You should check the following websites regularly:

http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/index.htm
http://www.webflyer.com/blog/
http://www.mileageworkshop.com/

Also, think about a subscription to Inside Flyer magazine.

Finally, make sure you sign up for the relevant idine programs--another example of racking up lots of points with little or no modification of your normal spending patterns!

I am not familiar with Southwest Airlines and how thier program works. Do you have to get an award ticket - do the accumulated miles become an award ticket that needs to be used in a year???? With the other programs, the miles sit in an account, and don't expire until you get an award - so that is the model I am used to. Maybe other people familiar with their program would be better to advise you....or go to their thread and see what strategy people use. It's good that you are gathering information - -- Good luck.

I know on WN the rules are tighter: you have a year to accrue 16 points and then a year to redeem the award. I don't know if your 16th point automatically turns into 1 available free flight on the spot, or if you can wait until the anniversary date of the 1st credit, then turn your points into a free flight, and have another year.

Still, the OP has a good point...if he knows he is never going to use WN again, then using the free flight for BWI-MDW is better than letting it expire unused. (I know WN awards are easily moved on the black market for $300+ - I guess if the OP knows the mechanics of that process, he/she could do that and then buy the BWI-MDW ticket.)

New poster to FT, here and I don't know much but do have experience with WN. When you reach 16 points, they automatically mail a voucher to you. Mine came with free drink coupons. You have one year from issuance to use the voucher. I was told by the FA the drink coupons never expire. To use the voucher, book your flight, pay the taxes & fees (mine were $10) and present the voucher at check-in. Make sure you don't forget the voucher--you must present it or pay for the ticket upon check-in.

One more bit to offer on the WN coupons - they are the most easily transferrable vouchers there are. I've received a couple that I have donated to the local Shrtiner's Hospital - some family members can't afford the freight up to SMF to see their kids in hospital - and there is no paperwork, nothing. The coupon holder merely reserves and flies... as long as the one-year-from-expiry deadline is made and the blackout dates are taken into consideration. The coupon use shows up on my WN Rapid Rewards report.

�Juntos podemos! - Tony Pe�a - Pues, �claro que si!

You're correct. Using an award and flying for free is better than letting an award expire. And as Tim Winship mentions the value of awards is dropping. So if you aren't going to fly WN again anytime soon you might as well use the award.

As mentioned already, if you don't have a lot of miles the best idea is to consolidate accounts and/or top off accounts you won't use.

Lotsa good advice I won't try to repeat, but it should be noted it took flyers years of pressure to get expirations more or less removed from most programs, so it's something to be cherished. I would definitely favor carriers with non-expiring miles, or at least lenient three-year "rolling" expirations. WN comes up short there. I've had 16,000+ "orphan" Korean Airlines miles sitting in my account since 1992 and I finally got a chance at a cheap and easy way to top it up to 25K. I plan to use that to take a vacation to Alaska on Delta.

It's important to concentrate earnings on as few programs as possible (ideally one) and tie in as many earning opportunities on the ground without buying stuff you aren't buying already (Pudding Guy and ValuMags notwithstanding). Do that and you might get something every 2-3 years, possibly more.

To really get in the "game," as was mentioned, you need the elite status and the mileage bonuses, especially gold or higher and 100% or more. Many of us don't have the business travel to support that, so we started doing weekend and other trips ("mileage runs") to top it up. I've been doing that for some 11 years now and qualifying status on exclusively leisure runs for most of it. I'll always try to make a trip of it, though, and stay at the destination and enjoy it for at least 2, preferably 3 days (longer if it's outside the 48 US).

I think at some point the bottom line is that you've got to love to travel. Either that or you get a lot of travel through your job (like it or not!) Absent those factors, a freebie every few years is OK for most people. I can easily see where they'd come to see some Flyertalkers as obsessive or otherwise dysfunctional, so I can only say the lifestyle isn't for everyone.

Bravo to all you responders. Some folks wouldn't have replied with such helpful, well thought out advice, or would have told our friend to surf and search. My hat's off to you all.

My $.02.

Follow pgary's advice on http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/index.htm.
Get a std united bankone card with a 15,000 bonus. Later get more miles for card upgrade. Get annual fee renewal miles. Get the credit protection; wait for a small protection charge then cancel it. Then, try to get a 2nd card and repeat. Pay $50 and get 5,000 miles for transferring $10K to yourself.

I'm on my 3rd citi card for AA miles--super when one is the 6mos free kind.

Idine from AA. Idine from UAL.

Buy through UAL shopping portal. Get FTD bonuses. Gift Cert dot com.

Donate 120 boxes of Kellogg's cereal bought at a overstock store and keep the AA coupons for 5,000 miles.

An old ME chapel in Elkridge has a stained glass window with an ancestor's name in it (and Disney's and Earps in the cemetary.)

Hey your cards are your cards......but stop doing both UA and US.

But I feel Southwest is the way to go......their award tickets rock! You can change them, give then to someone, book up to 2 hrs before your flight, are not capacity controlled. and you get 2 one-ways...so you can fly drive

ALL for NO FEES.....other airlines fee anc changes can run up to $150 or more!!!!!

After redeeming a few US awards, I have equivelant balances with US and UA, and I've been bad -- depositing flights into both. I'm going to try and top off my UA account at a reasonable level and then go cold turkey, though. Also, I fear that one of these two might not be around long term, so I'm hedging my bets...

I also am moving around a lot, and am not sure where I will end up...

I totally understand where you're coming from, but the miles I got/get for United are miles I can't get for US Air and they're free so I take them. Examples: 3,000 UAL miles for signing up for the United Mileage Plus program and 2,000 Mileage Plus Miles for linking my Safeway card to UAL. Couldn't have gotten those miles for US Air so I took them for free on United. I'm definitely focusing on US Air from here on out though...

Thanks for the input!

Michael

I think many of us here would argue that, given their respective financial states, you should do the opposite--focus on UAL and use up the USAir miles. YMMV, but although both are in a pretty tough financial spot, USAir appears much closer to selling assets (like the shuttle routes) and taking other steps that may or may not have them much closer to bankruptcy than UAL is. There are many, many threads on this issue here and more information on some of the other websites I suggested you look at.

CheapSk8, thanks for the advice. I actually agree with you. My previous email, taken by itself was probably misleading. I have over 19k miles in my US Air account right now, so I'm focusing on getting it to 25k miles so I can get free ticket from them. Then I'll focus more on United of those two, but I'll probably focus even more on AA since they seem to be more stable...

- meecal