Win a trip to the Gold Coast of Australia (Official Post)
Okay – it’s finally here.
This giveaway is sponsored by American Express Premier Gold Card Rewards card and the travel experts at BoardingArea.
The prize: Seven nights/eight days hotel accommodations, transportation, meals, activities and round-trip airfare for two people to the Gold Coast of Australia (Queensland). (And the trip is a revenue trip so it is points and miles earning ;))
Total value = $10,250!
Those that can enter: The contest is open at all United States residents, 18 years and older (void in US territories). For the complete list of full contest details and rules click here
How to enter: Post a comment on this blog post with an answer to this question: “What is your top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points?”
You can enter between March 22, 2010 and March 28, 2010. Increase your chances of winning by posting a comment on the other 20 BoardingArea blogs that are participating. Only one entry per person per blog.
After March 28, 2010, I will randomly select one of the comments from this post to move on to the final drawing pool of 20 winners. So go ahead and comment!
There are so many ways out there to earn miles to get activity credit. Don’t let those hard earned miles expire. Use the shopping malls to earn with minimal purchases. Just remember to use the airline specific links to ensure you get credit for the spend.
(1) Never miss an opportunity to earn points, no matter how small; (2) Earn and burn — miles and points are only going to lose value with time.
Sign up for your points provider’s newsletter- and actually read it! You’ll often be pleasantly surprised by chances for bonus points. Consider buying points in small denominations when they are sold at a discount- I see them often listed at 20-30% off.
And follow your faves on Twitter, IHG_Deals & Lufthansa_USA for example have in the past offered points or flights as promotions- If you have a good experience with a travel provider, talk them up on social media sites since they all like to build their reputations up with positive comments, etc. And it’s a good way to keep up with special offers.
Spend your miles when you’ve reached a level you can live with. They are like currency and devalue over time. Too many people hoard them for “the perfect vacation” and end up not taking advantage.
Network with frequent fliers.
Open airline credit cards and get those large number of bonus miles for first purchase on the card.
Pay for everything you can, no matter how small the amount, with a mileage earning credit card.
Be sure and make all purchases with a mileage earning credit card and purchase as much as possible through a mileage earning shopping portal also.
Get a Hilton Surpass Amex and stay at lots of Hiltons, so you’ll earn 9 points to the dollar on every stay. Put $20,000 on your card in a year and score Gold VIP status with Hilton. Then, when you have 225,000 points, redeem them using one of Amex’ VIP Hilton special booking codes, GLONP, which will get you six free nights at a top of the line hotel in London – where the exchange rate isn’t favorable to U.S. travelers. You’ll wind up scoring a stay worth something like $3600, and it’ll only cost you about $8500 in spend if you stay at Hiltons a lot and earn the 9:1 rate.
Also – when you book the trip, use your Premier Rewards Gold Card to book your flight and get 3:1 Membership Rewards on the purchase. You can top up lots of airline and hotel programs using Membership Rewards, which makes PR Gold an extremely valuable card to carry (although I for one am very sorry to see Southwest Airlines leave Membership Rewards in June of this year.) You can even use MR points to transfer to Hilton at a great rate – more than 1:1 – so you can use them for another 225,000 point reward.
Also, don’t forget to add on Amex’ awesome baggage claim and trip delay protections, which will stop you from sightseeing in dirty clothes or having to sleep overnight in the airport – flights delayed more than three hours or past 9 P.M. mean you get generous rewards with these policies, up to $250 per night for a hotel. Enjoy!
Bonus offers from airline partners, like hotels. Some offer double miles for multi-night stays, etc.
Get elite statues at one hotel chain and then ask other to be comped similar status so you acrue max points wherever you stay, but aim for one main brand and one fallback – so you have booking options.
Move to a city on east/west coast for MR purpose.
Get a mile-earning credit card and use it for everything
AA Gold Challenge baby
My tips are simple: First, make sure you are earning miles/points on the major airline serving your home airport. Secondly, do the research on the best credit card for earning miles/points for the way you travel. There are many websites that will help you compare the various credit cards programs
Take advantage of bonus offers from airline partners, like hotels for multi-night stays.
Keep track of your credit score and if it can stand the small hit, apply over time, for a steady stream of credit cards that give you a sign-up bonus. Those bonuses are the foundation for building miles in many programs. You can easily earn 150,000 miles a year doing this, with no appreciable affect on your credit score. And you can do this for several years before exhausting all of the card possibilities.
Get a debit visa card that has a mileage rewards program attached and use that for your normal daily and monthly expenses. Miles add up while you buy groceries and gas.
Use your points before they devalue.
Points have a cash value. Don’t get so blinded by earning a few more points that you spend way more that you may have. Sometimes a different brand may be a better value, even after loyalty.
Save your boarding passes. After your travel is finished, check your frequent flier account for the miles you traveled to show up. Once they do, you can toss the boarding passes. I use my boarding passes as bookmarks since I often travel with one or more new books. See, there’s two tips for the price of one!
My top tip is to try and accumulate miles in Membership Rewards by American Express since it allows you maximum flexibility to redeem the points and you can earn up to 10X points in the membershiprewards.com and earn 3X points when you shop through the Bonus Points Mall® website.
Don’t just credit flight miles to your FF program, but also take advantage of partner offers where they make sense – credit cards, dining, etc. This can go a long way to earning those rewards, particularly for infrequent fliers. Through credit card use and partner offers, I earned enough miles to fly myself and my wife to Hawaii for our one year anniversary. Although I’m now mid-tier (Premier Exec) on United, I was a 3-4 times a year flier at the time.
Read read read! Educate yourself! Learn the ins and outs of the mileage and award programs so you can get the best bang for your buck. Only a savvy customer gets the best deal.
My tip is always be aware of partnerships for both earning and burning. I know a number of people who have lost out because they’ve collected in multiple placed when they would have done better by collecting in one location–i.e. collecting on both United and USAir, or not knowing about Alaska’s various partnerships. Status in one progam is better than halfway to status in many programs.
Go with friends! It’s amazing how far you can get if you pool group resources — one person’s hotel upgrade with another’s free car rental etc. Works on three levels (1) You can often score a “stay with your friends” freebie (i.e., two of you have access to the first class lounge, the third can usually come along) (2) Friends who don’t have miles are often happy to pay any cash portion of a status change etc. as their contribution (3) Travelling companions!
Also, friends who “don’t bother” with “the whole miles thing” are often happy to lend a hand if you make it easier for them – i.e., “Hey friend, in advance of our trip – click this link, sign up for this promotion, earn 100,000 miles. I’ll show you how we can use them!” Then you have more to work with.
Stick with one airline and hotel and even car company. It will be worth it when you can take a complete trip for free! Also, make sure you are signed up for all newsletters so you are aware of double miles/points, etc. And don’t be afraid to use the miles/points for upgrades!!
Come to the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO this July 24 and 25th. You’ll get great tips. Details in CommunityBuzz forum on flyertalk.com.
Use miles only for upgrades. It’s the biggest bang for the buck. It’s a total waste of miles for hotel nights etc. as well redemption reward tickets.
Don’t overreach. If your travel is moderate, stick with one program and milk it all you can.
When looking to book, use a dollop of ITA, gobs of patience, plenty of flexibility and a good dose of bull headedness.
Research what destinations you would like to travel to the most, and figure out which carrier/alliance will get you there for the best/easiest redemption.
Save your miles for big trips – don’t burn them on small ones. I have used miles for trips all over the world and have always had great luck getting flights when I want to where I want. Don’t believe those who say you can’t book flights anymore with miles. Use a credit card that gets points for all purchases.
Read BoardingArea blogs!
Try to fly only one airline most of the time. It is more likely that you will earn elite status than choosing the cheapest flights. It does eventually pay for itself.
Stay loyal to one airline alliance or hotel brand. That’s the quickest and easiest way to accumulate points/miles and reap the benefits.
Use your miles to upgrade from a cheap economy fare. You get miles for purchasing the ticket and still get to fly first class.
Get a mileage earning credit card for your selected program and charge everything to it except what you charge to designated brand cards that give extra points for charging their product (such as charging hotels to their own cards).
Do your research to find the alliance that best meets your needs. Also, subscribe to blogs such as this one for tips and advice on maximizing points!
check out online forums for promotions and deals; apply a mileage credit card if you are a frequent flyer; always complain about your recent trip to earn some extra mileage!
Fly within one global airline alliance (ie. Star Alliance) and credit all of your miles to one FF account. That way, your miles aren’t spread around to different accounts, making it hard to ever accumulate enough to redeem them for anything.
Check the bonus offer page of your hotel or airline program frequently so you don’t miss out on bonus miles.
At least once in your life, go for a airline mileage run to get status. Go somewhere, just for the sake of going, someplace you’ve never been, wanted to see, just for a day. Flying with status is less of a chore. Life is short, travel is (relatively) cheap.
Plan months ahead for vacation redemption. You can always cancel & redeposit (check to make sure there is no fee though).
Credit card sign-up bonus is a great way to get started.
Use airline & hotel shopping portals for online purchases.
If the flight you want isn’t available, before paying double miles to get what you want, check business and first class, even for flights where the cabin makes little difference. Sometimes there’s unexpected availability for no extra miles.
Collect miles as cheaply as possible in one program and redeem on partner travel.
Find the airline or airline alliance network that works best for your travel routes and your base city. Then join that group and be loyal to it so that you make all your flights through that alliance. This allows you to accumulate more points via one source especially when you move to the elite status which may be possible through a credit card with that airline. Happy Travels!!
Focus on one or two programs, not dozens. And be polite. I am consistenly amazed out how helpful even harried people can be if you speak to them as you would want someone to speak to you.