Originally Posted by
cordelli
My advise to anybody who ever asks - join each and every program for each and every airline, hotel, rental car company, etc you fly, stay at, or drive.
Almost. It is better to figure out who the partners are and make sure that you are earning something for all the flights, but not necessarily splitting the points where they can be combined.
Originally Posted by
caduplantis
Okay, miles can expire for a certain period of time! Question? If I would get Silver in November 2011 and not fly again till April or June 2012, that is technically still in my calender year, correct?
Also, If I would get Silver in November with an airline, as long as I use or earn miles within that year, I will not lose then. Buy, will they still allow me to keep my Silver status? For instance, I get status in November 2011, but don't fly in that calender year, instead stay at a Hilton or something, would I loose my status of Silver, but still keep my actual miles? I thought Graduate School statistics was hard to learn, that is nothing compared to an airline's mileage program....
There are two different systems that you need to track.
Reward Miles (aka RDMs)
These are the points you can redeem for award travel, upgrades, merchandise and other things. Many programs expire them after some period of time. Some programs do not expire if there is any activity, some do not expire if there is specific activity and some expire no matter what.
Status Miles (aka EQMs, MQMs, Level Miles, Tier Points and many other names)
Not all programs even track these, but the ones that do have qualification periods (usually calendar year, but not always) and benefit periods (usually the rest of the year the threshold is reached, the following year and a month or two but can also just be 12 months if qualification is not calendar-based). These reset to 0 each time the period resets (e.g. Jan 1) and must be accrued again to extend the status benefits.
If you can get to 25K EQMs on a single program in a year then you might get some value for the remainder of that year and for the following year by showing loyalty. For UA, DL and US that could include free upgrades on domestic flights (but only after higher level elites are upgraded first). It would also include free checked bags and maybe priority in boarding or seat selection. You would also earn more RDMs for your travels (generally 25% more) by virtue of the status.
Those are great benefits, but they also are pretty easy to ascribe some dollar value to. Call it $50/trip for the checked bag each way and you'll see that paying $200 extra now means you'd need to have 4 trips on the same carrier (or partners) next year to recoup that investment in status. And that's assuming that next year the flights cost the same, too. Otherwise you might end up paying more to cash in the elite status benefits than just paying the baggage fee on the carrier where you don't have status.
I love points. I have a lot of them and I'm constantly working to earn more and redeem them. But I generally do not find that they are as useful or valuable for the occasional traveler as just saving cash up front.