Can someone explain how can I use points for miles or there is a blog I can search.Thanks

That would depend on which transportation provider you're talking about; some award "miles", others "points".

American Airlines and US Airways use the AAdvantage frequent flyer program, which uses both. If you're talking about AA / US, read http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...d-threads.html.

If not, the forum of your favorite airline or hotel program, credit card, etc. will reveal a lot of good information on collecting and using miles or points.

What JDiver mostly focused on was transportation providers.

But there are also credit card providers that have their own programs, and confusingly some of them call the units in their own programs points while a few call them miles. In the case of credit card providers' programs, there is no difference, it's just marketing language. So for example Capital One's "miles" and the "miles" on the new Discover Miles card are just points programs that choose to call their points "miles".

The origin of the term "miles" in airline programs is because you would earn one mile for each mile flown. That is still somewhat true at some airlines, but not that true any more at other airlines. So more and more the term is historical.

Thus the answer is very complex and difficult to give in general. It's much easier if you name the specific programs you're interested in.

Thanks for your help,i'm only interested in economy award travel not hotel if I get IHG or Mariott points can I use them for award travel? Thanks

You'd generally want to start with collecting miles (or points in some airlines' parlance) with the airline(s) that meet your needs and/or using bank rewards programs as sdsearch mentioned.

While there are some hotel reward programs whose points can be transferred to airline miles, almost all of those are a poor transfer ratio, with Starwood being a notable exception.

Most importantly, where do you want to travel? That's the starting point for which airline FFP(s) to focus on. As noted above it's hard to give a meaningful generic answer. However there are FT forums for pretty much every airline program, hotel program, credit card program, etc. so the information is definitely here but more detail is needed from you.

I think both IHG and Marriott convert about 5:1 to most airlines. (Hilton is even worse, I think about 6.5:1 to many airlines.)

So even if you get 70,000 IHG or Marriott points, those would only convert to 14,000 miles at most airlines, and thus be only a bit more than half a capacity-controlled domestic round trip (or, to phrase it another way, just a bit more than one capacity-controlled domestic one-way trip). So why even bother unless you've run out of all other options?

Hotel points (with the possible exception of Starwood, as noted above) are most valuable when used for hotels. Airline miles (and with a couple airlines, airline points) are most valuable when used for airlines. The only kinds of points that are valuable for transferring to airlines but don't originate in airlines are certain credit card points (for example, Chase Ultimate Rewards for United or Southwest award travel, or Amex Membership Rewards for Delta award travel).

Then there are a few credit cards that have their own points (which they sometimes call "miles") that can't be transferred to airlines but have higher value when redeemed for airline tickets (on economy travel only, but that's what you want) than when used for cashback.

But unless you have a lot of spend, the most practical way to get any of this stuff is from signup bonuses on new credit cards, not from everyday spending on cards you hold. (At 2%, it takes $20000 of spend to get just $400 in travel credits, with a typical travel-specific cashback-equivalent card.)