I just got some feedback telling me this blog is missing an important post. I was asked, “How do I do all this stuff??” I guess I’ve never explained the basics, so here it goes:
Everyone has heard of frequent flyer programs, even if they don’t know exactly what they are. Each airline has their own program, and the more miles you gather within it, the more benefits you receive towards flights and upgrades. For an example of what things cost, to fly to India and back, you’d need over 100,000 miles per person. The traditional way of accumulating miles has been by actually paying for flights, but times have changed. Through the methods explained in this post, I’ve picked up almost a million miles in the first half of this year without flying. Here is a step-by-step guide to the basics of this process:
- Google airlines and go to their websites. Go to their mileage program page and register a user name and password. Here are some of the big ones: United, Continental, US Airways, Delta, British Air. And here are free miles for signing up with Alaska and American Airlines.
- Miles do expire, but if you follow this step, it’s easy to keep that from happening. Things like flying, using a credit card, and downloading itunes songs will extend expiration dates 18 months. It’s a lot to keep track of, so Step 2 is going to Award Wallet and setting up an account. You load all your mileage accounts and they email you when something is close to expiring.
- Get familiar with the 2 main alliances. If you have miles with one airline, you can use them on flights with the other airlines in the alliance. Here they are: Star Alliance and OneWorld. For an example, British Airways has high fees on award tickets. But they are OneWorld partners with American Airlines and Cathay Pacific (one of the best first-class airlines in the world). So you can gather British Air miles without actually needing to fly on British Air.
- Out-of-pocket, a first-class flight to Hong Kong costs roughly $20,000. That means you’d have to make roughly $35,000 before taxes just to pay for this trip. Or you could just pay for it with miles. That’s an example of the huge money you can save. But you’ll have to make changes. The majority of this game involves credit cards. If your credit score isn’t great, make sure you fix it before trying to dive in. If you do have great credit, you have to change how you spend – no more cash and no more debit cards. So if you don’t have the discipline to pay off credit cards every month, again, this isn’t for you. Lastly, you’re going to be applying/opening/closing a lot of credit cards, so you need to be organized. Keep a spreadsheet with important information on all cards you’re applying for (date applied, how much you have to spend to get bonus miles, and when you have to spend it by). Most importantly, you need to keep track of when annual fees will be charged. That way, you can close the card at the 11-month mark, getting the miles without having to pay the fee. The majority of the time, when you call to close a card, they’ll end up waiving the charge or giving you a no-fee alternative of the card.
