Bullajami

Hello all! I have thought for quite a while that I needed to become more savvy on travel deals. A friend directed me to this forum a few years ago, and last year I even registered for an account here, but never followed up with getting involved or properly educating myself on being a smart traveler. Well, I recently spent 33 hours on 4 economy class flights through 5 airports to get from Africa to my home in Virginia, and I am ready to travel smarter!

Here is where I currently stand:
- I have a travel card ("Flagship Visa") through Navy Federal Credit Union. I accrue points based on usage and can turn those points into flights, hotels and rental cars.
- On my recent flight from Rome to Philly I signed up for a USAIRWAYS visa. They were offering 30,500 miles to register on the plane, so I did. The interest rate is ridiculous and there is an $89 annual fee, but it seemed a decent deal (but I could be completely wrong).
- I signed up for the Sheeba Miles program with Ethiopian Air. I will likely fly on them a few times a year for the next few years.

I would like to learn more about:
- Beginner's info
- Which programs are best for beginners
- Strategies
- Upgrading travel booked for me by the US Government

In Taoist literature they would call me "the uncarved block".

Thanks in advance for pointing me in the right direction.

AndreaRH

I was in your situation a few years back and here are the things that have helped me become a much more savvy traveler...

1. Read the forums (FlyerTalk and Milepoint) religiously. You'll get a lot of tips just by following threads that relate to you. It's also helpful to read forums for programs that you aren't actively participating in because it will help you decide which programs may be best for you to join.

2. Read the blogs. My daily hit list includes:
The Points Guy (Brian Kelly)
View from the Wing (Gary Leff)
Frugal Travel Guy (Rick Ingersoll)
One Mile at a Time (Ben "Lucky" Schlappig)

3. Subscribe to InsideFlyer magazine.

4. If you can get to one of the frequent traveler seminars, do it! I just went to Frequent Traveler University and I learned quite a bit.

Another popular educational event is the Chicago Seminars. There's one coming up on October 29–30.

5. Create a tracking system for your miles and points. You can simply use an Excel spreadsheet or use a program like AwardWallet.com. I do both...a spreadsheet to track what's pending and Award Wallet to see where I stand at a glance.

6. Decide if you are going to get into credit card churning. You need to have excellent credit, be able to pay off your balance every month, and keep track of the spend requirements and annual card anniversaries. Churning isn't for everyone. Read all about it at Frugal Travel Guy. He's the guru when it comes to credit card deals. Follow his advice and you'll be fine.

With churning you'll need to study what deals are available and what has been offered in the past. For example, Chase has offered a 100,000-mile deal on its British Airways-branded Visa card twice in the past. Knowing that information, I'd suggest that you wait to get a Chase British Airways Visa until that deal is offered again in the future.

You also need to know which cards are churnable and which aren't. Reading these forums will give you that info.

7. Since you're interested in getting upgrades, you'll need to learn about fare classes. (Only certain fare classes are upgradeable.) Read these forums and get a subscription to Expert Flyer. This website shows flight/seat availability, award and upgrade availability for many airlines, and fare information.

8. You'll need to decide which programs you're going to devote your energies to. That will depend on 1) your home airport and 2) your travel goals. Think about where you want to go in the next few years and research who flies there and what hotels you'd stay at. Then look at airline alliances...which is best suited to get you where you want to go?

I like OneWorld and focus on American Airlines (where I've got Lifetime Gold status) and British Airways. I can then use miles from either of those programs on any OneWorld partner, like Cathay Pacific, LAN, Qantas, Iberia, Japan Airlines, Finnair, etc.

I find it easy to earn miles (butt-in-seat and promo bonuses) on both American and British Airways. (My Chase BA Visa card nets me 1.25 BA miles for every $1 I spend on the card.)

My secondary program is Continental/United and they are part of Star Alliance. Lots of great partners as well.

9. A key strategy is the ability to transfer miles/points to the programs you're most interested in. Check out American Express Membership Rewards and American Express Starwood. MR transfers are instant in many cases and Starwood transfers are lucrative...transfer 20,000 points and it turns into 25,000 miles.

10. Don't bypass promotions like TopGuest. It might sound like a waste of time to earn 50 points here or 50 points there, but it all adds up.

Good luck!

Andrea

toomanybooks

The post right above mine is the best of its type/length for new folks I have ever seen. Thanks, AndreaRH.

Mods might like to put this somewhere newbies can find it easily.

Million Mile Secrets

AndreaRH's post is an excellent summary of the resources available!

I'll be addressing most of your topics over the next few weeks on my blog Million Mile Secrets since I'm continually asked questions similar to yours by friends and family!

Bullajami

That was awesome, AndreaRH! Thanks!

Now if you'll excuse me, it seems I have about 4 years of reading to do!

kb_rembrandt

Dear Bullajami,

I am in your same shoes. I've been looking at this site for a while but just officially joined in the conversations. AndreaRH summed up what took me about 2 months to figure out. I've found that everything may not apply to me, but I'd rather wade through all the info than not have any of it available to me. Good luck and I am sure we will bump paths again!

carsonheim

Dear Bullajami,

Welcome to FT! You will find a wealth of information here! Of all the excellent pointers by Andrea, I would strongly recommend that you attend the Chicago Seminar DO in October. You will walk away with enough knowledge to save yourself about 3 years worth of travel mistakes!

Also, with regards to mileage programs, I recommend you concentrate all your miles within ONE parter in each alliance. I'm a Star Alliance gal. I put all* my miles, whether Lufthansa, United, Continental, US Airways, Thai Ailines, ANA, etc ALL into my Continental account. This way, rather than having 22K miles here, 7K miles there, 32K miles in another, they are all in one airline, and can be easily redeemed for award flights.

*unless there is some compelling reason not to, such as low partner earning or bonuses not offered by putting in CO. This is not the case 99% of the time.

Bullajami

OK, a follow up question - how do you stay organized?

I expect that eventually much of the information I am gaining by reading at the links recommended above will be permanently stored in my head, but for now it's a jumble. What is a manageable, portable system for knowing which hotels/rental cars/restaurants are partnered with which airlines for miles?

Also - I joined Delta's Skymiles today and then joined the restaurant rewards program. Now the dinner the wife and I were planning for this evening is going to earn me 1,000 bonus Skymiles (plus a mile per $1 spent). This could become addictive.

BarbiJKM

I think this could become a sticky! Awesome post, Andrea!

mia

While Ethiopian Air is not a Star Alliance member they do have partnerships with two airlines which are: Lufthansa and SAS. This means you could credit your future flights on Ethiopian Air to one of these programs instead of Sheeba Miles.

LH link is here, note that flights in deeply discounted economy class earn only half credit):

http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...en&cid=1000390

SK link is here:

http://www.flysas.com/shared/EuroBon...pianAirlines/#

To be sure there is no misunderstanding, I am not recommending either of these programs, merely making you aware of the possibilities to help you understand that it is not necessary to fly on the same airline as operates the program. You need to estimate how many miles you might earn by crediting the flights to Sheeba Miles versus one of the others, compare that to the amount needed for an award that you would actually want, and consider how else you might earn miles in the same program through (for example) hotels stays, car rentals or credit card spending.

Schutzee

I have done massive churning of credit cards and bank account for the past ten years netting me literally millions of miles and points.

Organization is essential. I use Quicken to organize the financial side and Award Wallet for the miles/points side. I do daily updates on both to keep current.

Bullajami

So, you're saying I can credit my Ethiopian Airlines flights to Lufthansa, and that gets them into the Star Alliance, and then I can shift them to UA or US Air?

mia

No, with very, very few exceptions miles cannot be transferred from the program where they are originally earned. However, you may find it easier to "top up" a Lufthansa Miles & More account than to do the same with a Sheeba Miles account because Miles & More has a much wider range of partners. For example, you could fly on US Airways and credit the flights to Miles & More rather than to US Airways' own Dividend Miles program.

lwildernorva

First off, let me also commend Andrea's excellent summary. The answer to your follow up question actually lies in getting more familiar with all of the bullet points she's listed.

My story may give you some idea of how your approach can evolve. Last year, I decided that I was going to plan a big trip for several years down the road. As part of the trip, I had just one goal: fly roundtrip first class to Europe. I joined the American AAdvantage program and started earning miles through a couple of leisure trips I knew I'd be taking in the last four months of the year.

At that point, I had no plan to reach my goal other than by flying. I just figured I'd be flying more so I decided I might need some new luggage. A Google search about luggage led me to the Travel Products forum here at FT. For several weeks, that's the only forum I monitored.

Then one weekend, I did some surfing over to the AA forum. And then the MilesBuzz forum. And then the floodgates unlocked. I began to realize that there were tons of ways to earn miles that I'd never even discovered. As you did, I found the dining program almost immediately and have earned tens of thousand of miles that way because I eat almost all of my dinners out at restaurants.

Then the credit cards came. I read the threads here so that I could sift out the good offers from the bad. I also learned from reading these forums that it's not unusual in this era of targeted offers for different demographics for several concurrent and different offers for the same credit card to exist. For instance, Choice/Barclays has current offers for their VISA card that alternately offer 16,000, 24,000, and 32,000 bonus points in the Choice Privileges program. From these and many other offers, I've learned to not accept the first right answer (hey, I'm getting a bonus) as the only right answer (hey, I'm getting the best bonus).

By now, I'm on to a third stage of learning about status, both with airlines and with hotel chains. Status is important and not because it makes you feel important (although there are plenty of DYKWIA types out there). The key to status is that in addition to cool perks, like room upgrades or gifts, you also get an increased earnings rate towards awards. For hotels, it's extra points per stay; for airlines, it's multipliers on the earnings rate.

Status also unlocks certain other benefits that you just can't get as a regular customer. In addition to earning miles faster, I now understand that status allows you to get upgrades into higher classes of travel while paying less than the full fares advertised on the American website. American offers "500-mile upgrades" that any AAdvantage member may purchase in advance of a flight for $30 per upgrade. Based on availability, these upgrades allow you to move into the next higher class of service on a flight so long as you purchase enough upgrades to cover the mileage of the flight (1 sticker for a flight of less than 500 miles, 2 for a flight from 501-1000 miles, etc.).

Status gives you two additional benefits with these upgrades, however. A non-status AAdvantage member can only use these stickers when paying for a flight from a full-fare flight bucket (you'll learn how important buckets are soon enough); those with status may use them on fares purchased from any flight bucket, including the lowest fares offered. In addition, the higher your status, the longer the window allowed for attempting to upgrade your flights. And the longer the window, the better the chances are your upgrade will clear.

My purpose in writing this long post is not to impress you with all of this knowledge (some of which I have no doubt is wrong in some way; I'm still very much in a learning process myself). Instead, it's a way of sketching out how your learning process might evolve. Unlike when you were in school, however, the subject matter is much more fascinating because you'll have a real interest in attempting to learn everything you can. It may seem overwhelming at first, but the pieces will start to fall into place at some point.

By the way, several years ahead of my goal, I've accumulated enough miles for that first class trip--this summer. And for about three more. As part of my trip, I'll spend two nights at the Turnberry Resort in Scotland. I won't be paying the $800 per night that's normally charged for my room; I qualified for two free nights by taking hotel stays that I would have made anyway and fitting them within a promotion offered by the Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program. So, define your goals but be willing to be flexible about changing them as your knowledge and opportunities increase.

ambrosios1

wow, great thread!! thanks for all the advice! really a huge help for newbies like myself!