Mileage Pro The Insider's Guide to Frequent Flyer Programs

IN THE WORLD OF MILES and points, earning is the name of the game. At one time, racking up frequent flyer miles was fairly simple: You signed up, boarded a plane, and flew. Then, after 25,000 miles or so, you had earned an award.
Things have changed.

Today, more than 50 percent of all miles and points are earned without ever leaving the ground. You can boost your account with co-branded affinity credit cards, telephone services, hotel stays, car rentals, restaurants, flowers, you name it. When you figure out how to use all of these mileage earning partners, your mileage score will skyrocket.
In the Cards

All major frequent travel programs have either teamed up with a bank to offer their own co-branded affinity credit card, or they have formed a partnership with Diners Club Club Rewards or American Express Membership Rewards. Credit cards let you earn miles or points for all purchases or charges. Earning power and benefits vary depending on the frequent travel program, your status in that program and the card you choose, whether it is Classic, Gold, Silver or Platinum.

If you charge your rent, gasoline, groceries, clothing, sundries, medical bills, business expenses, travel, utilities, tuition, car repair, phone calls, charitable contributions and gifts to a credit card, you may be rewarded each year with one or two free coach tickets. Add to the total miles earned through partners and actual flights and you could earn enough miles to take your family on a free vacation. If these tickets are used for destinations that normally cost a bundle, using a co-branded affinity credit card is a real payoff.

Real Estate/Mortgages
Time to talk about how to win by being on the “home” team. Your house (or, for that matter, any piece of real estate) can be one of the most valuable assets you possess when it comes to earning miles. If you plan to refinance, sell or buy a home, check your airline program’s list of real estate partners that will reward you with miles. Since transactions are big, so are the amounts of miles you can earn.

Consider this: Buy a home for $300,000 and earn 90,000 bonus miles, enough for two free tickets to Hawaii with miles left over. How fast can you pack?

These offers can be broken out into several categories: Earning miles for listing your house for sale, earning miles for a “refi” or new mortgage, and even earning miles for the move itself.

Tip: It is not just airlines that are playing the real estate game. Check out your hotel programs and even your credit card programs for more ways to earn. American Express Membership Rewards members can earn 2,500 bonus points for every $10,000 of their home’s value when selling it and Hilton HHonors members can earn 3,250 bonus points for every $10,000 when they refinance a home purchase.

Financial Services
Money may not buy happiness but it can earn miles. If you prefer to advance in the game of miles by investing there are plenty of ways to watch your miles grow. Investments, mutual funds and trading stocks can all cause your mileage earnings to increase in more ways than one. American Beacon Funds and Ameritrade are two familiar names.

For example, members of the America West Flight Fund program can earn up to 25,000 bonus miles when opening up a trading account with Ameritrade. American AAdvantage members can earn bonus miles with American Beacon Funds at an annualized rate of one mile for every $10.00 maintained in no-load, open-end mutual funds.

Telecommunications
MCI got the ball rolling for the telecommunications industry when it partnered with Northwest’s WorldPerks program in 1987 offering five frequent flyer miles for each dollar spent on residential long distance. Since that time, every major frequent flyer program has offered miles for telephone usage. At one time most hotel programs offered similar deals, but those days are gone with the changing landscape of the telecommunications industry. No doubt this happened because of the hefty bonus offers program members earned. With the remaining telephone partners, a minimum must be spent on telephone services each month to accrue miles, and there is also a small tax on the miles earned.

Today’s offers include long distance, cell phone and wireless plans. Other smaller offers include cell phone rental, calling cards and teleconferencing.

The standard bonus AT&T offers is 5,000 miles during a five-month period for residential long distance and an additional 5,000 bonus miles during a five-month period for AT&T Local Service. At the time this book was published, AT&T had cancelled their telephone partnerships with all major airlines except Continental OnePass.

The recent merger of Nextel and Sprint will likely bring some mileage offer changes, but we do not believe it means the end of the almighty bonus mile. Sprint regularly offers 5,000 to 10,000 miles with various airlines for switching to their phone service. Airline Web sites offer links to standard deals.

However, better telecommunications deals do exist, and if you use the various resources listed at the end of this book, we can almost guarantee you will find information that can increase the number of bonus miles for which you might be eligible. Also, always ask about other possible bonuses for paying with an affinity credit card or for paying your bill online.
There is a trend requiring a $3.95 or higher telephone bill per month to be eligible to earn miles at the standard five miles per dollar rate, so ask up front to avoid any surprises.

Because of the changes to airline telephone partners over the years, the current strategy is to use these services as “top off” or “secondary” programs. For instance, you may find that the 10,000-mile bonus (if available to you) is a cost effective way to top off one of your frequent flyer programs rather than buying the additional miles needed for a free ticket.
We are keen on the strategy of using telecommunications partners for secondary accounts since it is far too easy to end up with too many miles in a single account.

Frontier Airlines is an excellent example of a secondary account. If Frontier serves your city, the airline might be worth
considering since their domestic awards are only 15,000 miles anywhere on their system. Their telecommunications partner is Qwest. A member can earn 5,000 bonus miles for using Qwest DSL service, another 2,000 bonus miles for Qwest long distance service and a bonus of 2,000 miles for choosing two products such as Quest Wireless and Quest

Select Long Distance.
That is a total of 9,000 miles, which is a great deal considering their domestic award is only 15,000 miles. The same is true for members of the Alaska Mileage Plan living in Alaska where GCI is the partner. In this remote state, even cable TV earns you miles: Up to 10,000 bonus miles for new customer accounts and up to 500 bonus miles every six months.
In all these situations, pay your bills using your airline or hotel affinity credit card to leverage additional miles or points. Do not be afraid of the plastic fantastic.

Hotel and Car Rentals
Unlike many sports teams, your chances of doing well when you are on the road are pretty good when you are a frequent traveler. All you need is a little strategy. Pick hotels and car rental agencies that partner with your frequent flyer program and read all of the fine print. If you truly want to be a “mileage master” then “double dip” at every opportunity. Double dippers cleverly earn both airline miles and hotel points for the same stay.

Of course, you have to carefully plan your hotel stays and car rentals to be in conjunction with your flights and you must pay the eligible rates. If you want to go over the edge and become a “mileage junkie” (the equivalent of an Olympic athlete in the frequent flyer world) you can figure out how to stay at different partner hotels and rent from a different car rental company every day of your trip. An extra 500 miles per stay or car rental means 5,000 miles if you play musical hotel rooms or cars as opposed to 1,000 miles if you stay put. You will have to put up with a little packing and hassle, but, hey, no pain, no gain (or at least not quite as much gain). Note: Car rental earnings generally start at 50 miles per day.

Dining
The next time you are dining out alone or as host to dozens of people and you utter those infamous words “check, please,” you might as well be ordering “more miles” from the menu. Dining programs offer a substantial number of bonus miles or points at more than 10,000 restaurants in the United States and Canada. Nine major frequent flyer programs (including American AAdvantage, British Airways Executive Club, Continental OnePass and Delta SkyMiles), as well as one hotel program (Priority Club Rewards) offer dining programs, which are coordinated by Rewards Network (formerly Transmedia and iDine). Rewards Network has three elite levels that offer increased earnings: Elite, Engaged and Active. Each level is attached to corresponding earning abilities, bonus opportunities and a roster of restaurants.

• Elite members who dine 12 or more times per calendar year will receive five miles for every dollar spent. These program members boast the greatest number of restaurants from which to choose and also enjoy
• a double bonus until June 30, 2006 allowing them
• to earn a total of 10 miles per dollar spent at all restaurants where benefits are offered.
• Engaged members receive three miles per dollar spent by creating an online user profile or by dining at least four times per calendar year at participating restaurants. This membership tier offers more restaurants and more bonus opportunities than the standard Active member.
• Active members are those who dine at least once per calendar year and who have not created an online user profile on the applicable airline dining program Web site. Active members receive one mile per dollar spent at participating restaurants for their first three dines (during a single calendar year) and then earn three miles per dollar spent. They also qualify for periodic bonuses.

Priority Club members can earn up to 16 points per dollar spent.

Membership in Rewards Network is free. (You can sign up online at www.rewardsnetwork.com.) Members who dine at participating restaurants will continue to receive miles based on the entire restaurant bill (including the cost of the meal, drinks, tip and taxes) when charged to a credit or debit card registered with Rewards Network.

Some airlines have their own unique list of dining partners. With Hawaiian Airlines, members can dine with dozens of restaurants in Hawaii and earn five to 10 miles per dollar spent on Visa or MasterCard. Members who have the Hawaiian Airlines Visa card can earn five additional bonus miles.

Shopping
Within the past two years there has been an explosion of “mileage malls” offered by airline and hotel loyalty programs.
Ever since it first occurred to a savvy retailer that frequent flyer miles could be used to grab a buyer’s attention and spur increased sales, the airlines’ mileage programs have been morphing gradually from frequent flyer programs into frequent buyer programs.

An online mileage mall (such as Northwest Airlines’ online emporium, the WorldPerks Mall, which features more than 120 online merchants, from Apple Computers to VitaminShoppe.com) is a network of online merchants, all offering miles for shopping in the loyalty program of a particular airline. Generally, program members earn between one and 10 miles for every dollar spent at participating retailers.

Since the price is the same whether or not a buyer elects to earn miles, the mileage bonus truly represents added value. To put it differently, since there is no extra cost required to earn miles, the same item purchased from the same merchant without earning miles is effectively overpriced.

Like their bricks-and-mortar counterparts, online malls aim to lure shoppers with the promise of one-stop shopping. That means matching up a wide ranging roster of retailers offering products of every type and price range.
For example, American Airlines’ online emporium, the AAdvantage eShopping mall, features more than 90 online merchants, from Adidas.com to Wine.com. Other airline malls boast similarly robust merchant lineups.

All the Rest
If you decide to earn miles marathon style, it might go something like this: Buy flowers, shop on the Internet, subscribe to a magazine; the list continues. You could plan a day full of activities and purchases, each of which earns miles.

You may ask yourself where all these miles and points are coming from. In 1994, a whole new world of frequent flyer miles was created when American Airlines and United Airlines began selling miles to merchants who wanted to give customers a reward for loyalty. Now there are miles to be earned for doing everyday things and making everyday purchases. This marketing idea has expanded into an amazing opportunity to earn frequent flyer miles. So, whether you buy flowers from The Flower Club, eat dinner at your choice of thousands of participating restaurants, invest in a mutual fund, subscribe to some of your favorite magazines, or test drive a car, you can earn bonus miles in ways you never thought possible.

While these offers change almost daily, we have seen miles being offered for using an ATM, purchasing a heat pump, getting your hair cut, buying a condo in Las Vegas, and even buying chocolate pudding.

Another way to earn miles is on the Internet. There is no shortage of opportunities to earn miles and points for completing a survey online and—you guessed it—even for having online access itself.

As loyalty programs get more creative and the competition from low cost carriers continues, even better deals will be offered. Whatever your pleasure, you can probably earn thousands of miles by participating in such fun activities as reading, shopping, traveling, eating, driving and golfing. The possibilities are endless.

REMEMBER THIS:

• Did you know that American AAdvantage members can earn bonus miles with American Beacon Funds in this no-load, open-end mutual fund?
• Because of changes to airline telephone partners over the years, the best strategy is to use these services as “top off” or “secondary” programs.
• The fastest growing way to earn miles is with an online mileage mall: a network of online merchants all offering bonus miles for shopping.