How do they work? I'll be traveling more and more from now on and would like to take advantage of them. Also, if I pay for someone else's flight, can I collect the miles?
When you have enough miles, you can use it to get free tickets. Sometimes you can get reduced price when you buy your tickets. For example, Northwest has this program where you can spend 10000 miles to get a 700 dollar ticket to China when it normally cost 1000 plus. You can also use the miles to upgrade your seats say from economy to first class.
If you are really going to be flying often and want to take full advantage of miles, you need to do the following. 1. Pick an airlines and stick with it. It really doesn't help that much to use various airlines and get some miles in every different program. You want to maximize the miles into one program. There are mile trading websites and different airlines do have different "partners" who will allow other airlines miles to be used, but the best bet is to pick one and stick with it. 2. Use a credit card that gives you miles to a particular airline, or use an American Express that allows the points accrued to purchase additional miles. 3. The more miles you earn, the more rewards you get, regardless if you spend them or not. 4. Most airlines have bonus programs that you sign up for to get quick upgrades to a higher status. Fake example: You can sign up for a program that says if you fly 25,000 miles in the next 6 months, we'll bump you to Gold status, despite that status normally needing 50,000 miles. These bonus programs do have some risk, however. If you do not make the 25,000 mile mark, you don't get rewarded with any status and the miles don't count towards additional status later on. I read an article about it a few months ago. Maybe google around to see if you can find the specifics. The author was apparently able to get to an elite status by taking 3 flights he was planning on taking anyways, but in a shorter amount of time. 5. Fly during times when bonus miles are offered. 6. I believe there is an energy company that gives you miles when you by their electricity. Maybe Gexa? 7. It may or may not be the case, but in my opinion, the best use of miles is in upgrades. It just takes too many miles to obtain free tickets, but if you pay the economy rate and get an upgrade to first/business class, you often get more bang for your so called buck.
I recommend www.flyertalk.com - takes a bit of reading at first to understand the lingo, but once you get used to it, there are some excellent promotions constantly posted there from which you can benefit. No.
Yes, you can collect miles if you purchase tickets for other people. At least you can with United. But do it over the phone and make sure the ticket agent doesn't screw up. The frequent mile is especially good if you do a lot of oversea travel to Asia or Europe. One round trip will earn you 10k+ miles. And don't forget to sign up airline's credit card.
Fantastic info. I'll be flying mostly between Houston and Dallas, Chicago and Minneapolis, so I figure I will rack up some miles. Are there family plans where the miles are 'pooled'? I'll be making most of the trips with my wife and son.
I'm pretty sure if you are buying all the tickets you can get credit for all the miles. Like someone said, however, make sure to call either to book the flight, or after you book the flight on the internet to make sure all the tickets are pointing to your frequent flyer account.
