So I am new to the mile game and have been reading through all the forums and different mileage blogs to learn the ropes, but I still had a few questions I was unsure of. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated!

-MM

1. How long should I wait for points to show up when complete different activities? (credit card sign up bonus, online contests, partner activity, ect.) If the points don't ever show up, what should I do?

2. How do you figure out how many miles you earn when you actually fly? And when you redeem miles for flying, can you pay with both miles and cash?

4. When you redeem miles for RTW flights, can you split it up amongst different mileage programs? (ie. fly from San Francisco to London on Virgin, London to Thailand on Cathay, then Thailand to SFO on something else)

4. How long do my miles last? do they ever expire? If an account requires "activity", what does that constitute?

5. When churning cards, how many a year/month is good to limit yourself too?

1. It depends on the activity and the program. It could be nearly instantaneous or it could take 8+ weeks. Often a promotion will say how long it takes. If you are interested about a specific activity, check the relavent thread or Forum. If they have not appeared in the expected timeframe, contact the issuer (e.g. Citi for a Citi credit card) to ensure that they were forwarded to the airline.

2. Usually your itinerary will display the distance between airports or you can look it up online. Depending on the airline, usually there is a 500-mile minimum. Then add class-of-service and elite status bonus and any promotions.

3. Sure.

4. Some forever, others 12-18 months without activity. It depends on the program as to when and if they expire and what restarts the clock.

5. Depends on your credit score, your ability to meet spend, and your organizational ability. Probably not more than 6 pulls per credit bureau per 6-month period at the outside. Some issuers have limits on applications and total number of cards.

See my responses in red.

Very good answers. #5 is the most important. Like you said pick out the good ones and start with a couple as you get the feel of it you'll know. Watch your credit score. Many people do a churn every 6 months, but you have to make the spend or it's wasted. Good luck, have fun.

Except that the answer to #4 is not quite right. United miles disappear after 18 months of inactivity, and Starwood's expiration policy is more than just "technically". They do enforce it.

1. It depends, sometimes things post almost immediately, other times they take months. Usually they'll have the terms and conditions that say how long you need to wait.

2. gcmap.com is great to find out the base miles for your flight and usually pretty accurate. Then depending on status, promos, which airline you're flying and attributing to, etc. you add or subtract from that.

4(or 3 ) Some airlines allow one ways, some allow round trips, some allow stopovers, some allow open jaws and the key if figuring out the most efficient use of your miles to get you from A to B (or C and D and E...)

4. Again it depends on the program. Continental used to never expire, whereas other airlines have expirations...depends on the program.

5. I'd recommend reading/following frugaltravelguy's blog for information on this.

Where are you flying from and what does your typical travel look like?

It's difficult for me to see this as a serious thread.

The guy joined today, has 2 posts and is asking loaded questions; basically setting this up for a perfect infomercial if we choose to go along with it.

I don't think OP will follow up (note OP has 2 posts on 10/19/2011, if this thread is bumped a year or six from now, I expect OP to still have single digit posts).

Overall though, I must commend the other Flyertalkers here for giving serious and well thought out answers. Even if I'm not being overly cynical, you guys are really swell for taking the time to answer the OPs questions (of which 90% of the answers could be found in about 10 minutes of searching this site).

Thanks guys. I do really appreciate all the feedback, very thorough answers. And though I just officially joined today I have been browsing through the FT forums now for a couple weeks trying to soak up as much knowledge as possible, and this has been very helpful.

As far as my current mileage situation/goals, I have a Discover Miles card, Capitol One Venture card, and the two most recent Citi AA 50k point that I have applied/received in the past 30 days, which is a total of all my cards currently. I'm trying to figure out how many more I can grab within the next 11 months to boost my miles. My goal is to travel to China, Thailand, Japan, and Australia (I live in the US), so trying to get enough airline miles -or combination of- to make that happen.

If you have a specific goal (goals are good!), then look into which airlines fly to the places you want to go. Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines probably cover most or all of where you are looking to travel. Figure out on which of their partners you can accrue sufficient miles for the trip. Then figure out how many miles you will need. If, for instance, you are flying Cathay Pacific, you can use American miles. You are on track to acquire 100K, if you get a business card or two over the next six months, you'll have 150-200K. Check out the forums on the airlines that service your destinations to get tips on creative routing to minimize miles costs.

Also look at which hotel chains are in the areas you wish to visit and think about how many points you would need to stay in comfort during your trip. That may actually require more points than the air. Look into your Discover and Capital One cards to see if they can cover hotels, or maybe a Sapphire Card.

I've given up on people using search. Some people get intimidated by search or have not become thoroughly familiar with the site to know how search works or that a number of stickies on the various forums here might have the answers to their questions. The MilesBuzz forum alone now has over 15,000 threads and nearly 300,000 posts. Others are too lazy and want the information spoon fed to them. For those who know how to search, you can certainly find information (not just here, but on the web generally), but just like any other skill, some people are better at searching than others. Just like some people are better at cynicism.

A newbie comes here and asks some questions. If he's fraudulent, he'll be discovered sooner or later. I no longer think I'm smart enough to sniff that out and leave that task to the mods.

While it's true that the OP's questions might just as easily be spread over four or five threads, I figure there are plenty of folks who come here looking for answers to just these types of questions. I think even if we thought the OP was fraudulent, it's good to provide simple, clear answers so that others who stumble across this site today or next week, want some newbie-type questions answered, and who, seeing the title of this thread, might click here looking for those answers will get useful information. And might also understand that FT is an open community that's always willing to welcome new participants.

If you'd gotten a similar reception when you first found FT, do you think you would have stuck around to put up an additional 1100 posts? I know I wouldn't have.

BTW, MM, welcome to FlyerTalk!

Thanks for the catch. I updated my response. Just another case of thinking one thing and typing another...

Re Starwood, the answer is wrong for a second reason: they don't require a hotel stay, as credit card activity also resets the clock. From the SPG T&C:

Thanks for the clarification on expiration of SPG points. I'm considering my own card (husband has one and I could get a card on his acct. but where are the bonus points in that?) and appreciate the info.

Also, I know that those of us who are fairly new here often ask questions that have been asked before. I am learning to use the search feature more effectively and appreciate not getting flamed for falling short sometimes. There is so much useful info here and so many knowledgeable people that it's a very valuable resource.