Flying Free Is Easier Than You Think

I’m constantly amazed by friends and acquaintances who ask me, "Can you really get free travel? Doesn't it take years to get a free ticket?" Even more, I'm dismayed to hear them say, "Oh, we didn't bother to sign up for the miles – we don't travel enough," after they just made a trip, when they could have earned thousands of miles. Many people have bought into the idea that it's too hard to earn the miles, so they don't even try. I've heard this same story from several friends and family members in just the last few months, and it just isn't true. I'm here to tell you how and why you should maximize your miles. Instead of saying "it's too hard to get miles," I've taken five free trips in the last two years. You can too. Here's how.

The Cardinal Rule

Never fly anywhere on any airline without being in their frequent flyer program.

Even if you have one regular frequent flyer program, where you try to fly only them to maximize rewards, if you find yourself on a different airline, join their program. Even if you think you may never fly them again. You may find that a couple of years from now you have a life, job, or location change where those miles and that program will come in handy. This is the most important rule – don't waste any earning opportunity. Actually, there's a slight variation on this rule - never fly anybody without being in their or their partner's frequent flier program. Later I'll discuss airline alliances, and explain how these partnerships can work to your benefit.

There's a corollary to this rule: Never rent cars or stay in hotels without being in their programs and checking if they give airline miles. You can get a nice extra "pop" in mileage from making smart choices about hotels and car rentals, in almost every price range and budget. I'll let you know some of the best tips to get the most miles here too.

Free Trips for Regular Folks

I'm assuming that you probably aren't a regular business traveler. If you are, you probably already are using every tip and trick in the book to maximize miles. Either that or you're so sick of air travel every few days, that the last thing you want is another flight! Instead, let's assume that you're the typical person who travels on holiday once or twice a year, makes a visit or two to family, and maybe one business-related trip. That's maybe 4 round-trip flights a year, at about 1500 miles per trip average. So you earn maybe 6000 miles a year. But it takes 25,000 miles for a free trip within the U.S. and Canada on most airlines. 30,000 to 35,000 to the Caribbean, 50,000 to 65,000 for Europe. And most airlines expire your miles after three years. You're probably thinking, "I'll never get a free trip." You're wrong, you definitely can earn that trip. But there's a catch, and that leads to my next rule:

You'll never get a free flight just from flying.The math just doesn't work: your miles would expire before you could use them. But have hope! There are ways to accelerate your earnings and prevent the expirations.

Find ways to earn miles from everyday activities:

The most popular and easiest way to do this is by using a credit or charge card that earns miles. I'll give you details on various cards and strategies. Think about what you spend, and imagine if you earned a mile for every dollar. That trip would come a lot faster.

There are other ways to earn miles. Earn while you eat! Almost all the airline programs have an associated dining-for-miles program, usually run by iDine. You sign up on the airline's website or by phone, and register whatever credit card you will use for restaurants – it doesn't have to be the airline's own mileage card (but using that one gives you a double chance to earn – miles from the dining program, plus miles for the dollar amount of the charge on the card.) Their website will have a list of restaurants in your area that participate. Probably you already frequent one or more of them.

Getting a new wireless phone? Often the airline programs have promotions running with the wireless companies. Check the "Partners" section of the airline's frequent flyer site, or look for "Promotions" or similar on the wireless carrier's website. You need to order the service through the special web link or with the promotion code – read their instructions carefully. This can get you thousands of miles.

Still using a landline for long-distance? Often the airline will have a deal with AT&T or MCI or Sprint, for miles from your long-distance bill, with a sign-up bonus and additional bonus miles for staying with the long-distance provider for a certain number of months. Again, look for the partner promotions sections of their websites.

Earn big miles from special activities:

Selling or buying a home? Getting a mortgage or home equity loan? Most frequent flyer programs have arrangements with lending companies, movers, and real estate agents. I got 14,000 miles last year just from a home loan. It's possible to get the "hat trick" of miles for buying your home, miles for selling your old home, and miles for using a particular mover. You could earn so many miles from your move that as soon as you get to your new place, you can fly away!

Keep your miles from expiring:

Most programs expire miles you earned more than three years ago. But most of them have changed in the past few years, to give you a way to keep your miles. As long as you earn any amount of miles, all your miles get extended expirations for three years from the most recent earned miles. That means that if you have miles you earned on a flight 2 ½ years ago that are going to expire in 6 months, if you spend $1 on your airline's credit card, or earn a few miles from long-distance or wireless or dining, all your miles get a new expiration date three years from now! It doesn't take much effort to keep your miles while you save up for your dream trip.

What Program Should I Join?

Remember my Cardinal Rule: Join a program for any airline you fly, even if you think you'll never fly them again. That said, you do need to have fidelity to one or two "focus" airline programs or you won't ever earn enough miles. Which one should be your focus? That mostly depends on you: Where you live, where you are likely to travel on paid (miles-earning) tickets, and where you want to travel on free tickets.

For example, United is great for Boston, New York, or Washington to Denver non-stops, with fairly good connections elsewhere in the Rockies and West via one-change connections in Denver. But they are poor to Florida from the Northeast (you have to connect no matter where you're going.) They are good to Europe and Asia. American Airlines is poor to Denver (you must connect in Dallas or Chicago, exceedingly busy and delay-prone airports) but they are good to Caribbean and to Europe, etc. Delta is good to the south, excellent to Salt Lake City, with one-change connections to rest of West. They're also good to fly north-south around the East Coast. I can't tell you which ones are right for you, since your travel patterns and travel wish-list are likely different from mine. But think about where you go and want to go, and then pick the program that uses airlines that go there with convenient service. Since I live near Denver but often have some business in Boston, I chose United as my primary focus program, for their convenient Denver service. I have family in Florida, so I chose Delta as my secondary focus program, since they have a good East Coast schedule.

But wait, there's more! That means I also can use US Airways for my United Miles, and Continental and Northwest for my Delta Miles. I can use other airlines to earn miles, or use miles from one airline to fly on another free. How? The magic of Airline Partnerships!

Airline Partnerships and Alliances

Until a few years ago, one major airline was about as likely to encourage you to fly another one, as a Chevy dealer is to recommend a Ford. But all that changed with the formation of the three big Airline Alliances: oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance. These are groups of major US and foreign airlines, whose partnership goes beyond the old-style "code-sharing" where a seat sold as Airline A might really be flown by Airline B. In these alliances, they coordinate frequent flyer programs, Elite Status, boarding and through-luggage checking, and other benefits. For our goal of maximized miles, we need to choose an alliance more than we need to choose a specific airline.

If you're in the US or Canada, I recommend you focus on one airline in either SkyTeam or Star Alliance, or perhaps one from each partnership. Oneworld will be of less value, since it has only one North American based airline, American Airlines. That means there's no real benefit from that alliance, for a US/Canada-based flyer who is looking to travel mostly in the US and Canada.

SkyTeam has three US-based airlines, Continental, Delta, and Northwest in the alliance, giving you have good service to almost anywhere in the US and Canada. They also have several major foreign carriers: Air France (France), Alitalia (Italy), Czech Airlines, KLM (Holland), Korean Air, and AeroMexico.

Star Alliance has both United and US Airways in the alliance for US routings, plus Air Canada, giving excellent North American and Caribbean coverage. They also have the largest group of foreign carriers: Air New Zealand, ANA (Japan), Asiana (Korea), BMI (British Midland), LOT Polish Airlines, Lufthansa (Germany), Scandinavian, Singapore Airlines, Spanair (Spain), TAP (Portugal), Thai, and Varig (Brazil). If you're looking to earn miles for foreign travel, they may be your best bet.

Oneworld has only American Airlines for North American service. Granted, American is a large airline with service throughout the US, much of the Caribbean, and some Canada and Mexico destinations. But they are your only choice for travel in the US if you want to earn miles. They do have many foreign airlines: Aer Lingus (Ireland), British Airways (but you can't earn American Airlines miles on British Airways US-to-UK flights), Cathay Pacific (China), Finnair (Finland), Iberia (Spain), LAN (Chile), and Qantas (Australia).

Remember: Pick your alliance, and then pick one airline in that alliance. Don't spread miles between Continental and Delta, for example – you can never combine miles between two programs, even if they're in the same alliance. So if you fly 15,000 miles on Continental and give them your Continental number, and another 10,000 miles on Delta using your Delta number, you don't have a free trip. Even though you flew 25,000 miles on SkyTeam members, the miles didn't all go into the same program. Thus you're out of luck. But if you took the very same trips, instead using your Continental OnePass number even when flying on Delta, you'd have a free US/Canada ticket good on Continental, Delta, or Northwest.

What about the discount airlines?

These are usually newer airlines, which fly to only a relatively few locations. In many cases, their miles or points expire in only one year, such as on ATA and jetBlue. Since the discount carriers usually do not have partnerships with other airlines, hotels, car rentals, or other sources of miles, it can be hard to earn a free trip unless you fly them regularly. Despite the many benefits of these newer carriers (somewhat lower fares, often newer planes, better on-board service), they won't get you free trips as quickly, or maybe not at all. Also, their lack of partners means you'll never get to Europe or Australia from flying one of them, no matter how often you fly. But if their routes and fares work for your planned paid travel, and you want free trips on their same routes, then they can be very good deals. On average, it takes 6 to 8 round-trips to earn one free round trip, and remember, you have only a year to make all those paid trips. If that fits your plans, go for it as one of your two "focus" airlines. But make sure you also have a focus airline from one of the three big alliances.

Hotels and Cars

This one is a no-brainer: you are traveling, so you probably need to stay somewhere and rent a car. Make sure you tie your stays and rentals into your preferred frequent flyer program. Almost every hotel and motel chain has some frequent guest program, even the budget motel chains like Red Roof or Super8. To get airline miles, you usually need to join the hotel's own program, and then set up their program to give you miles in your airline program, instead of giving you hotel points for free nights.

Some hotel chains work more simply – at check-in, you can present your airline frequent flyer card and ask for miles, without having to join their hotel program.

The Hilton family of hotels has the best deal, although their lowest-priced brands, Hampton Inns and Hilton Garden Inns, are still more expensive than the budget motel chains. Hilton HHonors program has what they call "Double Dip" – you can earn both hotel points for free stays, and airline miles in almost any of the major programs, at the same time. Hilton now includes Conrad, Doubletree, Embassy Suites, Hampton, Hilton Garden Inn, Homewood Suites, and Scandic in their program along with their flagship Hilton Hotels brand, giving you many opportunities. The somewhat higher price for Hampton Inns or Hilton Garden Inns compared to Super8 or Best Western is often offset by the free hot breakfast and high-speed Internet access they offer. Plus you also can transfer Hilton points into airline programs, so you could be getting miles from both the Hilton miles and the Hilton points.

For car rentals, all of the major companies offer airline miles with most major airlines. Usually you get 50 miles per rental day. But to get the most miles, look for the special promotions on the airline websites. Very often, Hertz, Avis, or National run special offers where if you book with a particular promotion code or coupon (found at the airline's site), you get double or triple miles, or 500 mile bonuses.

Add it all up, and for a typical one-week vacation trip, you might get 2000 miles from your flight, but also 500 miles from a car rental with promotion, 500 miles from a hotel, and perhaps another 500 from later transferring hotel points back into air miles. That’s 75% additional miles on top of your flight, without even trying hard!

Credit Cards and Miles

Picking the right credit card can seriously build up your miles. But there are rules and tips to follow if you want your miles to be really free:

1. These cards are a good deal, if you know how to work them properly.
2. You won't ever get a free trip if you only use the card. Not unless you're a big spender. You may get it, but it won't be "free" by the time you earn all the miles. These typically have a $40 to $90 annual fee, so if it takes you several years to earn enough miles on the card only, you will have already paid for the ticket from the fees. You need to work a card that is also on an airline you fly. View the card as a supplement to a frequent flyer program on an airline you are already using. Assume that you can earn a few thousand miles yearly from the card, and several thousand every year or two from actual airline and partner travel. In combination, you can get a free trip for US/Canada travel within a couple of years.
3. You need to use discipline on the air card (as with all cards). Don't overspend just to get a free trip!
4. NEVER CARRY A BALANCE on the mileage card. The interest, even if at a low promotional rate, will eat up the free travel savings. Pay the card 100% in full, on time (which may only be 15-20 days after the bill arrives) every month. That way your miles earned are truly free.
5. NEVER DO A BALANCE TRANSFER to a mileage card, no matter how sweet the rate (even 0%). You don't earn miles for balance transfers (there are some rare exceptions – read the offer carefully.) Once you have a balance transfer on the card, you cannot pay off your purchases in full every month, because the fine print says that payments are applied to lower interest rates first. Essentially they create separate "buckets" for each balance, such as $5000 in the bucket for your 0% balance transfer, and whatever your current month spending is in a "Purchases" bucket at a higher rate. Let's say you buy a $250 worth of stuff this month, so you have a "New Purchases" balance of $250. You send in a payment for $350. You think that you've paid your current New Purchases balance in full, and thus have no interest due on it next month. You also think you've paid off $100 of your $5000 balance transfer 0% bucket. Thus you think your new balance is $4900 on the transfer (at 0%) and $0 on purchases (at perhaps 14%, but you think your balance is zero so no finance charge.) WRONG. The bank applies all $350 to the makes-no-money-for-them 0% bucket, so your new balance for Balance Transfers is $4650 (at zero %) and New Purchases is $250 (at 14%). On next month's bill you WILL have a Finance Charge of $2.91 for the $250 balance on purchases which wasn't paid down at all ($250 x 0.14 APR / 12 for one month's rate).
6. Pay for EVERYTHING on the card as long as you pay it in full. Put your home phone bill on the card, same for Cable TV, Cellular, Internet, Electric and Gas if they take it. Buy all your groceries, drugs, and cosmetics and household stuff on the card. Since you're paying in full every month, you're not paying anything for it. Figure that groceries, household spending, utilities, and the like can give you a few hundred miles per month. This helps "top off" your account with a few thousand miles per year from what you'd spend anyway.

A note on Airline cards versus "Air Miles" cards that aren't tied to one specific airline. You've probably heard the Capital One ads about how their card has no blackout dates, or similar advertisements for air travel cards from Citibank and other credit card companies. These aren't the same thing as an airline's own MasterCard, Visa, or American Express cards. In my opinion, they aren't as good a deal as the actual airline cards. Why? Because the only way you earn miles is from charges. And that means you don't get a free trip until you've spent some $25,000 on that card. That could take years. While with a real airline card, every dollar you spend is a mile going into the airline's own frequent flyer program, combined with miles you earn from flying that airline and its partners, miles from car rentals, hotels, dining, telephone, and other promotions. It's the combination of flight, spending, and non-flight travel that gets you the free trips quickly. The bank air miles cards don't have that combination feature.

What airline card to get? That depends on which program you've joined. American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United, and U.S. Airways, the six "major" carriers in the U.S., each have their own airline credit cards. You only need one or two of them, one for each program that is your "focus" program. As I've mentioned, you should be running only one or two programs as your "focus" frequent flyer programs at any given time. With the airline alliances, that's enough to cover most of the airlines you might fly.

For example, don't get both a US Airways Visa and a United Visa. Why not? Because you shouldn't be trying to earn miles in both the US Airways Dividend Miles and United Mileage Plus programs. Both airlines are part of the Star Alliance, so you only need to be in one of the programs to earn miles in that program from flights on either airline. Pick either United or US Airways, get the card that matches the program you picked, and when you fly the "other" airline, use the frequent flyer number for their partner. Same for Continental, Delta, and Northwest: They are all in the SkyTeam alliance, so just work one of them. In my case, I use the Delta Skymiles American Express Credit Card, use the Delta Skymiles program, and whenever I fly Continental or Northwest I give them my Delta frequent flyer number. That way I maximize my miles instead of spreading them around. Even if I want a free trip on a Northwest flight, I can use my Delta miles, which I earned in part from my Delta credit card, to get the trip.

American Express' Membership Rewards program is often considered one of the best. That's because it earns miles you can transfer to several major airlines, among them Continental, Delta, and U.S. Airways. Combine that with smart use of airline partnerships, and that means your spending on Amex can get you free trips on Continental, Delta, Northwest, US Airways, and United. You also can combine your Amex charge cards, Optima credit cards, and Small Business charge and credit cards all into one Membership Rewards account. Plus, jetBlue recently joined Membership Rewards. That gives you a way to add points to your program with one of the best-ranked discount airlines.

One other suggested card: The Amtrak Guest Rewards Card. It's a MasterCard from MBNA. You don't have to travel Amtrak to use it, though you do get some Guest Rewards points for regular Amtrak train travel, and more for Acela Express/Metroliner trains. They partner with Continental, allowing transfers into Continental OnePass miles in blocks of 5000 miles, up to 25,000 miles per year. The card has no annual fee, unlike the actual Continental card. Remember, Continental is in the SkyTeam alliance, so those Continental miles are good for trips on Delta and Northwest too. One warning: Amtrak might drop the airline connection without notice – they already did it with United. Until January 2005, you could also transfer points to United Mileage Plus, but they dropped it without any warning.

A downside to both Amex Membership Rewards and the Amtrak MasterCard/Guest Rewards program, is you can't make use of the miles until you've earned enough for the minimum transfer level (1000 for Membership Rewards, 5000 for Amtrak.) Whereas on the actual airline cards, if you spend $100 next month you have 100 more miles. If you're only short a few hundred miles for a free ticket and need a "top-off", these cards won't help while the airline cards will. But with some planning, they can help you get a free trip quickly.

Happy Free Travels!

Work the deals - the rewards can be yours quicker than you believed. Use some simple planning and discipline, along with these tips, and you'll be flying free. Good luck and bon voyage on your dream trip!