I only travel 2 to 3 times a year, and usually one of these trips is international. In the past, I have always just booked with the cheapest airline; however, this has lead me flying with many different carriers. This fall I am planning a trip to Las Vegas, but this trip will also be followed by a trip to Thailand. Would it be worth my wild to start booking with the same carrier? Also, is it worth paying more for a flight to have it with a specific carrier? My trip to Thailand has a roundtrip ticket of $1,500 flying Delta and Korean Airways, but $1,700 fly with a carrier with Star Alliance. Would it be worth my time and money sticking with someone in the Star Alliance program?

Get a Chase Visa card with the 50,000 sign up bonus miles. Then fly that airline to Thailand. At that point you will have over 70,000 miles; and your next ticket to Thailand will be FREE.


SunLover

Unless you expect enough travel to reach at least silver status in a FF program, I think that it is best to book what is more convenient in terms of cost and schedule without worrying about the airline/alliance you use.

You can still open a bunch of different FF accounts and collect all the miles (which you can in case increase with a credit card offer to redeem a flight as has been already suggested).

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry9630/5.0.0.591 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

FREE*

*Plus CC annual fees, taxes on award seat, subject to award availability and contingent on use before the miles expire.

I'm a big fan of the programs but for the occasional customer - and I believe the OP qualifies - shopping based on price alone is nearly always the better value. There are only so many CC promos and other "free" sources of miles out there and they don't last forever.

Thank you for your help... I will continue, at least for the time being to book my flights on price and times. Now I just need to decide if Phuket is where I want to go. I am also looking at Cape Town. I am traveling alone and still in college... any other suggestions.

I was like you, and just bought on price/convenience; I paid a little more to fly an airline that was having a promotion to a place I was going to (ex. Delta to Spain double RDMs). Then last year AA had triple RDMs and double EQMs out of my home airport and scheduled 3 longhaul flights with AA, paying a little more for each. That made me Platinum, and now I pay a little more for AA flights to get the benefits of my status. But when I'll be back to general member status, I will go back to flying the cheapest. (Except I favor AA anyway because it has off-peak reduced mileage awards to Europe; and I dislike Delta due to lack of award availability.)

It may be worth paying a little more (to me, that's $50 longhaul - I'm cheap) to fly a nicer airline, like BA instead of AA, or the Asian airlines. Also, if you don't already do this, credit your miles across an alliance into ONE program. For example, whether you fly US Airways, United, or Lufthansa accumulate all your miles to your United account.

i would join the ff program for every airline that i fly and gravitate to a program/alliance if/when it makes sense...don't pass up the mi's from long haul trips...

i assume that you are starting in the us?

i did that way back and most of the mi's got used or combined w/others during mergers/buy outs...

good luck...

If you're in college, it's unlikely that you'll qualify for many of the top sign-up bonus mileage cards. Maybe the CC boards have more info about good targets for people without a long credit history but we have threads on Milesbuzz about people with reasonably high incomes, excellent credit, and a long history getting rejected for airline miles cards these days. (Granted, some of them due to churning history...)

But I'd still sign up for every applicable mileage program. When you fly, you are paying for the miles. Therefore, you should at least accept them, even with low expectations on their value.

Of your potential candidates, UA might be of more use to an infrequent traveler because they allow one-way awards. (So does AA.) Since most airfares are sold as one-ways these days, that can have meaningful value. Say your Vegas trip prices high one direction and cheap the other. 12,500 miles can get you the one-way.

Yes, you have to learn to play the availability game a bit. But even a tiny bit of flexibility I've usually found something that will work. I just did a UA one-way BOS-IAD-MCI that would have been a $375 segment on any airline. (It happened to be Boston Marathon weekend by random chance.) Not the sexiest award compared to int'l F, but hey...it kept $375 in real dollars in my pocket. (By "tiny bit of flexibility" I mean I was able to get my desired date by I had to fly at 5:45AM when my "perfect" flight would have been a more sensible midmorning departure. )

My advise to anybody who ever asks - join each and every program for each and every airline, hotel, rental car company, etc you fly, stay at, or drive.

If your grocery store hooks up with an airline program you don't belong to, join it to collect miles, years later it may merge with your airline and you transfer in tens of thousands of miles on an airline you don't fly.

I don't think at this stage it matters to concentrate or pay more to be with one airline or hotel chain. If you were flying or staying enough to get status on one of them, like CASAFlyer already mentioned don't go nuts trying to stick with just one.

If however you are going to do enough to get status, then stick with one.

I just checked out the United Airline website and I can get silver status with only 25k. After my trip in November, I will have nearly 28k. Yes, these are very small number, but I do not think they expire. I know I have like 6k with Continental also from a few trips to Mexico a few years ago. My trip in November will get me 28k and more than likely I will take an additional international vacation in either April or June of next year as well. Therefore, I could have attained elite status for at least a short period of my early life.

Okay, I have found a good priced flight but it is really bad. 31 hours for the total flight. It goes MSY-IAH-DME-SIN-HKT. The flight design is really bad. Any thoughts?

Just to sure you understand it perfectly, it is 25k in a single calendar year, not lifetime accrued. I've known people to confuse that.

Also, miles can and do expire (except DL) but it very easy to ensure that they don't. For most airlines, you simply need to earn/burn at least one mile every 18 months.

Also, no one has mentioned it, but sign up for iDine. You register your credit cards and if you happen to eat at a participating restaurant, you earn extra miles. Any credit card will work.

Okay, miles can expire for a certain period of time! Question? If I would get Silver in November 2011 and not fly again till April or June 2012, that is technically still in my calender year, correct?

Also, If I would get Silver in November with an airline, as long as I use or earn miles within that year, I will not lose then. Buy, will they still allow me to keep my Silver status? For instance, I get status in November 2011, but don't fly in that calender year, instead stay at a Hilton or something, would I loose my status of Silver, but still keep my actual miles? I thought Graduate School statistics was hard to learn, that is nothing compared to an airline's mileage program....

Almost. It is better to figure out who the partners are and make sure that you are earning something for all the flights, but not necessarily splitting the points where they can be combined.

There are two different systems that you need to track.If you can get to 25K EQMs on a single program in a year then you might get some value for the remainder of that year and for the following year by showing loyalty. For UA, DL and US that could include free upgrades on domestic flights (but only after higher level elites are upgraded first). It would also include free checked bags and maybe priority in boarding or seat selection. You would also earn more RDMs for your travels (generally 25% more) by virtue of the status.

Those are great benefits, but they also are pretty easy to ascribe some dollar value to. Call it $50/trip for the checked bag each way and you'll see that paying $200 extra now means you'd need to have 4 trips on the same carrier (or partners) next year to recoup that investment in status. And that's assuming that next year the flights cost the same, too. Otherwise you might end up paying more to cash in the elite status benefits than just paying the baggage fee on the carrier where you don't have status.

I love points. I have a lot of them and I'm constantly working to earn more and redeem them. But I generally do not find that they are as useful or valuable for the occasional traveler as just saving cash up front.

No, a calendar year is January 1 - December 31. You need to fly all 25k miles in that time period, not any 12 month period. So if you fly 25k between Jan 1 and sometime in November, you would earn status in November and then keep that status for the months of Nov/Dec and then the entire Jan-Dec period the following year. You would need to fly another 25k in the Jan-Dec period to keep your status

You will keep any miles you earn but you would lose status if you don't requalify. There is tons of information in the stickies in each airline forum. I suggest that you read them for details on the status levels for each airline

It is simple.

If most of your flights are international, then it may be worth it - even you may not earn status.

If you find a program that has favorable expiration policy (like 18 months no-activity all or nothing, or never expired), you may be able to save enough for a reward ticket.

But just keep in mind -

1. You are not required to choose the same airline for the program. For instance, you can ride KE (Korean Airlines) when you earn miles for Delta SkyMiles program.

2. Always remember the expiration policy - a lot of people are crying because they missed the time to make-up and lose everything.

3. Try, if you can, stick with the same airlines or alliance.