tell me about airline FF programs

[panfan]

I am interested in finding out FF programs.....I always assumed you had to travel alot??? We usually fly Usair about 4 times a year to different locations....but not alway USair...depending on prices of coarse! I s there anything "out there" that might help us out ???
Thanks!

 

[ceecee]

We have had our USAirways cards for about 10 years. We have probably gotten 12 flights free. The miles are accumulated with every $ you charge (one mile for one dollar). We also get miles with our long distance phone carrier credited as well. The flights are what really builds up the miles. There is a $50.00 annual fee on our card (I am not sure of the interest. as we pay it off every month). It can be really hard to secure the "free flights" especially to get 3 together and to certain places (florida). I got tickets easily for CA and Las Vegas, but the last 2 Disney trips we didn't call soon enough! (5 months before). It is 20, 000 miles for one coach class ticket. United or USAirways are your only airline options with this card.
I am thinking of trying the Capital One where you can use any airline. Anyone have that one??

 

[DianaPrincessofWales]

I was going to post my own thread, but this will do. We have been saving air miles for only 2-3 years, through flights (Korea-the big one) and World Perks Visa CC. That pays 1 mile for every dollar spent. We pay off debt monthly. We also get miles through MCI phone service and a few hotels offer them also. It all adds up nicely.

At Christmas my husband got to fly free to Canada to meet the rest of the family there. He works UPS and gets only a few free days, but it was nice to have him there at the family gathering. Very convenient!

I just this morning booked myself and my son free trips to Orlando using miles and a 8000 mile off coupon I got in the Visa monthly statement!! Needless to say we are bouncing off the walls!! This is a special time......I just turned f...f...ff......forty(I can't even say it) and my son turns 13. In my opinion a perfect way to spend all those hard earned air miles! Happy Birthday to me!!!! and my son! In a few years there is no way he'd want to go on this trip with me, so I'm taking advantage of his naivity!!

I had been playing cat and mouse with NW web site to check out their best air miles offers and had to catch the first decent one. I'm glad I didn't wait, I think they only have so many seats for air miles users.........and that saying "you snooze you lose" happens to me all the time!!

Thanks for letting me gab! I'm just a little hiper!!

This has cost me only handling fees for my trips, otherwise I have never been billed for a yearly membership fee. They did advertise that I would be paying one, but I have checked and its never been charged. Don't know why? A very worth while plan that cost us almost nothing out of our pockets. I'd encourage you to try it. It worked for us and I'm stuck in MN with NorthWest airlines!! But who cares.........cause in Nov. I get to go to Disney World

 

[pumba526]

We have the Cap One Miles card and love it. No annual fee and it was extremely easy to get airline tix when we finally had enough points. We used United on this trip and booked about 7 months in advance. Not only did we get the flights we wanted, but they assisted us in linking these two tickets with the two tickets we got from United's frequent flyer program so that our whole family sat together on each flight. I was very impressed. Presently I'm using the Disney Visa to earn $$ for our 4/05 trip, but plan on going back to Cap One after that trip is over as it seems like a better deal.

 

[pjlla]

I'm glad to read this information. I have long thought that we should carry a "mileage" credit card. We currently use a DIscover card and a "no frills" regular visa card, both of which we try very hard to have no balance on. For the most part we use our Visa check card, which is linked to our checking account, but again, we get no perks with this. We have considered getting the credit card linked to AirTran, as we have used them in the past and been happy and they are easy to get free flights on. But they are in Boston and we would prefer to fly out of Manchester, NH. We flew this last trip on USAirways and signed up for their FF card, but seem to be having trouble getting that trip credited to our card.

Bottom line, I would like some sort of frequent flier credit card that is easy to use, builds up miles quickly, and is fee-free (of course, wouldn't we all like that ! ).... so what is my best option for this?.......................P

 

[heathrow42]

..We have the continental chase mastercard. We always used to fly continental but have never redeemed the miles for a free flight- it has always been too expensive. For example, if a coach RT flight from EWR - MCO is $150-180 or it will cost 25,000 miles. A RT ticket to Europe costs 50,000 miles -- a ticket that would probably cost more than $400.
Also, a 1st class ticket costs $1400 but an upgrade using miles is 10,000 miles (RT) Yes, I know you can save alot by not flying 1st class.. but it seems that whenever we looked at it, buying a ticket was cheaper than using the miles, atleast for going to wdw. This might not be the case if we lived on the west coast though. And we have used some miles to upgrade to 1st class for special trips, like when we got engaged. To us, the miles would be better spent to take us farther, like DLRP or tokyo DL!

Outside of that, last year I started flying Southwest. It seems much easier to rack up free flights with them, as they do not use the same 'miles type system' basically each part of a trip is a segment and when you earn 12 or 16 (?) segments, you've earned a free flight.

We don't use the continental card for everything though.. we just never quite remember. I was actually thinking about looking for another rewards type card that earned better or faster rewards, any ideas?

Heather

 

[wdwpluto]

I recently discovered www.flyertalk.com/forums/ The people there are as addicted to earning FF miles as we about going to Disney. I've learned a lot of good tips there.

I've read good things over there about the Starwood Preferred Guest AmEx. It's a hotel chain related card ($30 annual fee I think) and you earn SPG points. However, you can transfer those points to most of the major airlines. 20,000 SPG points = 25,000 airline miles = a free RT ticket w/in the US (coach)

We're currently using the Chase Continental MC. It's a platinum card with a $65 annual fee. However by paying the annual fee you "get" 6,000 miles. Our goal is 70,000 miles which will get us 2 RT (coach) tix from Newark to Hawaii. We also primarily fly Continental when we go to Orlando so that adds to our miles. Plus if you link your Shoprite card to your OnePass account, you can earn miles for grocery shopping. So little things like that can add up over time. I also to my shopping through Continental's online shopping portal for more miles. And the Chase MC gives double miles for purchases at Barnes & Noble, CVS, Best Buy and a few other stores (both online and off).

Once our year with the Chase MC is up, I may switch to the Starwood AmEx. Cheaper annual fee which will yield basically the same results.

Lori

 

[inkkognito]

We fly ATA (we come to Orlando an average of twice a month), and they give you a free companion ticket for every three roundtrips. The mileage doesn't matter. There are other levels, like a free regular ticket for six trips, and you can even earn a trip to Hawaii. But for us the companion tickets are the best deal. So far there are no black out dates, so we use them for Thanksgiving and other expensive holidays.
They also just instituted an Elite level where you get free upgrades, pre-boarding, and little perks like that. But I don't know exactly what it takes to qualify as they didn't tell us when they notified us that we qualified.
Barb

 

[JudyS]

Originally posted by inkkognito
We fly ATA (we come to Orlando an average of twice a month), and they give you a free companion ticket for every three roundtrips....

Wow! Barb, is that twice a month for a Disney fix, or do you have other reasons to go to Orlando? Where are you flying from?



There are lots of ways to earn miles other than by flying. Many airlines give FF miles for telephone or cell phone service, opening an affiliated credit card, renting cars, and staying at hotels. I'm mostly familiar with Northwest Worldperks, since that's the airline I usually fly. You can get FF miles at a lot of stores -- including the online Disney store, I think -- by clicking through Northwest's website. (Go to where it says Northwest mall -- you need to be a Worldperks member first.)

I'd suggest figuring out which airline would work best for you -- you want one that has convenient service from your city to where you usually fly. Then, concentrate on earning miles in that program.

Now, what I'd like is advice on the easiest and most efficient way to *spend* the Northwest miles that I've earned!

 

[safetymom]

I suggest visiting www.flyertalk.com You will find lots of great information to maximize your freq. flyer miles.

 

[funnygarcia]

Whatever FF company you sign up for.. make sure to get their emails and pay attention to special offers to rack up lots of points.

Northwest Airlines had a deal this spring to encourage new memberships and to use online booking/check in. I referred my own boys and DH and made sure to do online check in and ended up with almost enough miles to cash out for one ticket.
Really good deal as I had only flown twice on NWA ( MN to CA).

NWA also has a program to get points when dining at certain restaurants. You just register whatever credit card you want. We went to Embers (eww) and racked up 300 miles (10 miles per dollar)- just the amount I needed for my free ticket (taking a solo trip to DL)

 

[mad4themouse]

We rarely pay for airfare anymore. And if we do, it's always at the lowest possible rate. My DH is a small business owner and all overhead that can be placed on a credit card, goes on one of two business rewards cards. He pays the balance off every month and we reap the rewards in the form of FF miles and hotel GCs.

Even if you don't own a business, you can get free airfare by getting a credit card that rewards in frequent flier miles or other such points. We like DH's Diner's Club card because the points can be converted into FF miles for just about any airline.

I also use just about any method that I can to acrue points without flying.

• I cut the coupons off the back of Kellogg's cereals for American AAdvantage miles. One coupons is worth 100 miles and you have to send them in in batches of 500. Since DH eats their Complete Bran Flakes almost everyday, we get a lot of miles from them in a year.
• I order flowers at FTD thru USAir's website. I get 10 miles per $. With all the birthdays and holidays, anniversaries, illnesses, etc. that you have in a large family, it can really add up!
• If I stay at a chain hotel or rent a car, I make sure that they have my FF member number on file so that I get the miles for that. Hilton is great for allowing "double dipping" (FF miles plus HHonors Points for a single stay.)
• If you're looking to switch cellphone carriers, check to see if any of your FF programs is offering an incentive for the carrier that you're interested in. When I switched to AT&T in January, American offered a bonus if you signed up online thru their link.
• I have Sprint for my long-distance carrier for my land-line because USAir is partnered with them. I got a nice bonus (around 15,000 FF miles when I signed on) plus I get 5 FF miles per $ spent.
• I recently added USAir's shopping tool bar to my browser. They offer FF miles for every dollar spent at select merchants and the toolbar recognizes when you go to those sites and registers your purchase. One of the rewards sites is Amazon.com (almost nobody rewards for them), and another is Disneystore.com. With holiday shopping coming up, I could easily rack up a couple thousand in FF miles right there.
• Even if you don't fly a certain airline, join their program anyway. They usually offer a few thousand points just for joining. Then join points.com and exchange those FF miles into ones that you can use on another airline. Points.com will allow you to make one "free" exchange. There are minimums for exchanges and you do lose some of the value, but if they're useless FF miles anyway, that doesn't matter. USAir just recently joined them. They're offering double miles for exchanges into their Dividend Miles program for a limited time.
• Make sure that you check your FF website for any new offers. I found that USAir has changed their dining out program and no longer require members to pay for the service. They're also offering extra bonus miles for booking hotel stays on their website if you have their Dividend Miles VISA card.
• If I have to pay for a ticket, I buy my tickets online in order to get bonus miles. I also check in online or at a kiosk in the airport in order to take advantage of incentive miles for doing so.
• Finally, if I do need to purchase one (or even 2 tickets), I make sure that the purchase tickets are either in my name or DH's since we're the ones with the FF accounts. That way, we get credit for the miles that we fly. The kids always fly for free.

The major disadvantage that I see to FF programs is the many restrictions that they place on the tickets and the lack of available flights. I book my flights as early as I can in order to get the days and times that I want. Flexibility is key in dealing with them and timing is important. The Saturday stay-over is a pain but since most of our FF miles are used for leisure travel, that's when we would be going anyway.

Regardless, the flights are free and certainly worth looking in to. It takes a little bit of research to make them work for you but I find that it's worth my time.