Best way to accumulate miles?

[Sherwin]

A question for those who frequently travel, particularly for leisure, and even more particularly to DL.

What programs or ways are you using to accumulate miles? Before recently, I've never traveled by air much, but now that I'm planning DL trips left and right, I want a more feasible way to travel without breaking my bank.

 

[f15robyn]

Sherwin,

We're loving JetBlue. You get points for your flights. And you need 100 points for a free round trip ticket.

For example, it looks like roundtrip Seattle to Long Beach would earn you 16 points if you booked online. But the points from a flight typically expire one year from the date of flight. So if you earn 16 points by flying today, they'd normally expire on 4/8/2010. And if you hadn't built up 100 points by then, you'd lose those 16.

Which is why we also use the JetBlue American Express card. Things you buy get converted to JetBlue points. $200 in spending converts to 1 JetBlue point.

Technically, that's not much help in building points (it would take $20,000 in spending to get a free trip). I think the average person would build up more points by flying.

HOWEVER, each month when your points get converted from the JetBlue Amex to JetBlue Awards points, any and all points get updated to the current date, with an expiration date a year later.

So basically, if you spend at least $200 periodically on the JetBlue Amex, any points you've built up by flying or buying never expire.

And some things like paying for your flights, hotels, rental cars, restaurants, etc. actually count as double dollars in terms of earning JetBlue points (i.e. - $200 rental car bill = $400 in "award spending" = 2 JetBlue points).

No, I don't work for JetBlue or Amex. I just think this is a great program if you like JetBlue and if they fly in/out of your airport. It's how we're affording to go to DL in May after having been to WDW in January from VERMONT!!! Free flights to CA.

 

[CanadianPaco]

I find the whole points thing overwhelming. So we decided on one point system with as many conversion as possible. Here is Canada, we have The Bay/Zellers stores that collect points. I can transfer their points to Air Miles, which is our main collecting system. Only one credit card and it collects Gold Air miles. For all the rest, I don't sign up.

 

[Daco70]

Alaska Airlines for us. We use their VISA card for pretty much all purchases (paying it off every month). Round-trip tickets for last week's trip to Disneyland were paid for completely by miles.

 

[Quilter007]

Whatever airline/hotel/car rental chain you pick -- stick with it. Most have levels of their club. The more you use it, the more bonus stuff you get. I use Delta/Marriott/Hertz, but Delta is the ONLY airline that comes to my town (state actually!), I'm very picky about beds and I like the Hertz Gold service thing. Also, if I go to the Hertz site from the Marriott site, I get an automatic 20% on Hertz. So look for stuff like that as well. Oh and when I pay w/ AmX I get another few percentages off on Delta/Marriott/Hertz -- plus the AmX points.

 

[Sherwin]

Alaska Airlines for us. We use their VISA card for pretty much all purchases (paying it off every month). Round-trip tickets for last week's trip to Disneyland were paid for completely by miles.

I've been looking into the Alaska Air Visa and I might just go with this one. A lot of people I run into around here seem to use it too.

Whatever airline/hotel/car rental chain you pick -- stick with it. Most have levels of their club. The more you use it, the more bonus stuff you get. I use Delta/Marriott/Hertz, but Delta is the ONLY airline that comes to my town (state actually!), I'm very picky about beds and I like the Hertz Gold service thing. Also, if I go to the Hertz site from the Marriott site, I get an automatic 20% on Hertz. So look for stuff like that as well. Oh and when I pay w/ AmX I get another few percentages off on Delta/Marriott/Hertz -- plus the AmX points.

Wow, you must really be in the wild wild west...

 

[wannagoback]

We also have the Alaska Airlines visa. It would work for you since you live in Seattle and they have lots of flights out of Sea-Tac (that's our airport too). Right now you can get 20,000 bonus miles upon approval, and you also get a $50 companion ticket every year. (buy one regular price, get one for $50). The companion ticket even works for a roundtrip ticket to Hawaii!

 

[fairykin]

Love Love Love Southwest airlines rapid reward program. We get many free tickets a year through this airline incentive. We have a southwest credit card and they frequently run double dip programs with hotels like embassy suites where you get extra points!