This post is intended to give the reader a cursory introduction to the world of points and miles. It was originally an e-mail sent to a family friend who was a total "newbie". Experienced readers, Flyertalkers, and the like probably know all of this already.
I. Value of Points/Miles
As we talked about, one of the first steps is determining what miles/points are worth to you. Value will often be referred to in shorthand as “cents per mile” (CPM) or “cents per point” (CPP) and expressed in decimal form, e.g. I value Priority Club points at 0.5 CPP and I value Delta Miles at 1.4 CPM. The value that you assign to a particular program’s points or miles should guide your decision making process. For example, I have a Priority Club credit card that earns 1 point per dollar (PPD) spent and a Delta card that earns 1 mile per dollar (MPD) spent, the Delta card gives me a better rate of return, i.e. effectively 1.4% rather than 0.5%. By the same token, I’m making a purchase at Jos. A Bank’s online store today. I know that I can earn 7% cashback for my purchase through www.mrrebates.com or 2 MPD through www.skymilesshopping.com. In that case, the cashback is worth more to me than the Delta miles (7% vs. effectively 2.8%).
II. Web-based resources
Here are a few websites that will help you get up to speed.
www.viewfromthewing.com –A blog by a fellow named Gary Leff from the DC area. He routinely takes not of airline and hotel promotions, credit card offers, and general frequent flier information. Like many other travel enthusiasts (myself included) he focuses on international premium cabin travel. His site also has links to a number of other websites that are good sources of information.
www.flyertalk.com This is where I got started learning about points & miles. It’s a web community that includes discussion boards devoted to each airline and hotel program. There is a tremendous amount of information here.
www.milepoint.com Another website that’s similar to flyertalk. Both sites offer a valuable resource in the aggregate expertise of their members. If there is a issue that you are trying to figure out regarding a particular program, you can often get help by posting a question in the relevant forum on either of these two sites.
http://AwardWallet.com/?
III. Credit Cards-
If you have good credit and don't carry a month-to-month balance, then credit card "sign up bonuses" are a great way to earn free flights and hotel stays. Credit card signup bonuses are unquestionably the quickest and easiest way to accumulate miles. I distinguish the bonus from the miles earned from spending, because the average person probably doesn’t put enough spending on a credit card to accumulate a large number of miles.
A good starting place is the American Express Starwood card. (Signup bonus is 25,000 miles (25K) if you spend $3,000 in first six months. Annual fee ($85) would be waived 1st year. (I can send you a sign up link for that card, that would earn some points for me.) If you meet the spending requirement (and there are some tricks that can help you do that) you’d earn a total of 28K Starwood points. (Starpoints can be transferred to Delta or many other airlines at a 1:1.25 ratio). Then, depending on what offers are available in three months, sign up for another card, and earn another sign up bonus. Even if you averaged 25K miles per sign-up (and that’s a fairly low bonus, 50K is more common) you could easily earn over 100K miles in a year. After the first year, when your annual fees become due, you can simply cancel the cards, and start over with a different set of cards the next year.
A full listing of current credit card offers can be found here: http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/best-credit-card-sign-up-offers/
You may wonder how this would affect your credit score. New credit card applications result in a temporary (6 month) decrease in your credit score. Usually it’s less than 10 points. Six months after the inquiry, your score will go back to normal. Cancelling a card has no effect (in most cases) on your credit score. That said, the length of your credit history does have an effect, so you never want to cancel your oldest card.
A good starting hotel card is the IHG Select card from Chase:
This card earns 80K IHG points after spending $1,000 in the first three months. IHG is Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza, Intercontinental, and a few other hotels. My wife has this card, and despite the $49 annual fee, it’s well worth keeping. Each year, starting with your second year, you earn a free night at any Priority Club property. We redeemed our free night at the Intercontinental Le Grand in Paris. Effectively, the $49 annual fee translated into a $500 hotel room. Even if you use it at a $90 Holiday Inn Express, it’s a fantastic deal. The card also confers Platinum Elite status in Priority Club's rewards program.
IV. Status
You probably also know that airline and hotel programs have different “status” levels, from general members to elite levels. Status isn’t vital, but it can make travel more pleasant with perks like upgrades, free breakfast, etc.. There are also ways to get status without flying 25,000 miles or spending 50+ nights a year in hotels. The benefits vary from program to program.
Amex HHonors Card: complimentary silver status
Amex HHonors Surpass card: complimentary gold status (As with the Starwood card, I'd appreciate the opportunity to give you a referral for this card if you are interested in it). Diamond Status is awarded if you spend $40,000 in a year.
Priority Club Signature card: complimentary Platinum status
Sometimes the offers are pretty crazy. Some time ago, I signed up for an Air China “Phoenix Miles” frequent flier account solely because they had a limited time offer to upgrade your Marriott status to Platinum. I highly doubt that I’ll ever fly Air China, but I did get Marriott status that way.
Status Matches:
Airline status is generally hard to get, but hotel status is easier. Many hotel credit cards grant you automatic elite status, and occasionally, hotel promotions offering free status can be found. For an example, see here:http://boardingarea.com/blogs/
Airline status is harder to get. Some credit cards will give you elite qualifying miles (EQMs) that count toward status, but I don’t know of any that will outright give you status. Occasionally there may be a promotion that makes it relatively easy to get status. For example, a year or so ago, Delta would give you gold elite status if you transferred 50K American Express Membership Rewards points into Delta Skymiles. When those types of promotions come along, you’ll generally find them discussed on the websites I linked to above.
V. Online shopping and surveys:
www.evreward.com Evreward is a database of shopping sites that allow you to earn points, miles, or cashback for online shopping. You may know this already, but each airline and hotel program has a “web mall” that will give you points or miles for shopping at a store’s website (e.g., www.skymilesshopping.com, Delta’s “mall”, will give you 4 miles per dollar (“mpd”) for shopping at Sears.com) At Evreward, you simply type in the name of the website where you are planning on making a purchase, and it will tell you what offers are available. In my experience, however, the portals such as http://home.bigcrumbs.com/
www.e-miles.com This is a website that gives you frequent flier miles for viewing ads. US Airways is one of the partners, as is Delta, Hilton, and Priority Club (Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, etc.). Signing up for an account and filling out an interests questionnaire earns something like 300 miles. A similar website is www.e-rewards.com, though it is by invitation only. If you have an e-mail listed in your US Airways Dividend Miles account, you'll likely get an invite from E-rewards. It pays miles for completing surveys.
VI. Redeeming Miles
You already have some experience with this, so I'll keep it short. When it comes time to redeem your miles, remember that you have options other than just the airline that you earned the miles with. Every airline is also part of an "alliance." Delta is part of Skyteam, US is part of the Star Alliance, and American is part of Oneworld. What that means is that you can ask the award department to check for "partner flights". For example, Delta Skymiles can be used on Air France flights, US Airways miles can be used for Lufthansa, etc. Oftentimes that opens up possibillities that you might not have considered at first. Usually "partner" flights are only available by calling your airline's frequent flier program. Web-based award booking may not tell you the full story.
Award flights are also a great way to visit multiple cities inexpensively. When my wife and I went to Paris, we technically were on a flight that terminated in Munich. Our 4 day stay in Paris was what's called a "stopover." We then flew from Paris to Munich, stayed there a day, and flew back to Montgomery. So a trip from MGM-ATL-CDG-MUC-ATL-MGM, business class all the way, cost us only 100K miles each. Another rather esoteric technique is the "open jaw". That allows you to get an award flight to one city, with the return flight from another city. It's particularly good for when your vacation involves a cruise from one port to another or when you want to travel by train. I could go on (and on, and on, and on) but this is already too long of an e-mail, so I'll stop there.
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