FIVE. 5 is the number of domestic airline tickets I could have purchased using my frequent flier points about two months ago. TWO AND A HALF. 2.5 is the number of domestic airline tickets I can purchase today using my frequent flier points.
I earn frequent flier points fairly frequently given my career in the travel industry. At any given point in time there is a very good chance that I have enough points to earn myself a free plane ticket. What is odd is that 4 out of 5 times I book a plane ticket, I buy it with cold hard cash! Why do I do this? I guess I was saving these free tickets for a rainy day, retirement, or maybe I have no rhyme or reason for holding on to my frequent flier points.
If you are like me, a frequent flier as well as a frequent buyer of plane tickets, listen up because there is no sense in saving. A couple months ago I decided to tally up the points I had with all my frequented airlines. While doing this I learned that over 30,000 of my Delta points had expired and I was about to lose another 40,000 American Airline points. Most airline miles expire if there has been no activity on the account for 12 to 18 months. With so many low fare options these days, it is actually very easy to go 12 months without flying certain carriers.
So here is what I did to save my points:
- Use the miles! I used my United miles to book a weekend trip to Chicago to spend some time with friends. The ticket only cost me $7 for processing, which made my weekend getaway much more enjoyable. Also, cashing in your points is considered activity on your account. Therefore, my remaining points were no longer in jeopardy of expiring.
- Use some of the miles! I was hoping to get away during the Fourth of July weekend but airfares were high and there was no hope of redeeming a roundtrip mileage ticket. Then I discovered that American Airlines allows you to redeem your points for one-way tickets (only a few airlines allow this.) So I used my points for my outbound ticket and bought a return ticket. I cut my airfare cost in half and reactivated my American Airlines account so that I can use the rest of my points later.
- I joined www.points.com, which keeps track of your frequent flier points and allows you to use your points at many retail outlets. Just by joining www.points.com I was given 900 more American Airlines frequent flier points, which will also reactivate an account.
- After joining www.points.com I cashed in a small amount of Delta points (the majority of my points had already expired) for a $50 Amazon gift certificate.
- The majority of my frequent flier points are tied up in Continental Airlines so I had to do something to save those too. I checked out Continentals affiliate retailers and found that Netflix was one of them. So I established a Netflix account through Continental’s website (I wanted to do this anyway) and not only did I extend the life of my frequent flier account but I earned 1,500 more points!
I think the greatest lesson I learned during this travel saga is to just use the darn points! I think I hated the thought of not having free tickets available at all times but what is the point of having free tickets if you don’t you use them? And trust me, it feels great knowing that you are traveling the world for only a nominal processing fee!
Tags: Travel Tips
travel tips are important specially if you are going in places that are troublesome like in Africa or Asia,*’
traveladvisor is a great website that offers free travel tips;`*