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.
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Do a bit of research and decide which alliance network is best for your travel style. Join and work to put all your flights through that alliance. This way all your points are put into one source. Additionally, finding a credit card with the main airline of this alliance increases your base of points and sometimes your status. When you purchase tickets make sure that the tickets count towards your miles.
Join a loyalty program with household accounts that pool miles. Combine that with a credit card program and you will have more miles to use faster!
Stick to one airline and aim for elite status!
Collect miles and points only for airlines and hotels that you really like and that are readily available for use.
SPG AMEX
Come to the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO, commonly known as the points and miles maximization DO. Elusive award ticket booking is one of the presentations this year. See thread in CommunityBuzz. July 24 and 25.
For miles that are about to expire, usually it only requires a transaction to keep them from expiring. One time I donated 1000 miles in order to save 100,000 miles. Something as simple as this can keep your miles from expiring.
Focus on one hotel program to concentrate your loyalty point earning. Oftentimes, once you reach top tier status, other hotel loyalty programs will match status with a minimal night/stay requirement. Some hotels say they will only match status once, but in the past few years, status matching has been easier than ever…follow-up and don’t take no for an answer.
Check your account regularly to make sure all miles get posted. Keep your boarding passes to retroactively get any miles to post that slip through the cracks.
I’d suggest reading up on all programs offered by those you most frequently use, and spend points smart…get the most out of it, but also be aware of all the rules involved with spending the points.
Top tip: Flexibility. Be willing to be a little bit flexible when it comes both to dates and destinations. Also, be flexible about using the points at all – keep an eye on the costs of booking the hotel or flights that you have chosen, and be willing to cancel if the economics are reasonable.
Focus your travel in a single program, but always be open to earning bonuses and taking advantages of great promotions in other programs you don’t typically use.
Just read the flyertalk forums and the boardingarea blogs!
My tip is to have the credit card with the program you are in. This will be most efficient in earning points per spending. For instance, if you are platinum, Marriott credit card allows you to earn 20 points / $1 spent at Marriott (10 base pts + 5 Plat pts + 5 credit card pts); Amex Starwood allows you to earn 5 points / $1 spent (2 base pts + 1 Plat pts + 2 credit card pts), etc…
My tip on spending is to be flexible and make use of the benefits offer by each program, such as staying 4 nights and get 1 night free, pointsaver stay. Plan and make reservation early since more options are available and the reservation can be cancelled should your plan changes.
Set up your bills to be paid automatically using your American Express Card.
Choose a loyalty program that allows you to earn points over a wide variety of opportunities, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals, meals, shopping opportunities, as well as bonus offers.
Suppose you need to fly from Cleveland to Venice. Never ask whether award seats are available from Cleveland to Venice. Instead, start with the hub-to-hub routes flown by the carriers in your alliance. Say it’s the Star Alliance: Look for availability on flights from Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia, Toronto, or Washington, D.C. (hubs for Star Alliance partners Continental, United, US Airways, and Air Canada) to Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich, or Copenhagen. That gives you more than 20 possibilities. Once you’ve found a hub-to-hub flight with award seats, tack on the short-haul spoke-to-hub or hub-to-spoke options (Cleveland to Chicago or Dulles, for example, and Frankfurt or Vienna to Venice).
My tip is to plan early and be persistent. In order to maximize your miles, you have to be patient and organized.
Many semi-frequent flyers don’t realize that they can often credit their flown miles to a different airline miles program within an alliance or through other reciprocal agreements. Doing so can keep all your miles in one place (or at least just a few places), with a potentially significant impact on how soon you’ll have enough miles for award travel.
Earning miles quickly is much easier than you think. Every time you go to pay for something, think of gaining mileage points. Get a credit card (like AmEx) that gives the most mileage points for your favorite airline every time you use the card; I use just that one card for just about everything. Then, check out what companies your airline partners with and shop through them (for i.e. hotel stays, car rentals, and even for significant things like home loans, larger purchases, loans, insurance and even home purchases). Many airlines have “dining for miles” programs (linked up to your credit card), and also online shopping sites (like Delta’s SkyMall) where you get points for money spent (that’s in addition to the miles your credit card will give). You can also rack up the points by completing online surveys for companies linked up to your airline (like erewards.com for Delta miles). Also, check your airline’s frequent flier webpage every now and then for specials offering points. It all adds up quickly! Once you have enough miles on an airline, plan to use them, but give yourself good planning, like 2 months advance reservations, to ensure availability of your preferred travel dates. Remember: once made, the reservations cannot be changed. Lastly, enjoy your free trip to the max!
read boarding area blogs; browse flyertalk discussions; use Starwood Preferred Guest Card from America Express.
Log onto Flyertalk.com every day and learn.
My hint is to use to manage all your frequent flyer program information – it’s like Mint.com for points.
It will pull in all of your points (flights, hotels, car, and others) and show it to you in a 1-page dashboard, while also showing the detailed information just 1 click away. What makes it different (and better) than other point management sites is that, in addition to showing your points, it will show what you can buy (eg “how many round trip coach tickets to Europe can I buy?”) with your points!
It’s in private beta right now, but I’ve set up 100 invites for BoardingArea.com users so that they can test it out themselves and see how it makes managing points easier than anything else out there.
My two power strategies are to select a few travel partners and be loyal to them to maximize your benefits. Secondly, use a single credit card with a good reward program for everyting. Yes I mean everything. You should have heard me and the Acura salesman negotiating over a $42,000 purchase being put on my American Express card!
As for the travel partners, I have a friend who has used Hyatt hotels exclusively for 25 years. He hasn’t paid for an exotic luxury hotel detstination vacation in 12 years and he can get a great room at any Hyatt anytime – they never tell him they are sold out!
Follow these blogs and flyertalk.com for your favored airline to see as soon as special promotions such as double points become available. I find these sites usually announce before I get e-mails from my airline.
My top tip for using airline points is to be ready to plan several months in advance, be flexible and pick a few dates and surrounding airports to chose to fly into, and if you’re unable to find a flight by yourself online, try calling a points representative. You may have to pay a small fee but often they are able to search with partner airlines and get you where you want to go! You may want to check back a few times if you aren’t able to get it on the first try, as sometimes ther is an extra special agent that will go out of their way to help you a litte more. Be nice!
My miles-earning tip is to frequently try to use the shopping portals offered through airline and hotel sites (for example, Mileage Plus Mall for United Airlines, or Priority Club Shopping for Priority Club Rewards) to buy things that I need. Not only do I earn miles on my airline or hotel affiliated credit card, but also an additional minimum of 1 mile per $1 spent. Even better though is when you come across an item that you might not particularly need, but after the free shipping and mail-in rebate, the item is free. I then immediately post it on ebay and walk away with more money in my pocket that I started with, and a bunch of miles or points.
If you are just starting, focus on one or 2 programs to learn the tips and tricks as well as building up points or miles.
Sign up for your airline’s Dining Rewards program and sign up for every bonus there. It’s an easy way to make miles on stuff you’d do anyway. Always offer to pay the bill, you’ll look like a nice guy and get the miles, you can double dip if you have a mileage earning credit card.
Try to consolidate travel and therefore mileage earning into one airline program and make sure that the airline is convenient to your home location. That way elite status is more within reach.
Establish a habit to check flyertalk.com at least Twice a day!
Sign up for every hotel/airline/train loyalty program out there. Just because you think that you aren’t going to actually fly on a particular airline or stay in a particular hotel chain, does not mean that’s a reason not to sign up for these programs. After that, make sure that you participate in every bonus, sign-up promo or opt-in promo available (think Continental’s frequent 100 mile promos). You never know when those couple hundred miles or points will come in handy for a larger promotion that is being offered. Often you can transfer points or miles to other programs via points.com to get that last necessary partner participation.
Details, details, check the details!
Use a single credit card for everything you purchase including travel, household and personal expense, utilities, and paying your taxes. The card you use should be the one that has the best rewards program and flexibility for your personal lifestyle.
Read the blogs for tips and follow their advise. I’ve scored thousands of miles this way.
Attend a flyertalk DO and get to know some of these professional points and miles guys. They have a wealth of information!
Always be sure to keep up to date with promotions and special offers of your favorite loyalty programs. These promotions allow you to earn points, miles, and rewards at greatly accelerated rates. Read the T&C’s carefully and be sure to follow up with Customer Service if any bonuses do not post.
Take advantage of stopover rules if your program offers it. It can allow you another destination for virtually free!
Jumpstart your miles by getting status on one airline. AA offers a Platinum challenge that can help you get status very quickly. Once you have status with AA, many other airlines are willing to match it. When you fly with status, you get more miles. Now you just have to earn it the hard way next year. 😉
When trying to redeem miles for an award ticket plan on doing all the leg work yourself – most airline phone agents will search the simplest routings, find no availability, and stop. Know all your airline’s partners (both in and outside the alliance) and all hub and gateway cities, and tell the agent exactly what you want.
For example, Delta had no availability for a West Coast to Israel award. But the agent only checked Delta flights. By knowing ahead of time that Air France serves Seattle, SFO, and LAX, and that Alaska serves my city and the AF gateways, I got the outbound on the exact dates I wanted.
Similarly, secure the international flight first. There is only one SEA-CDG flight a day. Find availability for that, then work on getting to SEA – there’s likely many more options for the domestic flight. Many agents will not even search the international flight on a particular day if your first domestic segment doesn’t appear to be available.
All of the blogs have a very similar # of posts… hmmmm, cant imagine why.
Go mobile, any decent airline has a good mobile site. Still weary of paperless BP’s though, how do I prove mileage if it doesn’t get credited.
You can borrow portable DVDs in some airport. Just look around. There’s a good way to kill time in some not so exciting flights.
EARN- Sign up for a credit card affiliated with miles,(if possible CHURN!); always makes sure that your hard earned miles actually post; travel when double miles are being offered; and look around at boardingarea.com, and FT, for the many bonuses out there.
SPEND- If you’ve got the miles, USE AND ENJOY THEM, unless the price to pay is the same value as the points or cheaper, when then you might as well save your miles for a different occasion, and actually earn miles on your current flight or stay; also, often cash & points can be your best option.
putting all your family members on one airlines card is a good way to consolidate credits and points.
Look for coalition programs that let you redeem your points on multiple airlines.
Check out the partner programs that your favorite airline has, and consider whether you want to spend money with partners. For instance, we had to choose a mortgage a few years ago – and wound up getting 1,300 airline miles for every $10,000 we borrowed (plus the same rate we’d been offered elsewhere without the points). So we got enough miles by picking one bank over another to fund a trip. Spending money isn’t fun, and borrowing it is less fun. But if I can turn spending I have to do anyway into miles or points, by picking between two equivalent companies, I’ll take the miles every time.
Check your airline frequent flier program website often for bonus offers – and subscribe to (and read) the email alerts the loyalty programs send out. Some of the offers are really cool. For instance, United Airlines wanted to boost travel from the U.S. to Madrid, so they recently offered a 5,000 mile bonus. We were headed to Mallorca anyway, and had normally flown through Barcelona on another airlines. But with four travelers, we got 20,000 bonus miles (plus actual miles) just for flying through another airport. That’s an easy change to make.
Make sure you get miles on EVERYTHING when you travel – the rental car business is very competitive. If you’re not getting triple miles PLUS a discount for carrying your loyalty card, you aren’t asking the right questions!
We get miles every time we pay our electric bill, and with every cell phone plan. (Shop around – and check your airline frequent flier program website. It’s easy to leave miles on the table if you aren’t careful.)
There are TONS of partner programs – Netflix, Bose, and FTD Florist, are just three of the ones we’ve gotten miles or points from so far this year. Check the frequent flier program website for partners, and read the enewsletters they send
If you aren’t a business traveler who flies a lot, I tell my friends in the US to gravitate towards Continental’s Onepass program. It’s the only program where miles never expire, so you can slowly but surely build towards a reward over however many years you need. Nothing is more discouraging for an aspiring frequent flyer than to have their miles erased for no good reason.
Use the credit card partner for your airline of choice and any related utility offers. Miles collect extremely quickly this way.
Pay attention to promotions within your chosen program and consolidate your travel within the time periods of the promotion