Hi I am a lurker getting up my nerve to talk so please have patience...I have been reading the posts for quite a while you guys sure sound like experts. I would like to know which airline has the best FC service to LHR from JFK or BOS. I travel for leisure only and all on my own dollar,so I cant get million miler status I would like to start accumulating miles now to get the tickets for my 50th birthday present. The cc has some ideas which program is easiest to get miles besides from actual flying, should I start buying miles from the airline to accumulate, buy from EBAY , the company programss where you can buy milage awards for your employees, can I combine all of these on my way? What about milage banks I thought that was illegal. I have milesss with united, delta, american,and sw. Since I have to pay full price I usually go with the best price so each account has less than 20k I also have a bunch of coupons for rental car upgrades and free days, do people actually want these little things I usually throw them out. I would like to try a milage run but need dummy instructions. Any advice will be appreciated, I will be briefer next time

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Su

I'm no expert, but it appears you can combine all of your different airline miles into the one you will be using by transferring them to Hilton and or starwood and then transfer them to your airline.

Sign up for the different credit cards and cancel after your first free year.

Welcome to the world of Mileage Accumulation.

My advice is to read all these boards carefully. You'll end up using a variety of ways to get the miles you need for FC to Europe.

What you'll want to watch out for is the next Kelloggs/Valuemags.com type promotion. I picked up lots of miles using both of these promotions for about $0.67/mile after the charitable tax deduction. The Valuemags promotion was much easier and took lots less time.

I, myself, look forward to picking up 300K more miles in the next few months so I can hit the 2MM mark on AA.

My local charities are also anxious for the next promotion.

Have fun!

If you charge alot on your card, go Starwood Amex card. Is the best!

And welcome to Flyertalk !

I would venture to say that BA has the best service. You may want to explore what kind of BA award you can get with AA (as you already have some of their miles). While if you aren't familiar with Int'l F service you may be happy with any of them, your travel experience will be better out of JFK re: lounges and such. Also the flight time BOS/LHR eastbound is often extremely quick, almost a waste of the miles! (BOS/LHR eastbound can be faster than BOS/SFO westbound). I don't know about the AA fleet, but on UA out of BOS you will only get a 767 which doesn't have the finest of seat products. So you will need a NYC flight on UA for the "First Suite". These are a few of my rambling thoughts. Welcome to FT, don't be embarassed about asking questions, and don't get upset when the pissymoany types get all worked up when you "posted in the wrong topic" or asked something that was covered elsewhere 6 months ago.

That is possible (at least to Hilton), but not advisable as you will lose most of your miles in the conversion.

Keep up with FlyerTalk, and try to post specific questions in each airline's forum.

Good luck.

You have to get a frequent flier number from the airline you frequently fly with. Then try to get a credit card that has affinity to the airline because everytime you charge an airline ticket to that affinity card, you get bonus points. Example, Delta Skymiles American Express for Delta Airlines, you get 2x miles per dollar when you buy a Delta ticket plus you get the airmiles for the completed flight. You also get 2x miles per dollar when you use the card for groceries, gas station, post office, home improvement store and paying your cell phone bills. The card also have bonus points for the first charge that you made. American Airlines have Citibank AA Mastercard or Visa, United have their own card so does the rest of the airlines. Then you have your long distance phone company like MCI/ATT/Sprint. You have to call which ever is your long distance company and give them one of your frequent flier number. Better yet,lets say you have Sprint as your long distance company, you may switch to another company provided that they could give you bonus miles like 5000 miles at least. You also get 5 miles to a dollar from most of this long distance company. When you rent a car, also provide them your frequent flier number. Become a member of hotel establishment like Starwood
Hotel or Hilton. Starwood have Westin, St Regis, Sheraton, W , Luxury Collection and Four Points as their brand hotels and Hilton has Embassy Suite, Hilton Hotel, Conrad, Hampton Inn, Double Tree as their name brand hotel. For every dollar you spent from any of this hotels, you get one point. Better yet, if you also get a credit card that has affinity to Hilton or Starwood, you get something like 3 points per dollar. Hilton has Visa card while Starwood has American Express and both have bonus points also (10,000 for Hilton) for the first charge. But between the two, Starwood has a better conversion to miles. You get one airmile per 1 starwood point and you get 5000 bonus airmiles if you transfer 20,000 starwood points for a total of 25,000 airmiles. Hilton points has a lower value in conversion. I think you get 2000 airmiles for every 10,000 Hilton points. But of course you want to have both Hilton and Starwood because there are places that have Hilton Hotels only or Starwood Hotels only. There are so many more ways to earn miles but make sure you always check the webflyer forum. Happy airmiles hunting.

First, a warm welcome to Flyertalk!

olafman offers some wise advice. The trick to flying up-front inexpensively is to find these unique opportunities to accrue mileage cheaply and in large numbers.

But you're in luck. InsideFlyer, the sister publication to Flyertalk, is running a suitable deal right now. Here's the math for one round-trip ticket in first class on British Airways or American Airlines from JFK or BOS to LHR. Incidently, for the same price, you can fly Concorde in one or both directions:

• Visit http://www.insideflyer.com/starwood and purchase 21 subscriptions to InsideFlyer at $59.95 each, for a total cost of $1259
• You'll receive 2500 Starwood Preferred Guest points for each subscription purchased, for a total of 52,500 Starwood points
• Open a frequent flyer account with Qantas.
• Transfer your Starwood points to Qantas. They offer a 2:1 redemption ratio, and will give you 5K Starwood points for every 20K of Starwood points you transfer, leaving you with a grand total of 125,000 Qantas points
• Redeem these Qantas points for a first-class award. Total cost of ticket: $1259.

You can do exactly the same thing in business class for 100,000 Qantas points (although without the option of Concorde, obviously). That'll cost you 16 subscriptions to Flyertalk, or $959. Everything else works exactly the same.

If you donate the magazines to registered charities, they become tax-deductible, leaving your actual cost for the tickets even lower.

Hope this helps.

Welcome!

BA far and away has the best FC service and only costs 100K miles for each ticket versus 125K on AA. If you want to get the best lounges, planes, etc, go JFK versus BOS. If you want more convienient and smaller planes then BOS is the way to go. FOr this sort of thing I would say BA JFK!

Thaks to all for inside info in between the credit cards and mags maybe this is possible! Has anyone actually converted the inside flyer deal to Quantas? I would hate to have to read 20 of the same mag every month haha well off to mileage collection land... Su

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Su

BA has the best service between BOS/JFK and LHR. As a reminder, you cannot use AA miles for a BA transatlantic award ticket.

I am not sure whether Qantas has a BA award between BOS/JFK and LHR. Diners normally has a 2-1 conversion in the summer which is a great way to get BA miles.

[This message has been edited by bagold (edited 04-04-2002).]

dup.

[This message has been edited by bagold (edited 04-04-2002).]

To address these points:
DO NOT BUY MILES ON EBAY. This violates just about every milage program rule and will possibly leave you stranded in a foreign country with the airlines voiding your ticket.

As for Milage Runs for Dummies, lets lay out some guidelines to get the discussion going:
1: Think about taking trips to places far away during off season times. The airlines will drop the fares and add all kinds of bonuses to fill seats.
2: Think about routing yourself through a couple of extra places to make the trip even longer at no extra cost.
3: Get on the plane and go.

Milage runs are especially lucrative for the members of the 'elite' levels of the programs, as they often get double credits and may have upgrade certificates that make the long flights less of an ordeal.

So, have you thought about spending a weekend in Tokyo or a day in London?

One last thing I must warn you about: YOU ARE STARTING DOWN A SLIPPERY SLOPE. Becoming a milage junkie is probably a worse addiction than heroin, booze, nicotine, or anything else I can think of. Be forewarned. The highs are really high, but the lows you feel if you see a promotion you can't take advantage of are really low. As I tell my son, Get a good education so you don't turn out like your dad.

(removing my tongue from my cheek long enough to say)
Enjoy

Firechylde: I tried to post a link for you earlier today. Unfortunately, I still have not mastered the art. If you will look in the Starwood forum there is a lengthy thread on this topic. MAULD has done it and many are interested.

If any one out there wants to hold my hand and help me learn to do these links please email me. I would be greatful. I have read the FAQ's and made some attempts, but have not been successful 100% so I am shy about giving links. Thanks!