Boarding area has teamed up with American Express to offer a trip for two to the Gold Coast of Austrailia. See this official page for more details.
How To Enter
Simply leave a comment (at top of this post) in this post answering this question; What’s your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?
My Tip
Since the question of the promotion is to share loyalty points earning and using tips, I”ll share mine. When booking your award tickets look into the use of open jaws or stop overs to ensure you get the most value out of your miles and trip. See my trip report here on how I used both an open jaw and stop over to get to the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Paris in business class all in one trip while using a minimum amount of miles.
Here are the details
- Seven nights/eight days hotel accommodations, transportation, meals, activities and round-trip airfare for two people to the Gold Coast of Australia (Queensland)
- Total value = $10,250!**
- American Express and Boarding Area are kicking in a combination of cash and cards to cover any related tax associated with the prize
- A winning reader will be chosen from a random comment selected on each blog, then 1 winner will be selected from the 20 blog selections
- The more you enter the more you have a chance to win
- Fine Print: Contest is only open to those 18 years and up/US Residents only (void in Canada and U.S. Territories)
Bottom Line
This is a great promotion being put on by American Express and Boarding Area. A very easy way to enter to win a trip to Austrailia for two. I would encourage you to visit the other participating blogs to get as many entries possible into this promotion.
About The Weekly Flyer
The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
Sign up for Email || Twitter || Facebook |
Hotel Offers || Airline Offers || Bank Offers || Cash Back Offers
My wife and I both applied for the BA 100,000 mile award. We will use 35,000 each to go to Hawaii and then the remainer to go to London (from Denver) and one direction will be business class. Not bad for what the requirement were.
Read the blogs every day! Deals come and go quickly.
Choose one airline and credit all your miles to the one account.
Once you are in a program do not miss out on any bonus offers – they often require registration
Bookmark a site like evreward.com, and anytime you make an online purchase, check it out. It lists all airline/hotel points available for shopping at a particular site. The little miles add up, and are also great for keeping accounts “fresh.”
Don’t be scared off by credit card annual fees. Look at the bonuses and the possible accrual, and most of them may be worth the potential earn.
Life is short, use those miles!
Use your Amex to earn points (especially the places that give double points) and then use them for the longest flight posible. A transcontinental flight is the same as a flight to the next state.
Don’t forget the additional bonus ways to get miles and points. Never know when you might be justthismuchshort.
Sign up for all programs whenever you use a service. Without realizing it, you frequently earn plenty of miles or points.
Earn the miles/points in the cheapest possible ways and then burn them for the most luxurious travel!
You’ll be much happier when you recognize that you’re only entitled to what you pay for, and everything else–awards, upgrades, etc.–is just a benefit.
Fly one airline or one alliance, and make sure your points get credited!
When redeeming your miles it is always better to avoid school holidays and to travel off season to get the best value for your miles with airlines and hotels.
Make sure you sign up for all promotions you can even if you don’t think you’ll be able to use it. You never know when you might end up qualifying unexpectedly.
Use ANA to research award travel and expert flyer/KVS for other airlines. Do NOT rely on the agent to find you a routing!
Top tip: Be organized. Know what programs will get you where you want to go. Be sure to have annual activity in all of your accounts to avoid losing your earned miles. Use mileage-based credit cards whenever possible-be disciplined enough to pay off the balances each month.
Then, relax and look forward to your next (nearly free) trip!
As a Canadian resident with only 2 national air carriers (and therefore no competition), I find it amusing that it often costs more to fly domestically than it does to fly to europe or even the U.S. Because of this, I find that I get the best value in my airline miles if I use them domestically. Fly across the country for 25,000 miles when the same ticket would cost more than flying to europe which is 60,000 miles.
To use your loyalty points when you want to use them, plan ahead. Way ahead.
Don’t just credit flight miles to your FF program, but also take advantage of partner offers where they make sense – credit cards, dining, etc. This can go a long way to earning those rewards, particularly for infrequent fliers. Through credit card use and partner offers, I earned enough miles to fly myself and my wife to Hawaii for our one year anniversary. Although I’m now mid-tier (Premier Exec) on United, I was a 3-4 times a year flier at the time.
Nothing against seeing Grandma again, but is that really a vacation? What ever happened to experiencing a pleasant climate, using that foreign language, or at least seeing a wonder of the world?
Whenever possible, every action you take should include movement toward living that dream, so look into how credit cards, loyalty programs, and promotions can get you there. You’ll see Grandma next year, and she’ll appreciate the postcards.
Great post. Hope I win!
look for hotels offering discounted point stays. That way, you make the most of your points. For instance, on certain dates 25k Marriott points can be used for a night at a Ritz-Carlton.
All miles are not equal. Know the strengths and weaknesses of the programs you participate in so that when it comes time to redeem an award, you’re using the currency that gets you the most bang for your buck (or mile or point).
Two tips for the price of one entry! I know this doesn’t increase chances of winning, but I surely hope it doesn’t break the rules 🙂
1. If you think you might lose elite status the following year due to changes in travel patterns, focus more on paid (point/mile-earning) flights and stays while you still have status. Two reasons this helps: (A) you take advantage of the elite benefit of bonus earning (10%, 25%, 50%, 100%, etc) that should more than compensation for the risk of devaluation in the coming year, and (B) you will continue to take advantage of upgrades associated with your status in the paid flights/stays. This means avoiding redemption of miles, points, and “free” vouchers (e.g. VDB) that do not earn miles — use these for your family and friends instead, or maybe offer a tit-for-tat exchange (you’ll pay for someone else’s trip using points, and they’ll pay for your similar or less expensive trip using money).
2. Don’t overestimate the value of your miles/points or be overzealous of spending money just to collect rewards, since this is counterproductive to your more important personal finance goals (that will fund more travel!). For example, if you would never pay $20,000 for an international first class flight, don’t benchmark your miles based on that cost! If you do the math, you might find that cashback cards will be more beneficial to your pocketbook than mile or point-earning cards. For example, the Schwab InvestFirst Visa gives 2% cash back on all purchases; would you rather have 2 cents in your pocket for every $1 you spend, or one mile/point? If you always redeem for domestic flights for 25k miles, are those limited-availability flights worth $500 to you?
American Express Membership Rewards is a good place to consolidate a lot of miles for use on a good selection of partners, and they have some good double/triple point promotions from time to time. Bonus idea – read blogs like this one for excellent tips and reviews – I’ve earned a lot of points from just a couple of easy ideas – information is your friend.
It never hurts to ask… just for asking I’ve recieved status matches, waived CC fees, gotten agents to round up total miles to book a flight or hotel when I was short. If you have a bad trip/stay be vocal, write a letter and an email, I’ve been well rewarded for my valued consumer feedback.
Adopt a multi-faceted approach in order to earn the most miles possible! Sure flying on the airline will get you miles but so can a host of other activities! Check out what airlines your bank or credit union has aligned with and get the mileage debit and/or credit card. When shopping online, check out your airline’s website first as many of them link to the e-commerce sites you shop most and allow you to earn miles as well. Check out sites such as http://www.e-rewards.com and http://www.e-miles.com to take quick and simple surveys to earn miles. Also, sign up for your preferred airline’s e-newsletter as they will send you chances to earn more miles when you fly or buy. Most of all, have fun and use those hard-earned miles on something great!
Starwood Amex indeed on every single purchase you do. Not only can you use those miles on hotel stays but you can also use them for flying to your dream destination!
Take advantage of 2 stays=1 free night promotions by staying in 2 cheap local hotels and splurging on a high end luxury one for your free night (Hyatt and hopefully SPG again)
Focus on one or two programs to maximize your benefits, then be flexible and plan ahead to get the most use out of the miles/points you’ve accumulated.
Set clear award goals to help prioritize earning and redemption programs.
Earn points with American Express 3x gold card or the starwood Amex for more flexability.
Then try to get your award with the following information.
If you don’t get what you want the first time, hang up and call again. Always be informed about where you want to go and what routes you can take to get there and use the ANA website and expertflyer to be informed about what availability is out there.
Use your points for Business or First Class to get more bang for the buck.
Keep everything in one family: Hotel stays, credit card usage, car rentals, airlines. Always ‘take the points,’ never the gifts.
Be flexible! You never know what’s going to happen when.
Use your BA miles to Buenos Aires with a stopover on Easter Island for 80K BA miles in Business or 40K in Economy on LAN. Best use of BA miles IMHO.
Scour the web and pay attention to program e-mails for promotions such as double points/miles, etc. I’ve found this to be a great way to increase my account balances for very little effort (often clicking/entering your account number)!
Be consistent. Why spread your points around and never have enough to do anything with? Find what works for you and stick with it. We recently found a nightly price on a hotel room that we felt we couldn’t pass up, but we really should have gone to the adjacent Intercontintental Hotel in order to get some Priority Club points while we were at it.
No matter how small the purchase, use your mileage/point earning credit card. Every point helps!
If you (and your spouse) are participating in a number of different programs, a service that tracks all of your award programs in one place (such as Award Wallet) is very helpful and a big timesaver.
Check airline partner websites for seat availability to international destinations. Then call your airline and suggest the dates that you found available on the partner sites.
My tip is to never leave points on the dinner table. When eating with friends volunteer the use of your CC and when you combine this with iDine opportunities you’ll rack up points and miles on a budget.
Concentrate your efforts on one or two programs. Use the Boarding Area blogs and FlyerTalk to find great deals and tips on making the best use of your miles/points.
My top tip for earning and using rewards points: focus, focus, focus! There’s no sense in spreading out 60,000 points to different airlines, credit cards, and hotels plans. Focus on the plan that makes the most sense for you, and work it. Check the plan’s site frequently for bonus opportunities, credit card signup bonuses, and other earning opportunities, and — if they make sense — take advantage. Secondary tip: don’t become so enamored with points that you spend uneccesarily just to earn points 😉
Be loyal and loyalty will reward you. Use a card for your top airline or hotel, and always fly the same airline (or alliance) and stay at the same hotel.
In the beginning, stick with one airline and one alliance so one can achieve status faster and have less orphan miles.
Checkin with boardingarea.com and Flyertalk daily, don’t miss out on the 100000 mile deals when they come around.
Using an airline specific miles credit card for all purchases and monthly revolving bills allows building of miles without flying and then booking flights with that card often provides double (or higher) miles.