>> I'm so excited.

Careful, this can be highly addictive! :D


>>>... and really had no idea the miles could add up

Oh, yeah do they ever!

>>...thank you travel agents

we do not seem to like these people around here.

To get started study Gary's website carefully:

http://www.freefrequentflyermiles.com/index.htm

Enjoy this "hobby"

<<I will have one free ticket>>

25,000 Skymiles is sufficient for one Delta economy class ticket within the continental United States. An award flight to Europe would require 50,000 Skymiles. Note that these are the amounts required for "SkySaver" awards which are limited availability, a "SkyChoice" award doubles the mileage requirement.

It seems a good idea to apply for the Delta credit card now to liberate your old miles, but you should compare frequent flyer programs before deciding whether to accumulate Delta miles ongoing. Only then should you decide which credit card to use. If you choose Delta's own credit card the miles are automatically deposited in your Skymiles account which is convenient, but also limiting because Delta does not permit transfers to other programs. There are several other credit card programs that earn points which can be converted to Delta miles when you are ready to redeem a flight. This gives you the possibility of transferring to another airline if award availability is better, and protects you during Delta's bankruptcy.

In short, I wouldn't feel married to Delta just because I discovered a cache of miles. I would do whatever is necessary to use those, but I would separately evaluate whether Delta is the best for my travel plans.

dennis

Let me echo Dennis' point. I search fror DL awards regularly and rarely find domestic seats for the dates/routes I want at the 25,000 mile level; most often they want 50,000 miles per seat domestically per the terms of SkyChoice. A SkyChoice economy seat to Europe is 100,000 miles. Five of them... well, do the math.

Don't spread your efforts among multiple programs. Judging from testimony on this board, AA and UA definitely offer better award availability than DL, NW and especially CO. If you can scrape together enough miles for one or two Europe tickets on AA or UA in time to snap them up for summer 2007, I'd say go for that.

Just a Note-
This site is fantastic! I have learned sooo much. My family only travels for pleasure also and I have been using numerous cr. cards over the years to accumulate pts. for flights and hotels. I am in the process of discontinuing cards. HH - I have used for wonderful stays at hilton properties (AE card) and Starwood AE (need less pts for a night). Have accumulated points on AA for 2 Europe flights Will use these in 2007, maybe. For flying (just a suggestion made to me) always, if possible, book 'vacation' travel Sat. thru Sat. Then on Sat. when the planes are overbooked after a school vacation- volunteer your 'family' for a 'bump'. Our family of 4 has been bumped twice in the past year and then we have 8 vouchers to use within a year for our next trip. (Takes a bit of planning but it works!) Using 4 vouchers & HH points we are doing this for a week stay in London in July. Free flights (not 1st or Business though) and 4 free nights at the Waldorf H. (gold - hope to get upgrade) and 1 free at Kensington Marriott + 1 nt. paid (was able to upgrade with gold to Lounge use.) We charge absolutely EVERYTHING (even charge on our cards when we go out with relatives - then they write me a check! They know I am a 'points collector" but hey, keep 'em coming!!!!!) Having 4 left, am sending hubby and daughter to Florida for a week, getting hotels
free using Starwood pts. and still have vouchers $$ left over and 2 vouchers left for son and myself. Where shall we go?????????????? :)

Here is what I was thinking so far - from what I've heard, people like the AA credit card a lot around here - I was seriously looking into that one when Delta sent me the letter saying I had "lost" miles - since I found 30,000 miles with Delta and with what they're offering me if I get their AE card I will have close to 60,000 miles. I am considering getting the Delta card for our business because I think we might be able to earn at least one other free ticket within the next year. I don't see the point in trying to rack up AA miles right now since we're so far long with Delta - is this type of thinking wrong? - now watch, Delta will go bankrupt and we'll lose everything :).

For personal use - I am looking at the Starwood card to charge things (I don't really plan on using the Delta one - just getting it to get almost 30,000 free miles) - Starwood seems like they take so much fewer points to get a free night than the other hotels - Hilton, Marriott - why is this? Is it harder to earn points with them?

What do you think??

Both the Delta Amex and the Starwood Amex are Amex. You should have a Visa or Mastercard for those places that don't take Amex.

The Hilton Amex earns 3 points for every Dollar spent; the Starwood Amex earns 1 point per Dollar. But point redemption is roughly 3 times more "expensive" at Hilton. A category one Hilton is 10,000 HHonors points per night. A category one Starwood is 3000 Starpoints per night (and 2000 on weekends). Category Four is similar: 30,000 points at Hilton vs. 10,000 Starwood points. The main difference is that Starwood hotels are generally nicer (a category four Starwood is usually better than a category four Hilton) and Starwood doesn't have blackouts or capacity controls--if they have a free room, it's yours. The main downside is that Starwood has a more limited range of properties than Hilton. However, if Italy is your goal, that's Starwood's strongest country in Europe and their properties there are really nice. Hilton's strongest country in Europe is the United Kingdom.

Seems like everyone has a "story" to tell on how earning points works well for them. I don't consider myself that knowledgeable...in fact, if I read more on this board, I'd probably find even better ways to earn than how we earn now...but here's what we do:

We have a Quicken Platinum Visa which earns us "Traveler Miles". Basically, it earns us one point per dollar spent but what I like about it, is, it earns us a RT ticket anywhere in the Continental U.S. with 25,000, or $100 off an airfare with 8,000 points. So, you can choose how it works best for you. There are also lots of other offers for using your points with this card. My husband and I both charge pretty much everything to this card, pay it off and it gets us a good amount of free tickets for our family of four, for our planned vacations. I just used our points to purchase 3 RT tickets to Seattle for a planned August Alaskan cruise. The 4th ticket, I got with my leftover NWA WP miles that I had before cancelling that card. I cancelled that because I just don't find it worth our while once you get hit by the Rulebusters.

I also just signed up for a Marriott Visa because I stay at a Marriott for work-related events since it's right in our building and can earn points easily. I also really like Marriotts so I thought we could utilize points earned for vacation stays at Marriotts.

Like I said, mine is only a minor "success story", but so far, it has worked well for us! Thanks to all on this site for "educating" me even more!

Deb

Does this mean that I cannot use my AA miles to book a reward ticket on BA to LHR?

The only way that I know of to use AA miles to book a reward ticket on BA to LHR is to book it as a OneWorld award, and book through Canada. For instance, book AA from U.S.-Canada, BA Canada-LHR, and another OneWorld partner (Finnair, Iberia, or EI) somewhere in the trip.

Can I get AA miles when flying BA?

Not when flying a BA transatlantic route between the US and the UK. You have to go up to Canada and fly BA's YYZ-LHR, YVR-LHR, etc. routes to earn AA miles.

You can earn AAdvantage miles when flying on the rest of BA's system, AFAIK... e.g. within Europe, LHR-Asia/Africa, etc.

kimah, you seem to be happy to research pretty thoroughly - one site that has a huge amount of relevant info is ANDREWCX's Frequent Flyer Resources, especially the credit card comparison section - that'll give you all the caps & costs so you can make informed decisions on credit cards.

His whole site has heaps of up-to-date information on general frequent flyer stuff too and it's worth checking all the tips and remarks as well. It should help a lot in your planning.

Good luck with your trip :)

hmc

Wow! What a great site - how could I have missed that? I love all this information - I've gotten so much off of Gary's website, too. It's been a tremendous help to me. Now I know what I'm going to be reading the rest of the night :).

I know it's heresy to suggest this here, but given how infrequently you fly, unless you run huge credit card tabs each month (personal or business), IMO your best bet would be to try to book 2 or 3 FF seats and use $$ for the others -- and have the $$ seats be for whoever in the family flies the most (so they keep building more miles). A Europe trip can easily generate 10k FF miles, which puts you on the road toward the next trip...and to status, but that's a whole other topic!