What do you suggest for miles accumulation by kids?
 

One of my readers ask me

I responded:

Apparently she didn't post the question here. But I am most interested in your responses. Ideas?

Thanks.

With a minimum $10 donation to the National Parks Foundation, AA will give you 100 miles (10 miles per $1 contributed). From what I've read on the AA board (so take this with a grain of salt), ANY activity will keep your account active and work around the 3 year expiration rule, so if they're at the 3 year mark and at risk of losing significant AA miles, this might save them for a small price. I haven't had the need to try this myself...maybe someone will come along and verify it works.

What about shoping through AAdvantage mall? Last week I entered my son's AAdvantage number but at the time of check out, it was my credit card and my name. I hope he will get the mileage credit?

The person who asked pgary the question is wrong about iDine. I registered my one year old with iDine using one of my credit cards. Miles posted as normal to her account.

Ditto. All my/our iDine miles go to our kid's accounts.

There's always a mileage run.

Also, what about just calling the airline and explaining the situation? I don't know of any programs (could be wrong) that automatically purge "inactive" accounts (12-month expiry programs excepted) on the 365thX3rd day. Perhaps the airlines could manually reset the expiration date for these youngsters.

Keep in mind the cumulative effect, as well. Even if you're not actively earning miles now, if the kids are young and there is some form of activity at least once every three years, those miles can add up over a decade or so...so long as there is a trip every year or two.

My parents opened many of my FF accounts when I was 5, and I was pleasantly surprised to look at the account balances when I started paying attention around age 21.

Any type of account activity gives a new life to the AAdvantage account (I hope all other accounts too). I ordered some magazines out of my son's dying account and the rest of miles got a new life for another 3 years.

You could do www.opinionplace.com

But not sure about the chances of qualifying for a survey if you are that young ;)

You can transfer points from, say, AirMilesMart to anyone's AA or DL account so that's one way to keep accounts alive.

Starwood allows transfers of points between accounts at the same home address. So a parent can move SPG points into a kid's account, and then move points from the kid's account to whatever airline account needs to be kept active.

Opportunities come along every so often where it's great to have lots of accounts in the family... last year there was the great but short-lived Delta game that awarded 10k miles for a couple minutes on a website... there were the points from meetingsplanning.net... there was the BA/Jaguar deal... kids with FF accounts can be handy indeed!

Thanks for posting this topic. I'm also interested in the responses, though perhaps not as urgently as the woman who originaly posed the question, since I'm only maintaining a Delta account for my daughter at the moment, and I suspect she'll fly on a paid ticket at least once per three years.

My nine year old son is already paying attention and knows his Mileage Plus balance to the mile :D He has decided (at least this week) that he's saving for a trip to Tahiti (first class, natch) and wants to stay in the overwater bungalow he saw on the PBS show Globetrekker.

I've created a travel monster.

of course, all of this leads me to wonder:

what if you could refer a new, non-existing person to some airline FF program (United had one deal a while back where you could refer people and you get miles even if they do not fly, and so do they), then set up all these promos for the non-existing person, do idines for them, build miles for them, buy things in their name, all without having to get a CC, and then, when you HAVE a kid, name him or her THAT previously non-existing person's name!

For example,

a little baby boy named John Steiger could be set up by Gary, and then when he has a newborn, John now has a boat load of miles before the age of 1!

Now, later in life the birth dates will be screwed up but you could probably fax in a copy of the birth cert if needed, and always claim it was some kind of error. Worse case: you lose some miles you never paid for anyway, and yet, if you are really concerned with that possibility, just redeem them using this person's pin and account info BEFORE you tell the airline that birthdate was incorrect!

it could work.
Anticipated birth dates and name choices based on miles!

:)MM
I SHOULD write a book about this crap!

OK! May be that was a bit too much of a stretch of imagination. May be it is possible, but why concentrate all these energies and efforts for a future imaginary person instead of yourself. You can always use miles for that person if need be.

true, but some promos allow multiple users, hence the good part about having a family means that everyone earns, and besides, I need to have kids and create more RED SOX fans!

Whenever there's a survey, etc, I do it for my wife, mom and self, and sometimes my brothers if they are too busy. I am the family miles guy. Dad was before he passed away, and now it's me. With starwood, for example, you can all earn, but if you share the same address, you can combine points.