How to Earn Airline Miles on Everything
If there’s an airline miles promotion that every traveler from here to eternity and back again has heard about, it’s gotta be FTD.com’s miles-for-flowers promo. So when an email encouraging me to earn 25 miles for each dollar spent popped into my inbox from Northwest Airlines World Perks this morning, I started to dismiss it with a been there, done that click of the mouse. But then I thought, wait, this familiar promotion is reminding me of something important for anyone who travels these days: you can earn airline miles on almost anything you’d ever need or want to buy.
Whether you’ll actually be able to book award travel with them is another question. But first things first. You’ve got to have the miles to go places with them. And as someone who recently traveled from California to the Caribbean on a 30,000-mile award ticket, I can tell you that the days of getting good deals with your miles are hardly over.
Click through for 5 tips that will help you earn more miles on everything you buy.
Along with the winter holiday season, this time of year is riddled with opportunities to earn miles just for purchasing things you’d buy anyway. Think about it: you’re probably planning to buy gifts and household items in the coming weeks for occasions like Mother’s Day, graduations, weddings, July 4th and Father’s Day, not to mention things you’ll pick up for summer vacations, the kids’ time at summer camp, birthdays, bridal and baby showers, picnics and trips to the beach.
At the risk of sounding like a airline shopping mall evangelist, my advice to anyone who wants to earn more free travel is to earn miles on as many purchases as you can. Here are a few tips for making that happen:
1. Register, register, register. To take advantage of airline mileage promotions, you have to first be registered for the programs. I’m an advocate of enrolling in mileage programs for every airline you fly – even if you fly an airline infrequently. For miles-earning purposes, you’ll earn award travel more quickly by focusing on one airline, but that shouldn’t stop you from accruing miles for multiple airlines.
You aren’t already signed up for loyalty programs with every airline you fly, take 45 minutes - say, on Saturday afternoon or whenever else you get a free minute - and just go through the drudgery of entering all your information into the various sites.
Sure, you may think it doesn’t make sense to register for a loyalty program with an airline you may or may not fly with this year, but it’s far more convenient to have your account set up in advance. If you only want to register for a few loyalty programs, WebFlyer has a great, useful side-by-side comparison chart that rates all hotel and airline programs and will help you choose the right ones for you.
2. Replace regular credit cards with reward cards. If your top priority is travel, then one of the best ways to earn free airline tickets is through a reward credit card. Compare available programs on a site like CreditCards.com, which has a Hotel and Travel Rewards Credit Card comparison section. Which card you choose should depend on your priorities. Some companies - Capitol One is an example - require travelers to redeem miles through their own travel agency, while others will just transfer the miles to you and let you book travel using any online travel agency or airline web site. In the former situation, you have less flexibility when redeeming miles, but you can avoid restrictions like blackout dates that you’d face using other programs. Do some research and decide what works best for your needs.
3. Ask your bank about debit card reward programs. Some banks (Chase, Bank of America, KeyBank, to name a few) offer account holders the opportunity to earn miles for purchases made with their debit cards. As someone who often tries to pay for things using a debit card instead of a credit card, I have personally found this to be one of the most effective methods for earning miles. I earn miles whenever I use the card - even if it’s for groceries.
4. Earn miles for everyday purchases. Travelers can earn miles in some unexpected places. Safeway, for example, offers its Club Card members different ways to earn miles for various airlines. Check out the Safeway Club Card Airline Miles program to see what sort of programs are available in your area. In addition to mileage promotions offered by individual retailers, travelers can earn miles from pretty much every store under the sun at Shop4Miles.com. Check out the store list, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. One drawback to this site is that it isn’t partnered with every airline. If your preferred airline isn’t part of the program, then you can always earn miles for everyday purchases through each airline’s online shopping portal (most of the major ones have them). Just make sure you read all the fine print before completing a purchase - you’ll almost always have to log-in or enter a promo code of some sort before you buy anything in order for the miles to hit your account.
5. Be on the look out for available promotions whenever you shop for travel. Before you buy an airline ticket, rent a car or book a hotel stay, check out MileMaven to find current promotions associated with your travel plans. This is a great site that allows travelers to search for promotions. It’s common for travel companies to offer miles to customers who pay with certain credit cards. You may also find limited-time bonus mile promotions that you might otherwise have missed.
Do you have a great tip for earning more miles? Let us know, and we’ll feature it in a future post on the Kayak.com blog. You can reach me at lsanders (at) kayak (dot) com.
Full disclosure: some of this content originally appeared on the TravelPost.com Insider, which I ran from 2005-2008, but I’ve updated it and expanded it since then.