There are a lot of folks who are disappointed with airline mileage programs.
Many people I’ve talked to decided to sign up for a travel credit card to earn miles, and then before they knew it, they had enough miles for a free trip – or so they thought.
When it came time to redeem their flights, they found out there was only one day they could fly; they’d have to leave on Christmas day and return on New Years. Then they found out that flights from Los Angeles to New York were booked. The only available destination was in North Dakota.
They vow on that day never to use a mileage based credit card again.
When I was in high school, we had these bi-annual banquets where guys would put on suits and buy flowers for girls. The problem was that every one of them ended in disappointment because everyone’s expectations were too high, and disappointment was sure to follow.
I think a big part of the problem with earning frequent flyer miles, just like those high school banquets, can be attributed to unfair expectations.
How to Create Appropriate Expectations for Your Airline Frequent Flyer Miles
You’ll need to be prepared to invest the time necessary to learn at least a few basic facts about the airlines or programs. At a minimum, you’ll want to know:
- How many miles does it take to fly to your desired destination?
- Does the airline charge a fuel surcharge for reward flights?
- Does the airline allow stopovers and open jaw tickets?
- How easy is it to book awards? What is the award flight availability reputation? Does the airline have a good online booking system?
In order to help in this process, I have a short and easy-to-read, free ebook called How to Earn Frequent Flyer Miles from the Comfort of Your Living Room. It will help you get a basic understanding on how airline programs work.
Expect to invest some time when booking your awards. Essentially, the more complex your award, the more time you’ll need to book your flight. As an example, my parents recently booked an award flight from Canada to New Zealand to Thailand, and it took about an hour and a half on the phone to reserve, hold, book, and purchase all the flights involved.
Flexibility is a best friend when booking award tickets. This summer I planned to fly from Houston, Texas to Sault St. Marie, Michigan on Delta. For that trip, I left on a Monday and planned to come back on a Wednesday night. However, had I come back on Wednesday, it would have cost 33% more miles. By leaving early Thursday morning and arriving in Houston at 11:00 a.m., I was able to get the lowest availability ticket for 25,000 miles.
You’ll need to be prepared to book early. Typically, 6-9 months before you plan to travel is the best time to book award tickets. Some airlines do start opening up seats as you get closer to the departure date. Of course, it is riskier to wait till the last minute. The more competitive the route, the earlier you’ll need to book. For example, if you’re planning a summer vacation to Rome, don’t expect to get online a month before and use your miles.
Avoiding peak holiday seasons and routes is crucial. Don’t expect to use your award flights to fly to the Olympics. Don’t expect to use your award flights for the busiest days around Thanksgiving (unless you’re willing to fly on Thanksgiving). I’m not saying it’s impossible, but better to expect not to do it and be surprised.
Personally, I love earning and collecting air miles, but most of that is because I have reasonable expectations. This year, we’ve already got flights from Asia to Canada booked and flights to Europe using air miles, so I’m looking forward to enjoying our air miles.
When done right, I think collecting air miles is a cause for excitement, not disappointment. You can fly up to Reno and drive to the most magical vacation spot on Earth, Lake Tahoe!
Readers, what are your thoughts on collecting frequent flier miles? Do you find the programs fair? Or do you collect the magical amount only to see the airlines increase the hurdle rate further for a trip? How many frequent flier miles do you have, and do you have a particular strategy?
I have one of these cards (I hardly ever use it since I normally reach for the debit card), but it also gives me the option to receive gift cards or cash as well. Most of the time I go for the gift cards and use them for groceries. :)
By virtue of traveling on an assignment a few years back, I amassed a pretty large pile of miles that got us a few free flights on vacations and such. Even then, it required quite a bit of checking around and, as you said, being flexible. Once we stopped traveling as often, we focused our attention on cash back cards. Cash is much better than miles :)
@MoneyBeagle, 20’s Finances, Doctor Stock, The College Investor- I wrote a post for FMF (http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2011/10/the-case-for-the-mileage-based-credit-card.html) that shows why I prefer mileage based cards over cash back. That certainly isn’t true for everyone (like you) but I think a strong case can be made for them in certain circumstances.
Dr. Dean – “a healthy dose of skepticism”. Well said.
The Single Saver – personally I love trying to book flights with miles. I see it as a puzzle with a huge reward if you win! My wife is like you – she finds it stressful.
Car Negotiation Coach, retireby40 – right! It only takes one award chart change and your required miles for redemption can go up 50% in an instant. Earn and burn is the way to go.
krancents – The pay off. If you’ve every booked a flight (like the trip you mentioned) you’ll know in an instant why it is such a valuable thing to do. That is true, of course, with the right expectations.
Charles – I estimate between a 3-5 point credit drop per application. On the blog I have a NAV menu item called ‘credit score’. That’s where I track who my applications are impacting my credit score. Yes, different credit card companies have different churn policies. It’s too much to say in a comment, but stuff I cover on the blog.
newlywedsbudget – I don’t typically pay for annual fees (in fact I don’t think I every have, but will this year). I think the best offer right now is the Chase Sapphire Preferred card that has a 50,000 point sign up bonus.
Sunil – I mostly agree about Delta. They are one of the only major airlines that don’t charge an extra fee for bookings within 21 days. This summer I was able to book a flight for 25,000 miles and $10 with Delta. Sure beat the $900 Orbitz price.
jOde – I recommend to my readers that if you carry a balance it won’t be worth any amount of awards you accumulate.
Barb – absolutely right. It does take time. It’s a hobby for me, but if it was a burden I don’t thinkI’d invest the time to do it.
I agree. Go in with a healthy dose of skepticism and be prepared for a lot of keyboard work. That being said, I use mine successfully and will continue to do so. I mainly use Delta as they have a stranglehold on the south!
I get a huge amount of points amassed every year purely on the amount of work travel that I do, but instead of using my airmiles for travel (I can never the flights that I want) I use them for stuff.
I stick to the pure cash rewards cards. Although, I do have some miles to spend on my next overseas trip. With credit cards, because of the limitations, I would rather get the cash. :) However, I do know a lot of people who enjoy these benefits.
Thankfully, I don’t fly enough to utilize these rewards, so I avoid that stress! I used to have a couple ‘frequent flyer’ cards (not tied to a credit card) and the points would always expire before I could accumulate enough to actually use them.
I have no such cards. In the past, when I participated in rewards programs, I didn’t tend to redeem the miles. Oh well, that’s pretty common.
Craig, one painful fact I learned the hard way is that FF points suffer from inflation just like cash. I used to save up my miles for as long as possible and avoid using them for simple domestic round-trips so that I could book the perfect international vacation and get the biggest trip for my points. What I didn’t realize was that the longer I waited the more expensive the trip would become. Now that I’ve see point redemption value go down year after year, my goal has become to use points as a quickly as viable to get the most for my money.
I redeem my miles as soon as I can. I don’t like the sum to sits around doing nothing. :) I have successfully booked simple flights in the past and I think that’s the way to go. I don’t think I’ll ever accumulate enough miles to book complex multiple stops flights.
I enjoy collecting miles, and have really gotten into it over the past 12 months – it’s paid for multiple trips and even allowed me to go honeymooning in asia, something I never would have been able to do without miles.
Usually, the programs are fair, but sometimes they will nail you if you’re inflexible.
I use my airline card exclusively to accumulate frequent flier miles. I use them to travel overseas. I will try to book as aearly as possible, but it is a lot of work. The airlines do not make it easy for you. The payoff is big enough I will go through the hassle. My wife and I flew to Istanbul first class (reatil $26K) for just a few hundred dollars in taxes.
I clicked on your link and read about how you earned $7200 worth of travel by signing up for 15 credit cards. That’s incredible. I also have thought about doing such thing but wanted to research a little more, especially about hurting your credit score. I also wanted to research more about credit card policies on churning these cards over short amount of time. In your experience, are their any draw backs for doing such thing?
we are using a card to rack up miles but am realizing that i’m not sure the annual fee is worth it. What do you think about the fees and which cards would you recommend?
Delta is the worst in my experience. Do not bother with their loyalty program. Absolute Trash. Southwest is the best on the other hand.
Absolutely some great points… no pun intended. You know, I got so sick of my air miles program that I canned the card and got a dividend paying card, with no annual fee… and it pays cash!
I collect miles for traveling only. For my credit cards, it’s cash back only!
I’ll never get a credit card that has an annual fee if I can help it and most mileage credit cards have them. I find I get much better rewards through other programs vs frequent flier programs. Airfare is not cheap anymore and it’s going to take more and more miles to get free tickets.
I have one American Express card that earns Air Miles. Luckily when we worked on our basement, I put all the purchases on the credit card and was able to redeem 2 return tickets (flying one province over), so it wasn’t a huge amount. Since then, the accumulation has slowed down significantly. Although I should make all purchases/bill payments on the credit card and pay the balance immediately after with cash, sometimes I’m not disciplined enough and I end up carrying a balance.
Craig I gotta be honest, I am overwhelmed with all of the membership rewards clubs I belong to. It is really time consuming to keep up.
I recently saw an add for a card with no black out dates…I kind of want to get one but want to knock out my other debt before I open a new line of credit.
I recently had a FF flight, and unfortunately the itinerary was terrible because I had to stay overnight at a airport both going and coming back. Most uncomfortable trip ever, and if I had paid for a hotel it would have been more expensive than a normal flight.