What’s the easiest way to book flights with miles?
31% Points with a Crew
26% FrequentMiler
22% Miles to Memories
21% Other
Booking flights with miles can be simple if you follow a few straightforward steps.
Direct Airline Booking
Log into the frequent‑flyer account on the airline’s own website. Search for award availability using the airline’s booking tool, which typically shows seats you can purchase with miles. Choose the desired flight and confirm the booking, keeping the miles in the same program you earned them.
Use Programs That Allow Easy Third‑Party Bookings
Some airlines let you book a ticket for another person by simply entering their name during the reservation process, with no extra fees. Examples include Air Canada, Air France, Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta, and many others.
Avoid Converting Miles to Cash or Other Rewards
The most efficient use of miles is to redeem them directly for award flights rather than trying to convert them to cash, gift cards, or merchandise. This approach usually provides the best value per mile.
Following these steps will make booking award flights with miles as easy as possible.
FrequentMiler The easy foreign airline frequent flyer programs you should be using
On Monday, I published a post arguing that a popular transferable currency is relying too much on a single domestic hotel transfer partner. In the spirited response in the comments, a few people mentioned valuing familiar domestic frequent flyer miles over foreign programs. It was implied by some that domestic programs like United MileagePlus are easy to use and that foreign programs involve difficult hoops to jump through. While there certainly are some foreign carriers that make redemptions particularly challenging (which I’d argue isn’t always a bad thing as the sweet spots that require more effort are often more available!),
Points with a Crew How Do Frequent Flyer Miles Work?
I first started paying attention to the world of miles and points back in 2013. I had an upcoming family reunion scheduled for Lake Tahoe in the Summer of 2014, and I knew that 8 cross-country plane tickets were going to cost at least $3000. I had heard of miles, points and frequent flyer miles before, but that trip was the impetus for me to get serious about it. I opened a few credit cards, and used the signup bonuses to accrue 140,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points to get a free flight for my family of 8 to Lake Tahoe
View from the Wing Do Frequent Flyers Have an Advantage Over Frequent Buyers When Claiming Awards?
Over at the Perrin Post a reader asks the following question: I’m not able to book a business- or first-class mileage award on AA/Cathay Pacific, even though I try for 335 days out, calling at different times of the day and night. Do the agents make a distinction between miles earned by flying vs. by spending money on the affinity credit card? Most of my miles are from credit card transactions. Please advise. And I answer in the comments. There’s no distinction between earning your miles via flying versus credit card spend. Some mileage programs allow
Boarding Area How to Maximize Frequent Flyer Miles During the Holiday Season
The holiday season is fast approaching, bringing with it the excitement of winter getaways, cherished family reunions, and festive adventures that create lifelong memories. However, as the demand for travel soars during this peak season, airfares often skyrocket, turning the dream of an affordable trip into a daunting challenge. But fear not, savvy travelers! By strategically maximizing your frequent flyer miles and tapping into the myriad of opportunities they offer, you can not only offset the high costs of holiday travel but also enhance your journey with premium experiences. From enjoying the comfort of business class lounges to securing award
Miles to Memories Can I Book An Award Flight For Someone Else? What About A Hotel Using Points?
Today, we’ll look at when and how you can book an award flight for someone else. We’ll also look at when/how you can book a hotel room for someone else using your points. We’ll cover which programs allow these bookings for other people and what rules/restrictions are in place. I previously covered which programs allow you to share your points and miles with others. There are tons of reasons why you might want to do this: There are tons of reasons why combining points and miles can be beneficial. But what if the program doesn’t participate in points
God Save the Points What Airline Booking Codes Mean And Why They Matter
My sister in law has seen Laura and I jet set back and forth between New York and London in style too many times. She decided it was time to get in the mileage game so that she herself could join the turning left club and earn enough miles for a flight of luxury. The problem is that knowing how many miles you’re earning is complicated. Really complicated. Some airlines give one frequent flyer mile for every mile you actually fly in the sky, some only give a quarter and depending on the fare type, some give you up
View from the Wing How to Find the Best Airfare Deals
Websites to Use When Searching for Airfare SideStep is a downloadable program that detects when you’re searching for travel and sends out whatever you enter into a website to the various airlines, searches their sites directly, and then collates the results. Mobissimo is even more powerful than SideStep. It is also a metasearch tool. It goes out to the airlines and the other travel booking sites like Travelocity to get its results. It’s web-based rather than a software download. It even searches consolidators (such as onetravel) and international sites (like zuji and opodo). Powerful, but