It’s Saturday again so it must be time to play Question of the Weekend, your chance to win a $25 gift card from American Express or Visa. This weekend we have a two-part question. Here we go…
What is your plan for obtaining frequent flier miles and how do you plan to use them?
For example, Christine opened a credit card with American Airlines and received 50,000 miles. She is going to use them to position herself with Chicago for some cheap flights from that airport, and also to take her friend along on vacation to San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Lucky friend!)
You’ve got until 8 p.m. Sunday night to craft your answer and post it in the Comments section. (Yes, we’ve instituted a cut-off time. Hey — we’re Baby Boomers. We don’t want to be reading answers at midnight.)
Remember to answer both parts of the question. Christine will select the best and we’ll post the winner on Monday.
I have been saving my FF miles for a couple of years but with a BIG flight coming up, we needed more miles. Both my husband and I opened a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card and earned 50,000 each. Still short of the miles I would need for 2 Business Class tickets to Sydney, I opened a Chase Explorer card. Of course I opened it within a few weeks of the other Chase card and got the telephone call from Chase. I gave them a legitimate reason why I needed this card even though I had two other Chase cards. With those immediate 25,000 points, I had enough. We are now trying to route us from the East Coast to Sydney with a return from Auckland. This summer I’ll apply for the Chase Marriott card and hopefully get to stay free in Sydney. I love getting all these free points.
My plan to obtain frequent flier miles is working as smoothly as I hoped. My husband and I each opened a Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa card and each got 40,000 miles. We wanted to fly on Delta so we transferred the Chase points into Korean Airlines miles which offers awards on their Skyteam partners – one of which is Delta. Sounds like a lot of work, but it was so easy! And Korean Airlines lets you cancel or change award tickets with no penalty fees.
Another way I get Delta miles is through the Skymiles shopping portal (link to many online retailers) and the Skymiles Dining program (just register your credit card and eat at a participating restaurant).
I also do the e-miles.com surveys so I can transfer miles to Delta. And play the Delta Audience Rewards trivia games for extra miles (very few miles, but every miles helps)
And what am I doing with these miles? We will be flying into Venice and returning from Milan for a fabulous Northern Italy trip this summer! Venice, Padua, Verona, Milan, Lake Como. And we are using some great hotel awards along the way. Just writing about it is getting me excited!
So long as interest rates remain this low, I’m sticking with BankDirect to earn AA miles on my checking account. I get much more value on the miles I earn there compared to the puny interest that most banks are currently paying.
We earn and burn every year.
2011: 3 week trip to Jordan and Israel. Flew Royal Jordanian to Amman, Jordan in Business class using AA miles. Returned to USA from Tel Aviv on El Al Business class using AA miles.
2012: Will be flying to Spain this fall in Business class using our miles for a 3 week vacation on our own (Madrid, Costa del Sol, Seville, Granada, Cordoba). We then return from Spain also on an award ticket. The final leg of the return is British Airways First class from Heathrow to the USA – had to pay the British Airways fuel surcharge, but this will be out first redemption in First class.
2013: I’m planning a trip to the Netherlands for a tulip time river boat cruise followed by a week or 10 days on our own in northern Italy and Tuscany. I reserved the cruise through Ultimate Rewards Travel and used some of our Ultimate Reward points to cover the cruise deposit. I’ll pay the cruise balance before June 30 with one of our Chase cards in order to get the 6x U.R. points bonus on cruises that is available this quarter. And I’ll soon be searching for award flight and hotel redemptions for that vacation as well.
I actually do everything I tell my readers to do on my website, FreeFrequentFlyermiles.com. The result has been millions of miles used for many, many business class trips to far away and interesting places in the world.
Next trip will be to Greece and Turkey, flying on an open jaw Lufthansa/Turkish Air/ United business class ticket with a 2 day stopover in Frankfurt. After that will be a trip to Quito and the Galapagos Islands on American Airlines with a stopover in Miami.
I plan to see the world in comfort with my miles.
I do not usually travel for business, and my leisure travel each year is limited to a couple of big trips and a few long weekends (and at least half my personal flights are redemptions), so I employ several other means to earn airline miles. Thanks to everything I learned from miles and points websites and blogs, I have employed the following strategies to amass American Airline miles:
• In 2010, I got a Citibank AAdvantage credit card with a 75K signup bonus
• I opened a BankDirect checking account, which earns AA miles each month. Despite the paltry cash interest and the $12 monthly fee, I calculated my cost of the AA miles (including the opportunity cost of earning more interest elsewhere) at about ½ cent per mile
• I earned AA miles through the Fidelity bonus (deposits of $25K/$50K/$100K earn 15K/25K/50K miles respectively, and the same opportunity is available for Delta or United, for people who prefer these programs)
• I use my Citibank AAdvantage credit card strategically when Citibank offers more than the standard one mile per dollar spent. Due to a bonus offered to me when I called to cancel another card and a couple of other bonuses, I was earning between 2 and 3.5 miles per dollar spent last fall and this winter
• I little things that earn extra AA miles (e.g., making charity contributions through the AA website, doing promotions (Bose, online offers) for miles, using the AA dining or shopping programs occasionally (although actually getting points for AAdvantage shopping or any of the airline shopping malls run by Cartera is so difficult that I’ve pretty much given up on them)
My plan for using my AA miles is primarily for premium class, long haul international redemptions, often on AA partners. I redeemed 55K miles to fly home to the US in business class from Thailand and Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific this winter. I am working towards my goal of redeeming miles in the future for a multi-destination trip using AA’s Oneworld awards, which require using at least two participating OW airlines, allow multiple stops (up to 16 segments), and are priced based on the total countable trip miles. Given some of the places I want to go (in Australia, Asia, and Europe), I probably will end up in the 25,001 – 35,000 mile tier, which costs 190K miles in business (or 140K in economy or 280K in first).
My boyfriend and I typically apply for large sign-on bonuses with CCs. We got AAx2 75k offers in September and are using them to take an AA One World Award in Biz class to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Tokyo, and Kyoto.
I just started this new hobby at the beginning of the year. But with all the great advice on FT I have been hitting the Miles and Points in all ways possible including, CC bonuses, utilizing FARs for the required spends, and I am just starting to get into the plastic business and utilizing AP. I hope to be over the 1,000,000 mark by the end of the year. Then after that it is going to be party time, I will continue the new hobby and really really enjoy the old hobby of traveling the world.
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1. My plan is to stay up late every night with a box of fig newtons and a cold glass of bubbly milk, and read every single (decent) blog I can find, giving me hints for collecting miles
2. I’ll use the miles to fly from point A to point B whenever (sigh) one of my kids calls for my help
I’m getting to the age that I need to start working on my bucket list. I have been hooked on hot air ballooning since my first flight at age 18 and have always wanted to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October. I’ve always had too many kids in school to take a week off to go, but this year I’m down to one left in public school and decided to go for it. I have some miles on several airlines, but by the time I decided to go, couldn’t get frequent flyer saver awards on any of them. Southwest doesn’t fly from our home airport, but had very reasonable fares from one 200 miles from us. Then I discovered the Southwest credit card offer that should give us enough points quickly for two of the three tickets. Signed up, received it in just a few days and made my first purchases this week. Should be able to reserve those flights as soon as the first month’s points are posted. I usually avoid cards with fees, but if the $69 fee can get us two free tickets, I’m in.
I have plenty of Marriott points, so reserved ten nights in a Residence Inn for the trip. I’m very excited and will probably want to go every year in the future.
Like many others, I’m using credit card signup bonus miles to get my husband and I to cool places. I’m making sure my credit card signups align with the upcoming trips we want to do. One easy mini application party was the BOA and BOH Hawaiian Airlines cards. You can get both at the same time if you call to verify that you do indeed want both cards. 35k miles after a $1,000 spend on each card in one month, and I have my 2013 trip back to Oahu to visit my best friend for free! (JFK -> HNL on Hawaiian, direct)
Wow, this piece of writing is good, my younger sister
is analyzing such things, so I am going to let know her.
It’s truly a nice and helpful piece of info. I’m satisfied that you shared this helpful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thanks for sharing. Venice is just the most wonderful town worldwide! The Venice Carnival is outstanding! The masks and masquerade costumes are fabulous along with the scenery is merely magical. Within Venice, there is always something totally new to see.