You'll continue to have access to award space
when using miles in a different frequent flyer program.
Earn miles when you travel and when enjoying everyday activities, and
then use your miles for travel, dining, shopping, and more.
Most of the time you're buying miles for about 1 cent or more
by using a mile earning portal.
You also leave out the opportunity cost
of using miles on an award which doesn't earn miles.
Often times, you may get a credit card for a specific airline but intend on
using the miles earned from that card on a different airline alliance partner.
It usually takes 25,000 miles to redeem a free, round - trip domestic flight but you can
also use miles for upgrades, international flights or one - way trips.
If using miles to secure a plane ticket will make your life easier and won't put a drain on your finances, go ahead and do it.
You can often earn flights more quickly with a travel miles program compared to points, and you may find fewer travel booking restrictions when
using miles instead of points.
If you know a little
about using miles for free flights, you can get a lot of value for your points by transferring them to partner airlines.
The idea is to provide an opportunity to
use miles at a variety of price points.
Search over 300,000 hotels worldwide, pick the perfect hotel for your stay and
book using miles or a combination of miles plus cash.
You can transfer miles directly from one airline to another rather than
just using the miles to book tickets with the other airline.
In addition, if you
only use miles for trips in business and first class, then status doesn't really matter.
You can
even use your miles instantly while shopping to get discounts on everyday purchases like groceries.
In the past year or
so using your miles and points to book award tickets has become more difficult.
Card members have the option to redeem their miles for popular merchant gift cards, but again, I recommend
using your miles toward flights if you can.
Some airlines tack ridiculous fees on award bookings, and these fees can
make using your miles especially expensive.
The thing with all these valuations is that it depends what you
actually use the miles for, and what the cost would be to just pay for those redemptions out of pocket instead.
Maybe I should be chasing those experiences more than I do a flashy card — this is possible to do while
still using miles to book my flights.
This means travelers
who use miles or points are not able to insure the face value of their tickets or rooms booked using points.
Many travelers also
love using miles to fly in premium cabins that they otherwise couldn't afford.
If you
usually use miles for business or first class international redemptions you can get quite a bit more.
Look for regions
where using miles on an airline or one of their partners will lead to an outrageous experience.
But you can
always use miles earned on other programs to book your return flight.
My wife and I both have a zero balance after previously
using our miles long ago, so we get an error message when we attempt to search.
Is there an optimal / best way to get
there using miles or just a different booking technique?