I suppose I could call the airlines in question, but they never answer their phones, I’m embarrassed to not know what to do, and I don’t want my co-workers listening to me fuddle through trying to explain what I’m trying to do.
SO I’ll ask you all instead…I’m not embarrassed by you.
I have a ton of miles from Northwest, American and United. How can I spend them? I figure I can call and get free trips (minus some new charges coming down the pike); but what else can I get?
I can use them to upgrade to some new seat right? How and when can I do this? Do I walk up to the counter at the gate just before the flight and announce I would like a first class seat and would like to buy it with my ample miles? Or do I call the airlines 4 days ahead of time and ask to do this?
Also How do I get an exit seat? Do they not fill these seats until someone comes up to the gate and says; “I would like to change my seat to an exit row”
By the way…are there any other secret tricks and procedures that frequent flyers do that I don’t know about and can take advantage of?
Okay newbie… here is some advice. Figure out where you want to go and contact the airline immediately. There are only a limited number of frequent flyer seats on any given flight, and they are often booked months in advance. When you find a flight with available seats in whatever class you want you can reserve them. There is usually some kind of fee you will need to pay. If you want to fly first class then just book a first class seat with your miles. Upgrading at the last minute is dicey since there are so few frequent flyer seats available in the first place. As far as using the miles for other purposes you should read the ample marketing literature you should be getting from the airlines that talk about their programs. Or just go to the airline’s website and check it out. It’s not hard to do, just do it early for a reasonable chance of getting on the flight you want.
The best way to figure out where/when/what you can use, is to visit the web site of the airline, and read the rules for redeeming miles.
It varies too much by airline, but a general rule of thumb is:
If you want to use them, that option will be unavailable when you want to fly.
As an example, I was unable to find, anywhere during the summer of 2007 (booking 2-3 months out) a flight from Manchester NH to Raleigh NC (I was investigating a move there) for my family of 3 (2 adults, one small child) that left during ‘regular travel days’. I was able, with some fiddling around, to find a round trip that worked for us, leaving on a Wednesday, returning the next Tuesday.
Upgrades are generally done via coupon, which you need to request in advance, or at the time of the booking. Free travel is best done via the web reservation system.
If an upgrade is available, and the counter staff is in a good mood, you may be able to get them to redeem at that time… don’t count on it. If you’re a 'high level frequent flyer (gold/platinum/president’s club or whatever it’s called on that airline), the upgrades are pretty much automatic. I have an uncle who is a top level US Air FF member, and he, and his entire party are upgraded as a matter of routine, without him having to even ask.
I’ve redeemed mine twice, without the above problems (ok, in one case it took about a week for the airline to come back to me and say “yes that flight’s available” but it did happen).
The airlines’ websites will tell you what you can get with the number of miles that you have. This may include flights to various different countries (the more miles you have, the further you can go), seats in various parts of the aircraft, hotel stays or merchandise.
If the airline belongs to one of the big frequent flyer networks like Star Alliance or Sky Team (I’m pretty sure all three of yours do), you may be able to redeem your miles on another airline in the same network, so check the flights available from them too.
As to the fee referred to in an above post, this may vary by country/airline but in my experience the only fee was that I still had to pay the taxes on the flight.
The webites for Northwest and American are both easy to use for redeeming miles for flights. (I’m not sure about United, as I rarely fly with them.) In the area where you put in your dates and departure/arrival cities, there should be a box or something for you to check to indicate you want to use miles. I would try online before calling.
If you have a particular destination in mind, compare the “cost” in miles from one airline to the next. I recently booked award tickets to Mexico. On AA, the tickets were 25,000 miles round trip; on NWA, they were 35,000. You’ll have to pay the tax on the ticket.
I know you can use miles to upgrade on a PAID ticket, but not sure how this would work on an award ticket and it might vary from airline to airline. As someone else mentioned, you might just want to book your award ticket in 1st class from the get-go. Or if you have status, you can hope for an upgrade that way.
I would also recommend checking the websites of your airlines. They will have all the info you need about how to redeem your miles.
Northwest also has a program called “cash & Miles” which is actually pretty useful if you have some significant number of miles but less than 25,000. Generally, this involves paying a flat rate for the airfare (depending on which of 3 zones your destination is in, but generally below competitive rates for the flight) plus 10 or 20 thousand miles (more miles, less cash, and vice versa).
I will say that, due to the imminent merger of Delta and Northwest, the latter seems to be in a state of confusion about frequent flyer travel. No one seems to know what will happen to credited miles when the airlines complete their merger, and NWA has been listing fewer available award travel flights than I have experienced in the past.
Go to a FF board of your choice and learn about various tips. They tend to be airline specific.
I fly a moderate amount–80-100 segments per year (a few hundred thousand miles in my FF bank) on American. Everyone is different in how they accumulate miles and how they spend them. FWIW here are a few of my choices.
Focus on one airline. The higher you go up the rank (for AA Gold-Platinum-Exec Plat) the faster you accumulate miles and the more privileges you get. An EP gets to bump everyone else, e.g. Exit seats are reserved for flyers w/ status and that’s why there are sometimes some left over for the regular guy who gets the last seat on the plane. With AA G+P spend complimentary “Upgrades” to fly first free, but these accumulate fairly rapidly as your status rises.
I never spend miles for domestic travel. I’ll buy a United ticket and fly as a commoner before I’ll spend my FF miles b/c I save them for overseas travel. Just a personal preference. The reason is that I can redeem 180,000 miles for a first class RT to Delhi that would cost me $29,000 buying it from American (these are actual numbers for a trip I just planned). I think a domestic ticket might be 25-50,000 miles depending, but I can usually find the same destination online for about $2-300, so first class to Delhi seems like a better deal. I suffer with the masses in the cheapest crappiest seat and spend the time drooling about First Class overseas which is fabulously different from domestic first. Really.
With AA at least, the web site is the best place to find out how to redeem your miles. You can look up all the choices. Just like with regular tickets, the FF miles “price” can vary dramatically. A different Delhi RT date might be 360,000 miles, e.g., and deplete most of my miles.
If you really have a “ton” of miles, you should also have some status. Use it. There is a special AA number to get service for people with status, and they are pretty good about trying to protect their good customers. FF is all about loyalty so use it to your advantage.
Ditto. I’m happy to spend 15k miles to upgrade across the pond and equally happy to gut out a 4-hour domestic flight in coach. International business class is a whole different world than domestic. I also agree with trying to stick with one airline. I have my miles with most of the majors, but concentrated with Delta and United. I absolutely love being a premier member with United–there have been many times I’ve had a problem, then told the agent my FF number (which my work never seems to provide while booking my ticket), and boom, it’s like I’m talking to an entirely different agent who can’t wait to fix my problem.
This might not quite fit with what the OP is looking for because it’s a quirky little thing that wouldn’t affect that many people–but I thought I’d share it as a general frequent-flier tip anyway, if that’s alright.
As someone else mentioned already, you always have to pay some sort of fees and/or taxes when you reserve your “free” award flight. Used to be these fees were fairly reasonable but these days the fees can run $300 or more. **NOTE: **DON’T FREAK OUT YET!! I only personally know of ONE airline that charges that much for an FF award ticket and that’s Japan Airlines. JAL adds their fuel surcharge (as well as other charges) to the cost of your “free” ticket. The domestic carriers I use don’t do that (yet).
So… let’s say you have 50,000 saved miles with JAL (like I did) and you’d like to redeem them for a round-trip ticket from L.A. to Tokyo (cost: 50,000 miles). All you have to do to save several hundred dollars in fees (I was quoted $350 for a similar trip) is fly one of the frequent-flier partner airlines (that has lower fees) instead of JAL. I flew American Airlines and only paid 40 or 50 dollars or so. Big difference!!
I would prefer to fly JAL-- it is a great airline-- but I loved having a “free” ticket that was closer to “free” than to “half-price”.
