I'm looking for some general advice on accumulating miles and hotel points now that I've gotten my feet wet. My local airport is Baltimore Washington International. I fly once or twice per year for business and once or twice per year for personal travel. My goal is to actually reap some of the benefits of these programs for personal travel.

For example, I'll probably be heading to Vegas with friends next year and would love to be able to fly for free. Similarly, a trip to Chicago this summer is a serious possibility and I would love to get there for free. I'm thinking about topping off my Southwest account as they fly to Midway (preferred by me over O'Hare as my friend lives closer to Midway), and using that award for the BWI-MDW flight. My current thought is to get the Marriott Rewards CC with 20,000 point bonus and then transfer those points to 4 Rapid Rewards credits. Then one more round trip flight (3 Rapid Rewards credits) on Southwest will get me to a free flight. Here is a summary of my current accounts and balances:

American Airlines AAdvantage 1,863
Amtrak Guest Rewards 1,600
e-Rewards 48.3
Hilton HHonors 2,480
Marriott Rewards 0
MyPoints 2,095
Northwest Airlines WorldPerks 1,500
Southwest Rapid Rewards 9.5
Starwood Preferred Guest 1,188
United Mileage Plus 3,000
US Airways Dividend Miles 18,350

Any suggestions would be welcome!

Thanks!

You've come to to the right place.
Scho

Seriously, I don't think you fly enough to really worry about FF miles or points. If you get it fine, if not then forget it. To go through all that trouble for a BWI-MDW roundtrip that can be bought for <$200 doesn't seem worthwhile to me.

I'd have to kindly disagree. So far, the miles/points that I've accumulated have been at no cost to me. I just started getting into the "game" about two months ago and I have a lot of miles "in limbo". For example, I've referred friends to NW and United and will be receiving bonus miles for them soon. My goal is to basically earn enough free miles through promotions and work travel so that my two or three leisure trips per year will include free airfare and some free nights at hotels. Also, if I was taking "free" trips, I would probably be flying more often. My business travel is likely to pick up in the coming years also (I'm a young 'un).

If you use credit cards a lot, get one that gives hotel or airline points. Caveat: I always pay off the balance every month so I can't tell you which ones have favorable interest rates. There's also usually an annual fee. But, we've charged everything from septic tank replacement to my son's tuition on hotel-affiliated cards and just spent 4 free nights in London and 2 in Cardiff.

Try to focus your loyalties on one hotel and one airline if your travel permits and if you can do it without costing your employer more money. Elite status gets you bonus points and shorter lines.

Even if you can't get Elite status, keep accumulating points anyway. It took me 4 years to redeem my first airline miles but it was to bring my son with me to a business trip to Bermuda. Just keep an eye on miles that may expire if the account becomes dormant and keep in mind that it may be harder to redeem points for travel you want if you don't have Elite status.

And hang around on FT! I got "instant" Gold on Hilton through a temporary promotion I learned about here, whcih got us into an Execuitve Lounge in the Cardiff Hilton with free breakfast, perpetual coffee and drinks, and a magnificent view of Cardiff Castle.

Mecal,

You need to focus on your 2 main accts and try to get awards out of them. I see that as US and WN. Just be careful that WN credits expires or go to half life in 12 month from activity. Although if I reach a free ticket for US, I would be tempted to use it quickly since they are having a bit of problem right now.

A good place to find standard and bonus FF Miles and Points are:
http://www.smarterliving.com/ff/

US has some interesting bonuses for services with Nextel, Sprint long distance and Diners Club, B of A Visa and IDine. Other bonuses include 1K for e-mail statement, 3K for 1st online booking of ticket and 1K for kiosk checkin.

I agree that you should focus on the two main accounts you have points in now...US and WN (Southwest). I would also look at the following to help you get more points in these accounts:
1. Southwest credit card - I think they give you 4 pts. to sign up and then 1 for a certain $ amount spent. Not familiar with the exact details since I do not have one.
2. Look at getting an AMEX card and enrolling it in the AMEX Membership Rewards program. You can transfer AMEX MR points to both US and WN. This is great if you need to top of your WN account before the points expire within a year!!!
3. Look at getting a Bank of America US Dividend Miles Credit card.
4. Make sure to credit all UA and US flights to your US FF account. There is no reason to have both a UA and US account. If you are worried about US going under, start putting the points in your UA account.

I also have to agree with a previous poster that mentioned it not being worth while to us a award for a ticket to Chicago. Since I live in Baltimore, I know that you can get very reasonable fares on WN to MDW so why use a free ticket or 25k points for this. Save the points for a better more expensive ticket.

First, buy the BWI-MDW ticket - don't burn an award on that. You can get that one cheap on WN.

Second, pick two programs and forget about the rest. In your case, looks like WN and US. If I had a million miles on US, I might be panicked about their financial state; at low levels, I wouldn't worry about it. It doesn't sound like you need to "bank" hundreds of thousands of miles for many years with US. Hit your award level; grab a free transcon on UA or US and have fun!

Third, hook in your primary credit card to Dividend Miles Dining.

Finally, your credit card. I have to admit, I've gone round-robin through many different program cards to pick up sign-up bonuses. Held the UA card for a couple months to get 20,000 miles, held NW for a year to get another 20k, still have the AA card to try and milk a renewal bonus, and I have all the hotel cards. If this game interests you and you have the time/energy to manage a lot of active credit, staying on top of the various payment dates and bonus terms, keeping an eye on your credit score, etc. - then go for it. You can earn a LOT of miles and points as your fill your wallet with credit cards.

But...if that game doesn't interest you, just get the SPG Amex. In the near-term, you'll diversify your award possibilities by earning free hotel-nights very quickly. And before you know it you will be so awash in Starpoints that you can transfer out to your FF programs (including US) if you need an award. You actually get MORE bang-for-your-buck with this card than you do a traditional mileage card. Lower annual fee than an airline card, plus a 25% mileage bonus when you convert in chunks of 20k.

I don't fly all that much, nor do I stay at hotels all that often. All my travel is for leisure. I'll take, oh, ten roundtrips and have five or six hotel stays during the year. Here are a couple of the most important rules I've devised for myself so far:

1. Try to get points for as many things as you can. I'll get E-Rewards and MyPoints for some (limited) "bonus" points, but I always make sure to have a reward credit card and use it to buy as much as possible. (Pay it off every month, though!)

2. Limit yourself to one or two reward programs. For example, I have both the HHonors AmEx and Visa. I use the AmEx everywhere I can -- 3 points per dollar spent. My wife also has the AAdvantage Mastercard, so we pick up some miles there. Having the credit cards is key -- they enable you to collect a serious number of points/miles for doing nothing other than living your everyday life.

3. Pick a hotel program and use it for your stays, even if they're infrequent. The same thing goes for airlines -- I pick one to fly with most of the time, so I can build up maximum miles with them.

4. When you reach that glorious point of actually being able to book a reward -- don't use it for something that doesn't cost very much. For example, I fly Southwest HOU-DAL quite frequently, but I won't ever use a free ticket for that. I'll use it, for example, when I'm flying HOU-SMF for vacation in wine country.

Sorry to go on for so long. But I'll close with this: The first step, which FTers are so good about reminding folks, is to pick your program. It sounds like WN would be a good choice for your airline. They have great service out of BWI and terrific fares from there, too. Next, pick a hotel program, if you so desire. Then decide which credit card will work best for you.

For me, my most costly travel expense is a hotel. I'm based out of HOU/IAH, and I prefer Southwest. I can usually find a really cheap ticket to fly where I need to go, so the flight costs are pretty manageable. But if I want to go on vacation for a week, I'll need to drop $1,000 or more on the hotel. So I chose to put my credit cards with Hilton. I've racked up a ton of points doing that. And now I've got eight free nights coming up in Napa Valley and Sonoma County this summer -- which would have cost me about $1,350 if I had just paid the lowest available rate. I've got a RR ticket on Southwest to get me there -- thanks to those somewhat frequent HOU-DAL trips. But I'm paying for my own rental car -- why? It costs 70,000 HHonors points. I can get a full-size car out of SFM for $200 for the eight day period. Not a judicious use of points.

So that, in a rather large nutshell, is how this on FTer does it. I don't travel as much compared to many on this board, but this is what works for me. Hopefully you can find something useful in it. No matter what, it's just fun to gather up as many points as you can!

Wow... we were all there once upon a time!

The best thing you can do is something you're already doing - you're THINKING ABOUT accumulations. When I was young(er), I let a lot of points & miles slip through my fingers becuase "it wasn't worth the hassle; I'm never going to use this airline/hotel/rental car company again". ALWAYS sign up for points - no matter what. You never know when you might move to Denver and suddenly you're flying United all the time. Or when an affiliation will change and all of a sudden those 1,500 WoldPerk miles can be combined with your US Air miles.

So NEVER WASTE POINTS either. Don't get a magazine subscription just to burn some miles. Don't transfer points to a different program unless you NEED the points for an award redemption. You never know when those few points/miles are going to come in handy.

Check reward levels for the various airlines too - but remember they are subject to change and may be different 4 or 5 years from now when you're looking to redeem rewards. I'm having an issue right now because I was moderately loyal to Delta for a lot of years with United as my secondary airline. I dumped a lot of points into Delta through credit card purchases and the like. Now, I'm looking at rewards and have found something interesting: I want 3 business class tickets to Southeast Asia. Ten years ago, I would've sworn up and down that I'd never "waste" miles on a business class seat when a coach seat was so much cheaper. I'd also have told you that you were crazy if you thought I would ever want to go to SE Asia! So I start looking at the reward charts and it takes 120,000 Delta miles to fly Singapore Air to my destination. Guess what, same reward ON THE SAME AIRLINE would only cost me 90,000 United miles. With 2 tickets, that's a 60,000 mile difference! There's a lot of things I could do with those extra 60,000 miles on United if I hadn't concentrated on accumulating Delta miles for so long. And remember, the day you get married, suddenly your miles are essentially cut in half - because now you need 50,000 miles for you both to fly a domestic round trip. Same thing happens when you have kids. While 100,000 USAir miles may seem like a lot when you're single, its only one measley domestic roundtrip for a family of 4.

Don't be afraid to hold on to some miles. Most programs won't expire as long as you do something to keep them from expiring. The more points you accumulate, the more bang for your buck you get out of your rewards. For example, the 90,000 miles for a business class ticket to SE Asia is probably a value of somewhere over $4,000 - and could be considerably more. Using those 90,000 miles (plus another 10,000) for 4 domestic coach-class roundtrips likely has a value of less than $2,000. International, Hawaii and Carribbean are, IMHO, a better use of miles than domestic coach trips.

Final piece of advice: Be very careful about giving miles away. Regardless of what some folks here may say, you really never will have more miles than you know what to do with. We've flown our parents on FF miles and given people free flights to their Honeymoon destintination, amongst others. It was certainly a nice gesture on our part, and I'm glad we were able to do something for our family and friends, but there have certainly been times that I wish we had some of those miles back. I have, however, found that Southwest RR tickets are a good gift source because they are flexible - however, others may argue that retaining that flexibility for yourself is a good idea for those instances when you "must" fly and fares are outrageous.

I've been a little long winded here, but I look back and 10-15 years ago I was in the exact same spot as you - a smattering of points and miles with no clear plan for extracting value from them. Since then, I've taken numerous domestic trips, given the gifts, gone to Hawaii with my wife, took our honeymoon in Asia, been to Europe twice and haven't paid a penny of airfare (well, except for taxes, transfer fees and all the other crap that makes "free" not really "free") for any of it.

So check back in 2020 and let us know how you've done. Who knows, you might be taking your wife and 2 kids to the Ritz Carlton Tigress on the banks of the beautiful Tigress River in downtown Baghdad, Iraq.

Wow! Thanks for all the detailed responses! I'll have to reread them at home to really absorb some of them, but seems like there is a lot of good info in there.

Here are some more details on my situation:

"Relevant" Credit Cards
----------------------
AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest
AT&T Universal Cash Rewards Card (5% cash back on ALL purchases so that takes priority while that promotion lasts)

Significant Amounts of "Miles In Waiting"
----------------------
4,000 Starwood bonus points for first purchase
10,000 AAdvantage miles for AT&T long distance
2,000 Mileage Plus miles for linking account to Safeway shopping card (may only be available locally)


I use MyPoints extensively but find that the reward ratios are best for some things other than HHonors points (e.g. gift certificates to restaurants). I do use eRewards and am about to hit the $50 mark and grab 3,000 HHonors points. My decision on which shopping portal to use is based on return. Sometimes a shopping portal such as MyPoints will offer a better return than the airline shopping portals.

Multiple people have commented that I shouldn't use an award ticket for BWI-MDW because those flights are cheap. Two counterpoints:
- I will probably get that ticket at the last minute as I'm not 100% sure of my plans. Since WN lets you reserve any seat that's open it will work for me. The cheap rates on WN are already gone for the weekend of interest to me.
- Flying cross country on SW may be the best financial use of an award ticket, but it's not one that sounds super appealing to me. I find their planes to be tight in terms of space and the atmosphere less professional than the majors.

So I'm still considering using an award ticket for BWI-MDW. Feel free to try harder to convince me not to.

Back to work...

You got a lot of good advice here.

Make sure you frequent the boards here for the programs you want to set priorities on (for example NWA and HH in my case). Check them every day if you can, over time you'll find some good posts on promotions, bonus's, etc that you can take advantage of. Also, visit the airline and hotel websites frequently and actually read what's there, you'll find their current promotions, and sign up for them. Read your statements that come in the mail, they mention promotions too. Research all your programs partners and take advantage of them. A lot of people don't take advantage of everything that's available.

Example, recent one night HH Stay:
Hampton Inn: 75.00/night = 750 points
50% promo bonus: 375 points (vs. the normal 100 NW Miles)
25% Gold bonus 187 points
VISA promo 500 points
Car rental bonus 250 points

TOTAL 2,062 points for a stay that an "average" or unimformed guest would get 750!!

Good luck and have fun. It can be addictive playing the points and miles game!

If you go last-minute, then no one will convince you to not use the award. That's the beauty about the WN awards - if you want to fly on non-blackout days, you can just drive to the airport and hop on a flight. (I assume you know what the blackout days are and are avoiding them.)

But if your plans firm up anytime soon, check again for fares before burning the award. Doing a simple WAS-CHI search in Orbitz using their Flexible Date tool, I see nonstops on every weekend for $184 R/T (which is $179 R/T plus bonus miles booked directly). Obviously that isn't WN, but I'm guessing those fares are available on one or two of the other airlines that you like. Just a little advice, because we FT'ers are programmed to think this way: Friends Don't Let Friends Use Their Awards When $179 Tickets Are Available.

Even though I have lots of miles, I still weigh their use compared to the cost of a flight. I'll be going to Puerto Vallarta in Sept when AA will be selling an over $700 ticket for 25K miles. I can use the same number of miles to San Francisco but I think I'll wait since it is a city that is frequently "on sale" and I'm more likely to get a direct flight with a paid ticket. The Starwood program is the best - hardly stay at their hotels but their card and program are awesome. Their recent alliance with British Airways - allowed 20K to turn into 50K miles with BA. I now have over 500 miles with BA and that's after using 150 for 2 tickets business class to London, and will be using 160 miles for 2 tickets to Tunisia. Have never bought a ticket on BA. Original miles came from Diner's club on their 2 for 1 promo. Lots of starwood points went into AA with their 5K bonus every time you transfer 20K miles. Achieved liftetime platinum last year. I spend my miles carefully, when it would otherwise be an expensive ticket. By having the select citibank Aadvantage credit card I used 17K miles per ticket to Toronto for 3 of us, - since those tickets were relatively expensive and you don't get a whole lot of mileage for the flight. So that is what is weighed as well - how many miles will you get for the flight, because that is the loss in using an award ticket. The 25K "off season" ticket to Puerto Vallarta is a good deal in my estimation - so I agree with the others - for routes where you can get a cheap ticket I wouldn't use miles unless it was a true emergency in which case the ticket price would be hefty.

Thanks for all of the advice guys!

Two things most people aren't focusing on in regards to Southwest tickets:
- the award ticket expires a year after issuance
- their flights are relatively cheap to begin with

So using an award ticket for BWI-MDW may not be the "best" use, but considering I don't know when I'll be flying SW again, it seems it would be worth it. After all, if I save the award ticket for a future flight, there is a possibility it will expire unused. There's also the possibility that I'll end up using on a ticket that would cost the same amount as BWI-MDW. Also, this is one of the few flights that I'll be flying solo which is perfect use of an award ticket. One other thing also - SW flies into Midway and most of the majors fly into O'Hare. The friend I'm visiting lives closer to Midway.