter million miles for the year.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
For most programs, there is a difference between actual miles flown (ass-in-seat miles) and bonus miles. Both kinds can be traded in for free tickets, but most programs limit elite status tiers to people who acquire actual-flown miles. (Usually they call them “qualifying miles” or something like that.) So while it’s easy to get a lot of miles by, say, running your entire business via a mileage credit card, you won’t be getting free first-class upgrades or lounge access or the priority reservation line that way. If all you want is free coach tickets, though, that can work very well.
Don’t hoard miles. They are very deflationary. Spend them when you have enough to get what you want.
Don’t buy miles unless you can get them for less than around 1.5 cents each. Depending on the program, miles are typically valued at around 2 cents each. Don’t participate in any product promotion unless it will translate into paying less than 1.5 cents per mile earned. If you get an AmEx card for miles, factor in the annual fee if there is one.
If you will be staying at a lot of hotels, join an airline/hotel cross-promotion if it’s available. For example, Starwood and Delta have a thing where my points for staying at Starwood hotels also earn my bonus miles on Delta, and they will cross-honor some perks of elite status.
When picking a program, your home base matters. You want to pick an airline that has a major hub in your hometown. (Or at most one short hop away via regional affiliate.) Not all airlines are created equal, even the major legacy carriers. For example, Delta is strongest in New York, Detroit, and Salt Lake, but United is strongest in Chicago, Denver, and LA.
Alliances matter, especially if you’re doing a lot of international. The three big alliances are SkyTeam, Oneworld, and Star Alliance. In most cases, if you are a member of one airline in a given alliance, miles flown on another airline in the same alliance will accrue to your mileage account, if you give your FF number at booking. For example, when I fly on Air France, I get Delta mileage because Air France and Delta are both members of SkyTeam.
If you want to go really nuts with this stuff, join the FlyerTalk forums. They are insane. I am terrified of them.
I’m an atypical mileage user so I’ll share how it worked for me:
I don’t travel for my job anymore, so I don’t rack up butt-in-seat miles.
I live near DFW, so it’s American Airlines if you like it and American Airlines if you don’t. So, I got a Citibank AAdvantage card. When you sign up for the card you get 40,000 miles.
I charge nearly everything, utilities, groceries, gas, insurance on that card and pay it off every month.
I pay for one international flight for a vacation a year, the lowest fare I can find to Jamaica or Mexico. Dollars spent on AA earn double miles.
All of this has earned me enough for two (for two) round trip tickets so far. The trick in using them is to find the cheapest redemption tickets. If you travel off-season and mid-week, you can find trips for 25,000 miles round-trip per seat.
If you want to go to Hawaii in peak-season, you’re using 70,000 miles per seat, round-trip and there are a limited number of those seats available.
How much do you fly now ? What airlines ?
First, generally the best miles earning credit card is a brand new one, because there are at least a dozen credit cards I can think of with bonuses that will translate into 2 free flights or more (for most airlines, 25,000 miles = free domestic flight). You have to search flyertalk to find the right link, as the public link you will find just by googling will be worth much less. And you have to meet the minimum spend.
Off the top of my head, today:
Citi American Airlines (Biz and personal available) - 50k
Chase British Airways - 50k
Amex Mercedes Benz Platinum - 50k
Chase Ink Bold Biz - 50k
There are more, but I’d have to look it up.
In terms of spending day to day, probably the best mileage earning credit card is the Starwood Preferred Guest Amex, which gives one Starwood point per dollar, which equals 1.25 miles in the programs they transfer to. But you have to be spending probably 50k a year or more on credit cards before you should worry about spending for non-signup bonuses and non-bonus categories (ie, for a bonus example chase ink bold gives you 5 miles/$ at office stores).
