Use ’em or lose ’em: Frequent-flier airline miles

Then if that doesn’t work, go to plan B. What’s really important here is to confirm the outbound flight and date you really need, and worry about the return flight later.

For example, want to fly from San Francisco to New York on March 29 and return April 7? The airline might be able to confirm an award seat on the 29th but not the flight on the 7th. No problem. Get the airline to confirm a flight on the April 8, 9, 10 or later, and then stand by for the flight you really wanted on the 7th. You need to get that ticket issued in order to use any portion of it.

Also, even if you’re not sure about where you want to go or when, try to redeem your miles now for future flights at the current mileage award levels. You can always try to change the ticket later, but remember, those mileage eligibility levels are only going to increase, and at the same time the number of available seats will decrease.

Some other tips:

Using miles for merchandise, ranging from appliances to magazine subscriptions (there are some programs that offer this) in lieu of free tickets is perhaps the most inefficient use of mileage. Let me explain. Fifty-four per cent of all mileage earned these days is earned on the ground (credit card purchases, etc.) where you receive one mile for every dollar spent. What this means is that a 25,000-mile award actually breaks down — in real dollar terms — to your having spent at least $12,000 in goods and services, not counting the money you spent on airfare for the other 13,000 miles to get you to the 25,000-mile level. Now, let’s do the math ... if a magazine subscription costs 800 miles, you just spent the equivalent of $450 for 12 issues of your favorite periodical!

If you have miles in another account — like American Express — you gain nothing by leaving those miles in that account. Transfer them over to one of your individual airline frequent-flier mileage accounts — even if you have no plans on flying soon. If you don’t, it can take two to three weeks to make the transfer when you want to redeem the miles later. And the airline won’t recognize your miles until they are in your airline account.

Here are more tips:

• Dump your airline mileage credit card. Credit cards like Visa and MasterCard linked to airline frequent-flier programs cost more, and generally charge higher interest rates. Instead, consider getting a rebate credit card. Lower interest rates, no annual fee — and you actually get money back, not the promise of miles you may not be able to redeem. For example, a cash returns MasterCard from Citibank has no annual fee and offers a 5 percent rebate on all purchases during the first three months and 1 percent rebate thereafter.
• It’s now more important than ever to track your miles in various programs. Milemaven.com lists bonus mile promotions that you can get based on the route you’re taking. webflyer.com has a mileage converter that tells you how to convert miles from one loyalty program to another (like how many miles on Alaska it takes to redeem for flights on American, or how many Starwood points it takes to get a free flight). Awardgrabber.com calculates the date when award seats are actually released and available for booking free flights (about 330 days before your flight date).

   

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Peter Greenberg is TODAY’s Travel editor. His column appears weekly on TODAYshow.com. Visit his Web site at PeterGreenberg.com. 

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