As I read lots of threads on Flyertalk I often come across mention of this program or that which lots of people join, though they have no intention to fly that airline or stay in that chain's hotels. There are good reasons, such as access to a good, usable website, nice transfer options, advantageous opportunities for partner redemption, status and status match possibilities, readiness for periodic special offers, etc. I thought it might be useful to have a thread pulling these varied ideas together. I have not seen one, but point it out to me if it already exists. What are the programs you've joined, and others should consider, despite the fact you never actually use their facilities, and why?

I would not draw attention to programs that are used not as intended. It will be fodder for bloggers and then the company will wind up scrutinizing all the extra signups that have no intention of using their program for anything other than a good transfer option or giftcard redemption.
If you take the time to read about individual programs you can find the most popular uses for them......search and read...don't spoonfeed.

you could get a decent fix on it by reading the requests here in the miles buzz & churners free travel agent services forum....

many requests say i/we have xk this, yk that, etc & want to fly this itin....

you will see tinker to evers to chance double play schemes.....

please post your findings....i'm sure they would help a lot of folks....

I'm not a blogger . I've been in the miles and points hobby for a couple of years, not quite a newbie, but still learning. I don't think there's anything unethical about most of the things I'm interested in. For example, I know people join the ANA program because its website is superior in search for award availability. There's no harm done to ANA, which surely welcomes more traffic that will see the promotions at its website. Indeed the more that other airlines know that people are going to ANA, the more motivation to improve their own websites to the benefit of all. I doubt that hotel chains mind people signing up to accumulate miles to transfer at bad rates to US for the Grand Slam promotion. They can pitch their products to those people. I have more than once joined a program initially just for points/miles opportunities, and ended up using them for paid activity too.

You are no doubt more knowledgeable than I and know of tricks of questionable ethics that should not be publicized or encouraged. I respect that, but I think there are plenty of things that could be shared in one place for the good of all. If nobody likes my idea this thread will drop off the radar pretty quickly.

Just for a remarkably specific situation, but-

China-Japan fares really get out of hand sometimes. I've once paid over $600 for Shanghai-Osaka in Y. For comparison, Nashville to Newark isn't much shorter and often be found for half as much. But when US Airways is having a promotion on buying miles, the purchase price usually works out to be about that much for a ticket in C, essentially a free upgrade if I'm planning on going on an off-day.

I don't see a problem with suggesting programs that are useful because they simplify things. For example, srdshelly has already mentioned ANA for searching *A awards. Similarly, I'm ST E+ through DL, but I (along with a lot of the top posters in the DL forum here) have Flying Blue accounts. I've no intention of crediting a flight to FlyingBlue (unless I fly someone that's a FB partner and not a DL partner, I guess), but their award search engine is light years better than DL's.

Many years ago I joined Continental just to get points that were offered for email updates and some surveys, just in case it ever merged with an airline that I do fly. Then last year I got the Continental credit card for a year. Before the merger, I had flown 750K miles with United and 0 with Continental.

I am SPG gold (through AMEX Platinum), and I also hold SPG AMEX CC. However, I remember I had not been to any SPG property for the past 3 years (I am with Hyatt, Hilton, and Priority Club more). I use SPG points to top of family miles accounts.

Wise companies have no problem with people who join their program just for the promotions. In fact, they seek it. For example, if someone joins ABC loyalty program and accumulates a free night's stay worth of points, it encourages them to actually give that hotel chain a try.

For family, friends, and associates I assist (I do so because I'm good at it, and registering dozens of accounts for promos doesn't take much more time than registering one, if you automate a bit), I suggest that they sign up for every program under the sun. This way, when there is an easy and appealing offer, they know they can participate. As a result of this approach, my three young kids each have several free flights and hotel nights worth of miles/points, despite never having spent a penny to acquire them. Perhaps when they are older and they seek to utilize some of these freebies, it will turn them on to becoming regular customers of those programs.

ANA implemented some restrictions on award searches for accounts with 0 miles. So, I transferred 1000 miles from Amex MR to my ANA account. It's very unlikely I'll ever redeem those, and hopefully ANA considers the free money they got from Amex on my behalf payment enough for the use of their search tool

Similarly, AsiaMiles membership is great for CX award searches, and JL for JL searches, for those that are AA members looking for partner award opportunities to the Far East, since the AA website currently only allows award searches on AA, HA, and BA.

First of all, there are two big categories that account for a lot of this:

1. People who join hotel programs (especially SPG's), or flexible points programs, for the purpose of transferring those points to airlines.

2. People who join one airline program with the intention of redeeming for partner airlines. There are sometimes very good reasons for not joining the program of the airline you intend to fly but instead joining the program of a partner airline. One of those is differening expiration policies: Miles in most US-based airline programs and at least some UK-based airline programs can be kept alive "forever" with just occasional activity, but many airline programs based elsewhere in the world have "hard" expiration, ie, expiration which cannot be avoided no matter what. If you're not absolutely sure you'll earn and then use the miles in such a foreign airline program, it's a huge risk to try, while it's not much a risk to earn the miles in one of it's US-based (or perhaps UK-based) partners.

3. People who join a program because a partner of that program has a promo where doing partner activities yeilds bonuses. The most famous case of this is the US "Grand Slam" promotion, but there are others.

4. People who join an airline just to transfer points to a hotel program. This is rarer, because fairly few airlines allow transfers out (while almost all hotel programs do), but where you find the exceptions (such as Hawaiian to Hilton), you find this going on sometimes.


In my case, I actually intend to use most of my hotel points for actual stays (with expiring points -- in hotel programs where expiration can't be avoided --an exception, where I would probably transfer to some airline).

I joined Delta after it was announced that it was merging with Northwest. I had already earned (including a couple flights) on Northwest. But I never have flown Delta yet (either pre- or post-merger). I don't have any idea whether I'll use my 300k+ miles on Delta or some partner; they're just easy to keep alive, and I figure I might need a SkyTeam redemption someday.

I've been collecting BA miles (now Avios points) for years, and during that time BA started charging huge "YQ" "fuel" surcharges. But not when you redeem Avios for flights on partner airlines in the Americas! So I'm not sure whether I'll use Avios for BA itself ever or only for partners.


I think a lot of people don't even consciously consider what you're talking about as a separate case. They just look at it procedurally: What do they want to redeem for? What are the options of earning something that can be redeemed for that? If the direct options are not useful enough, they just immediately move on to indirect options if those are useful.

Similarly, with collect-the-partners promotions, they just look at the promotion, see what's needed, and see what it takes to achieve that. For some people it then tends to be a mix of partners they actually use and other parnters they only sign up for because of the promotion. But again they think of it procedurally, and don't necessarily think of partners they'll never stay in or fly on as a separate category, the way you did.

Here are a few that I don't think anyone will mind seeing publicly listed:

- Tons of Americans have joined BA in the past 3 years because of the big Chase promotions. And as everyone knows, actually *flying* BA is about the worst thing you can do with Avios. You get across the Atlantic on EI, RJ, or someone else. You fly short-haul nonstops in the U.S. on AA. You maybe go Far East... Anything but BA, thanks to the YQ.

- Years ago, everybody joined Amtrak because it was a "lossless" transfer between a couple different programs. Amtrak has since added some activity requirements related to transfers so I don't think people do this anymore.

- Lots of people join Starwood solely for the 1.25 miles/$ on the credit card into a bunch of different airline programs. I'm sure Starwood is quite happy for people to do this, although once you figure out how valuable Starpoints can be at the hotels, you might not transfer the points anymore. It's a pretty good hotel program overall...if SPG brings people in via the Amex, good for them...

- ANA has already been mentioned but the utility of that isn't what it once was. For one, there are some other good award search tools out there. Two, UA's site has mostly caught up in terms of showing *A award options. If you need to do something complicated, something like Award Nexus will help. If you just want to look at partner availability for things that aren't too unusual, United.com is probably good enough.

- I've known several people who've joined US solely to participate in a Grand Slam. I also know one guy who decided to fly them for one R/T, got upgraded both ways on his Silver Trial, and ended up switching over to them for good. He was originally there for the promo miles...ended up becoming an actual frequent customer.