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!
EARN- Sign up for a credit card affiliated with miles,(if possible CHURN!); always makes sure that your hard earned miles actually post; travel when double miles are being offered; and look around at boardingarea.com, and FT, for the many bonuses out there.
SPEND- If you’ve got the miles, USE AND ENJOY THEM, unless the price to pay is the same value as the points or cheaper, when then you might as well save your miles for a different occasion, and actually earn miles on your current flight or stay.
If you aren’t a business traveler who flies a lot, I tell my friends in the US to gravitate towards Continental’s Onepass program. It’s the only program where miles never expire, so you can slowly but surely build towards a reward over however many years you need. Nothing is more discouraging for an aspiring frequent flyer than to have their miles erased for no good reason.
Pay attention to promotions within your chosen program and consolidate your travel within the time periods of the promotion
Use the credit card partner for your airline of choice and any related utility offers. Miles collect extremely quickly this way.
Always have a spouse/partner/friend take part in the promos and deals so you don’t have to fly first class all alone!
Just calling in to a live person always works best for me. Unfortunately, the websites never seem to show the same availability that you can get dialing in directly. It is a hassle, but worth it when you need to get complex trips for multiple people.
When booking a hotel in a busy city location or at a busy time of year, hotels are less likely to let you use points for free nights or upgrades. Many programs,like SPG (Starwood) allow you to pay cash + points. I’ve found this a great way to book a nice room ( usually the free rooms are by an elevator, ice machine, lower floor etc). But by using the points and cash option, the rooms are usually upgrades. You still earn points on the portion of the room paid in cash so it’s a win/win.
Use a the same credit card for ALL OF YOUR PURCHASES and the same for travel – you will say DANG! I EARNED ALL THOSE MILES!?
Don’t limit yourself to a hotel chain…there is no worse way to travel…be free…go where the road leads you. It is about the journey not the destination!
Sign up for the promotions that link two travel partners together when taking a trip, like get bonus Delta miles for staying at Marriott or get bonus Hertz points for staying at Hilton. That way you get extra points from the promotion with one company and regular with the other. It’s a win win for sure!
Use your SPG Amex for everything and let http://bookyouraward.com/ handle the rest!
Often, when a hotel stay has been paid for by your company as a business trip, the hotel will allow you to use your personal miles number for that hotel stay. Ask at the front desk.
Tip: Start a mileage program only with the major airline serving your area, and search online for free mileage contests and promotions! (and check this site frequently, from some really knowledgeable flyers)
If you accumulate points mostly on spend and can’t decide on a card—- the American Express charge cards and the SPG Amex offer flexible points that can be redeemed for hotels, merchandise or highly sought after upper class international airfare.
SPG points to LAN kilometers is the best credit card deal out there per dollar spent, especially for short, expensive flights on OneWorld partners.
Don’t neglect mileage credit on partner airlines – sometimes really small lines are affiliated with your program. It’s worth a little extra time on the website to ensure that you can be credited for trips on small carriers.
Rack up the points, stay with your favorite airline and hotel.
My best tip is to use the program at partner businesses, too. Use it at hotels, when ordering flowers, etc. and accumulate the points in transactions when you aren’t traveling.
My top tip for travelers who want to earn and use their loyalty points is to do their research and utilize as many resources as possible. For example, utilize partnered dining websites and shopping websites. If you are going to buy something you might as well get points for it. Additionally, always ask if a loyalty program is doing a promotion for bonus points (there is always one going on). For those looking to use their points my best advice is to research forums and ask question sof experienced travellers. We are a community we are always there to help! Also, see if there are combined packages that are available. It may cost less points to transfer your airline miles to hotel points and take advantage of a combined vacation package. In summation, ask questions! The worst answer you could get is no, and usually you will get tips and advice on how to maximize your points.
The short answer is “use ’em while you still can”.
Another tip would be to ALWAYS read the fine print of the program: almost all rewards programs have blackout dates, expirations, and other restrictions. The past decade of price wars has put carriers and hotels in a very tight corner, now that cost of service (fuel, building materials, etc) have skyrocketed.
Plan a goal ahead of time.
Rack up miles.
Use ’em as soon as you can!
Enjoy your trip! You’ve more than earned that trip!
If travel is flexable wait unil you find a good promotion before booking. I never travel unless I can get at least double points.
I would like to enter as well.
Stick with one airline or its’ partners and don’t forget to sign up for promotional emails. And, don’t forget to register for the promotions when required.
Use RSS feeds and SMS alerts on your phone from favorite travel and deal websites to ensure you see the best points deals and promotions that you can take advantage of while you are traveling.
Be flexible with travel dates–experience new places when the price is right and earn miles along the way 🙂
Use farecompare.com searcher to get best deals regarding cost per mile and to find those new places to see. http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html
Stay loyal to one airline to get even more miles with elite bonus miles!
Take advantage of promos & join flyertalk.com community to keep up with the latest.
Always look for the new route bonuses!
Get a credit card that gives you miles per $ spend (my pref Delta Plat Amex) and charge everything paying balance off at end of the month. Track what you spend and when you hit the annual spending that gives you more miles–switch to 2nd point card (for me SPG Amex).
And most importantly—Enjoy life & the adventures!
look into alliance partners and non-flight earning opportunities, such as miles for shopping online.
Look at the terms and conditions carefully.
Flyertalk is the single one stop database to get more info / deals on ff programs.
Attain elite status with your favorite airline and hotel to maximize the value of your free and paid travel experience.
Make people around you and your family aware of the benefits of miles. You’ll be surprised to find how many people just let go of miles and don’t know how to take advantage of them.
Charge EVERYTHING on one miles card, pay it off monthly! – And then go somewhere amazingly unexpected and serendipitously(sp???)fabulous. Enjoy the ride.. see the beautiful spirit in your fellow travellers and have an off the charts, love crazed adventure in a new spot on this dazzling planet earth. xxx.
Pay attention to hotel points – they are often more valuable than airline miles.
When booking an award ticket with miles, use allowed free stopovers to get the most value out of your miles and see new places that you may not otherwise have seen.
Pick your loyalties and stick with them! Switching around between airlines and hotel chains will scatter your points around and probably not earn you elite status anywhere. It’s worth it in the long run to not always go with the cheapest price in order to maintain your loyalty to that carrier or brand!
Make sure every fare/hotel you stay at “actually” earns points, I don’t know how many times people book something and they end up not earning points on it. Look for promotions and BE FLEXIBLE when it comes to redeeming. The farther out you can book the better off you are!
Concentrate your loyalty to only a few programs(at most) and take advantage of all their bonus promos! They add up surprisingly quick.
Have flexibility with your dates, think outside of the box on routings, and be nice to the people helping you on the reservation!
Use a mileage tracking tool for a consolidated view of your portfolio of air, car and hotel accounts. It can be easy to miss expriring miles, etc otherwise.
Donate points to your favorite charities.
Nothing beats the Starwood Amex card. Easiest way we’ve found to earn and use points. Starwood also has the excellent cash+points option which I haven’t seen from other loyalty programs.
Use your point earning credit card for EVERYTHING Yes, I mean EVERYTHING (but pay it off at the end of the month of course). I even use it in the soda machine at work. And be sure to sign up for all of the extras such as ‘dining for miles’, special airline promotions, and miles earning surveys. Fun to watch the miles add up.
To help roll with the punches of limited availability for award tickets, keep in your mind a list of places you’d like to visit, and when those hard-to-find award seats to a place on your list pop up, book the trip and go. Picking a specific date and a specific destination and *then* looking for award tickets is a recipe for disappointment and frustration.
Mileage cards are often the best bang for the credit card buck, and Amex often does have the better mileage offers than many other cards. I personally prefer to get cash back on my cards, though, and spend it as I choose. (Up to 4%).
Can’t really come up with anything better for building miles than have already reported on. Choosing an alliance that services your local airport(s) to destinations that you tend to fly to, sticking with that alliance when possible, and picking the longer route if available that’ll still get you there on time.
Check your main airline’s foreign partner airlines for earning miles, not just alliance airlines.
For example, one can fly direct to Taipei on EVA Airways and earn Continental One Pass miles, even though EVA is not in the star alliance. EVA is cheaper than United and United no longer flies direct.
Add the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card to your wallet and earn 3x points on airfare and 2x points on gas and groceries. Plus, if you spend $30,000 in a calendar year, you can earn 15,000 bonus points. There are more than 140 partners with whom to redeem your points for a wide selection of travel, shopping and dining rewards.
Get a credit card that is joined up with a rewards program to earn extra points on your daily purchases.
don’t ignore status in hotels. when i started, i collected united miles but still stayed at priceline hotels. after learning a bit more, i started spending a bit more money but also collecting starwood points. now, i might pay a bit more for my hotel stays overall, but instead of the room with the view of the parking lot i’m in a suite with free internet…and for vacations, my room is free! you don’t get that with priceline.
Starwood Preferred Guest points are powerful currency, especially since you can convert them 1:1 into most airline programs, allowing you some of the best flexibility for finding and redeeming awards, depending on which airline may have availability.
An airline upgrade award can be a better use of points than a roundtrip award ticket. Usually you use more points per dollar for a roundtrip award ticket than for an upgrade award ticket.
Look for the best free night promotions from hotel chains –longer redemption period, less restrictions on hotel categories, less nights/stays per free night earned.