You have to get a frequent flier number from the airline you frequently fly with. Then try to get a credit card that has affinity to the airline because everytime you charge an airline ticket to that affinity card, you get bonus points. Example, Delta Skymiles American Express for Delta Airlines, you get 2x miles per dollar when you buy a Delta ticket plus you get the airmiles for the completed flight. You also get 2x miles per dollar when you use the card for groceries, gas station, post office, home improvement store and paying your cell phone bills. The card also have bonus points for the first charge that you made. American Airlines have Citibank AA Mastercard or Visa, United have their own card so does the rest of the airlines. Then you have your long distance phone company like MCI/ATT/Sprint. You have to call which ever is your long distance company and give them one of your frequent flier number. Better yet,lets say you have Sprint as your long distance company, you may switch to another company provided that they could give you bonus miles like 5000 miles at least. You also get 5 miles to a dollar from most of this long distance company. When you rent a car, also provide them your frequent flier number. Become a member of hotel establishment like Starwood
Hotel or Hilton. Starwood have Westin, St Regis, Sheraton, W , Luxury Collection and Four Points as their brand hotels and Hilton has Embassy Suite, Hilton Hotel, Conrad, Hampton Inn, Double Tree as their name brand hotel. For every dollar you spent from any of this hotels, you get one point. Better yet, if you also get a credit card that has affinity to Hilton or Starwood, you get something like 3 points per dollar. Hilton has Visa card while Starwood has American Express and both have bonus points also (10,000 for Hilton) for the first charge. But between the two, Starwood has a better conversion to miles. You get one airmile per 1 starwood point and you get 5000 bonus airmiles if you transfer 20,000 starwood points for a total of 25,000 airmiles. Hilton points has a lower value in conversion. I think you get 2000 airmiles for every 10,000 Hilton points. But of course you want to have both Hilton and Starwood because there are places that have Hilton Hotels only or Starwood Hotels only. There are so many more ways to earn miles but make sure you always check the webflyer forum. Happy airmiles hunting.