How to Begin Collecting Miles
If, however, most of your miles will come from paid tickets, then it is important to choose a frequent flyer program with the airline you will use most frequently. Remember you must have a minimum of 20,000 or 25,000 miles before you can receive any reward with most programs. There are several considerations for choice of airline program:
Many programs allow you to earn miles on more than one airline. For example, Alaska, Northwest, and American have deals wherein you can both deposit and use miles from each other's airlines. (But you can't combine miles from accounts from each.) These types of partnerships change frequently, so the above info is probably out of date. Check with the airlines for conditions.
American and Alaska have particularly large networks of airlines, both foreign and domestic, which give and accept miles to and from their programs. These two are my favorites. I find it relatively easy to get an award ticket on American. Many are finding it nearly impossible to get such a ticket on Continental. United also has a large network of partner airlines. Since its bankruptcy, its employees have been considerably more cooperative in finding award flights.
Different programs require different numbers of miles for awards. I could have paid 35,000 or 50,000 miles for my trip to Peru, depending on the airline. So if you know where you want to go, choose your program accordingly.
Many third party programs are limited to one or a few airlines. For example, some of the bank and broker programs are limited to one airline. The Hilton, Marriott, Goldpoints, Starwood, and Priority Club programs offer conversion of their points to many airlines (probably yours), while the Amtrak program is limited to just a few. So it is important to decide which airline or airlines will be your main programs, so that if you have a choice of where to deposit your free miles, they will concentrate to the point where you can actually get a ticket for them.
Most airlines mileage programs cause your miles to expire under certain conditions. Most US airlines miles expire in one to three years of the last mileage adding activity (so it is easy to maintain those miles forever), but some US airlines, like Northwest, currently do not expire your miles. (But that may change at any time.) Southwest, AirTran, and some of the other low cost domestic airlines expire your credits after a year or two of earning them, so with these airlines you have to be sure you can earn enough credits to get a ticket and can decide what ticket you want within that time period. Many foreign airlines expire your miles after a certain time, regardless of activity. If you need an activity to keep your domestic airlines miles alive, the easiest is one through Rewards Network (iDine), a program described on my Other Programs I Like page in the dining section.
It usually costs you most of your miles if you try to exchange them between airlines. One exception to this is exchanging miles between Continental Airlines and Midwest Airlines via the Amtrak program. Just call the airline and tell them to exchange miles to Amtrak points. Then, when they post into your Amtrak account, go online to Amtrak and move the points to your airline. Miles must be moved in chunks of 5,000, and there is a limit of 25,000 points or miles per year. The whole process take just a few weeks. Be sure to read my write-up on Amtrak on my Other Programs I Like page to find some little known, somewhat sneaky ways to use this program to your benefit.
Webflyer maintains and excelent mileage converter page on exchanging miles between airlines and/or points programs. Usually you lose many miles for doing this, but sometimes you don't, and occasionally you actually gain miles.
To sign up for a mileage program, first check my Airlines Registrations Bonuses section of this web site to see if you can get miles for joining the program. If you can't, then go the airline's web site and navigate to the online registration form. To find the web site,use these links:
or your favorite search engine.The airlines' sites also give all details need about their frequent flyer programs.
Even though you have purchased your ticket, it is not too late to receive miles for it. Just sign up for a miles program, call the travel agent or the airline reservation number and give them your frequent flyer number, and when you show up at the gate, ask them to check to be sure the number is in your account. Even if your miles are not credited, you can still get them by sending in your boarding pass receipt. (So be sure to save it until you see the miles.)