To those of you that travel a lot -
I'll be making at least 7 east coast flights, 2 west coasters, and 1 to China this year. Might as well accumulate points, right?
There's a LOT on the internet about it, information overload. What do you guys suggest?
Thanks,
Peter
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Are all of these flights on the same carrier? If so, try to use the points to upgrade to 1st class on your flight out to China. Just a warning though, once you fly 1st class, economy will seem that much worse every time you fly after that.
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I'm a United Mileage Plus addict. We always fly United and have a Mileage Plus credit card that all of our bills auto-charge to. We end up racking up enough miles to get a free domestic flight or international upgrade once a year. Our card is only $60/year, so I'm not sure why everyone (that flies) doesn't do it.
Maeng has it right. Accumulate as much as you can and use miles to upgrade long international flights.We did that for Japan a few years ago and it was one of the best decisions we ever made. You can use miles for free domestic flights, but they're generally cheap enough that I'd rather pay the $500 for that and then fly over an ocean in a $3000 comfy seat. You'll also still accumulate miles for an upgraded fare whereas a free fare doesn't get miles. China is a long way to not get any miles (and you probably won't have enough for a free tickets). We just upgraded to Belgium in August and already had enough to book free economy in Montreal for next June because of that flight.
With that high of number of flights, you should have enough flights to become a premier member of some sort. (It's something like 25k miles or 30 segments [15 round trip flights] in one calendar year.) For United, that means you get access to Economy Plus seats (more legroom) for free and a couple of other benefits like different security lines and free upgrades to domestic First if available. I'm sure other airlines have similar.
Even if they're different carriers, I'd sign up. They don't cost anything and it's better to start earning now.
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The other big advantage of the United program is that you can get free flights on any other airline in the Star Alliance. That gives you a lot more options for reward flights and the accrue miles. I've used frequent flyer mileage to take ANA airlines to Japan and Lufthansa to Germany.
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Wife and I flew to Hawaii this past summer on points! WIN!
