Travelore Tips: How To Rack Up Miles To Fly For Free

Plane tickets take a huge chunk out of your travel budget -- international flights can cost $1000 or more, which could be an extra month of travel if you're frugal. Rack up some air miles and you can hit the mile high club for free.

Take A Number

Frequent flyer numbers are the numbers that each airline assigns you in order to keep track of your miles and give you rewards for your loyalty. Each airline calls their program something different. For example, United's is MileagePlus and Delta's is Skymiles -- but really all that matters is that you save them until you have enough for a free ticket.

You get a number for every airline you fly, but the fastest way to a free ticket is to stick with one airline (the whole loyalty part) and make sure it flies to international destinations. Remember to fill in your frequent flyer number every time you book a ticket.

Plastic in Your Pocket

Getting into debt is a terrible idea, but charging purchases on a credit card earns you miles. If you can commit to paying that sucker off, then charging your flights makes sense mile-wise. Most cards will offer a large mileage bonus for your first purchase and some will offer bonus miles for purchasing certain products. Some cards are for specific airlines and others, like American Express will let you use their points to buy tickets for almost any airline's program.

Buddy Up!

Many airlines have formed partnerships with other airlines around the globe -- you'll see brands like SkyTeam, Star Alliance, and Oneworld. These partnerships are like the 69 of airline travel -- everyone wins. Here's how this works: Let's say you live in Chicago and you've decided to do all of your traveling on United. You can earn miles by flying on United, or, you can earn miles by flying on any of United's partner airlines such as Lufthansa, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, or South African Airways (among others). The miles you rack up can be redeemed with either United or its partners, scoring you a free trip somewhere way cooler than the windy city (sorry, Chicago). Sometimes there are restrictions so make sure you check before your itinerary is set in stone.

OTP TIP: When traveling, don't always take the fastest route. If you don't mind spending a few extra hours in the air, use sites like Kayak or Hipmunk to book your flights to connect through remote places and earn some extra miles. Sometimes this option can even be cheaper.

Eyes on the Prize

Airlines don't just partner with other airlines; they cross-breed with companies in a number of industries, offering miles for purchases of random items like dog food (Purina) and soup (Healthy Choice). So how does puppy chow get you to Australia for free? Meet David Phillips, better known as the "Pudding Guy," who took the miles-collecting thing to a whole new level in 1999 when he bought $3000 worth of pudding to rack up enough miles to fly him anywhere he wanted, for free, for life. While buying six tons of snacks may not be for you, know that airlines run all kinds of miles promotions with these partners and if you're in the market for free travel, keep an eye out for miles in the aisles.

Gift Yourself

Airline websites sell all kinds of things that can score you miles. When you purchase products or services that have agreements with the airlines you can bank even more miles without having to get on a plane. Your family never has to know their birthday gifts earned you a free ticket!

Racking up miles may feel like clipping coupons, but knocking down the cost of airfare is one less barrier to discovering the world. You'll be glad you held up the check-out line with your thousands of pudding cups like a senior citizen when boarding that flight the fuck out of here.

Contributed By: Sarah Binion

Unused Frequent-Flier Miles 'Hidden Treasure' for Passengers

                                                  Contributed By Genevieve Shaw Brown (@gsbrownabc)

Two-thirds of Americans collect reward miles and points for travel, but the vast majority of us don't know how many we have. And even worse is that more than 25 percent of us are letting frequent-flier miles expire.

Your lost miles are a win for the airlines, said Brian Kelly, world traveler and founder of ThePointsGuy.com, the web site that conducted the research. "It's in the financial interest of the airlines for you to let your miles expire. They make money when you don't maximize miles."

Outstanding miles are a liability to the airlines, Kelly said. "All those miles have to be accounted for," he said. "That can affect their quarterly results."

Delta recently changed its SkyMiles program. Now, when a person dies, their miles die with them. They're the first airline to do so.

The airline also said earlier this year it would require a spending minimum in addition to distance flown to earn miles, making it harder for travelers on a budget to accumulate miles in the first place.

Kelly just returned from Brazil. He flew first-class and paid $2.50 for his ticket. Safe to say he keeps track of all his points.

But he flies 150,000 miles a year. Most travelers don't fly anywhere near that much. Most don't even fly enough in a year to rack up enough miles for a free flight.

It's those people, Kelly said, who are leaving "orphaned miles all over the place." But he said you don't necessarily need to be a frequent flier to earn miles.

"If you're going to shop at Walmart anyway," he said, "why not go through the airline portal to earns miles for your purchases?"

Members of Delta's SkyMiles, for example, can go to skymilesshopping.com and earn a mile for every dollar they spend at Walmart. Lesser-known brands offer up to 4 miles for every dollar spent.

"Travelers are sitting on hidden treasure. You need to treat your miles like money," Kelly said. "Even if you only have 4,000 miles, use it to buy magazines, something."

He acknowledges that it can be difficult to keep track of miles and points and recommends travelers keep all their information in one place. He uses AwardWallet.com and Tripit. Tripit, he said, will send an email when miles are getting close to their expiration date.

And because travelers love to hate the airlines, isn't the best revenge to use their own programs to your advantage? Kelly thinks so.

"It takes a little time to figure out," he said. "but once they're all in one place, it doesn't have to be a full-time job."

After all, he said, "Having your head in the sand is exactly what they want."

New Ways To Earn Miles

Contributed by Sean O'Neill

To glam up their reward programs, airlines and hotel chains often run cross-promotions, where travellers can earn frequent flyer miles when booking a hotel. But these promotions tend to come and go quickly, making them hard to track down.

Two new websites – Rocketmiles and PointsHound  – have made the process less unpredictable, working directly with selected airlines and hotels to offer promotions in which travellers can receive hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles by booking as little as a one-night stay at highly rated properties charging competitive rates.

During a recent search for a one-night, midweek April stay in Chicago, Rocketmiles turned up a deal that offered 5,000 bonus miles in United’sMileagePlus programme for booking one night at Public Chicago or Hotel 71, two centrally located luxury properties. The rate for Public Chicago was $327 after taxes and fees, lower than what was on offer onHotels.com and Booking.com.

Rocketmiles asserts that 90% of the time the site lists equal or lower prices to what’s available at online travel agencies such as Travelocity. PointsHound touts a similar claim, saying that if you find a lower rate for the same booking, the company will match the price.

When booking through Rocketmiles and PointsHound, travellers are also sometimes able to “double dip”, meaning they earn frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty programme points for the same reservation. The rules for this vary by hotel.

Comparing the sites
Launched in January 2013, Rocketmiles offers, on average, awards of 7,000 miles for a two-night hotel stay. It has partnered with four major US airlines – American, Delta, United and Hawaiian.

The site lists hotels in 13 US cities: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington DC. Within each city though, the selection is limited because the company will only display hotels that it has vetted as being worthwhile in terms of the luxuriousness of the property. For instance, Rocketmiles never lists more than eight hotels in Boston. Presently the site lacks an international presence, though it says it will expand with foreign airlines and destinations soon.

PointsHound, launched in October 2012, has partnered with seven airlines – AeroMexico, Baltic, Delta, Etihad, Hawaiian, United and Virgin America – and averages 1,200 award miles per night spent. The site stands out for having the broadest array of participating hotels – about 45,000 in the US and 105,000 in the rest of the world. But in each city, only five to 10 of the hotels listed offer generous rewards, typically four frequent flyer miles per dollar spent. PointsHound says that it gives more generous rewards to repeat users.

A word to the wise about these mileage promotions: within a few weeks of your hotel stay, log in to your rewards account to make sure the miles have been properly credited. Both Rocketmiles and PointsHound say their customer service representatives can help clear up any mistakes.

More mileage opportunities
If you’re looking for other ways to accelerate the speed at which you rack up frequent flyer miles and loyalty points, consider joining the Travel Hacking Cartel, which charges a monthly fee (from $15) for email, text and video alerts about various online promotions in which you can earn miles and points for every dollar spent.

The site recently explained how members of the Starwood Preferred Guest programme can earn 1,000 bonus points by booking a room at any of the company’s 1,000 properties worldwide, including Sheraton and Westin, through 31 May 2013. These points can then be converted into miles on more than 350 airlines. About half of the Travel Hacking Cartel’s deals apply only to US residents, but the rest are applicable to a global audience. The site guarantees one free plane ticket worth 25,000 miles  every quarter as long as you put in about a half-hour of work each month following its advice – or it will refund your membership fee.

Sean O’Neill is the travel tech columnist for BBC Travel. He recently wrote about a flight search site that maximizes miles.