Be Prepared with Loyalty Memberships

In 2011, I flew a total of 85,645 miles, all for leisure and the most I have ever flown in a calendar year.  Unfortunately, I did not receive maximum credit for much of this total.  Let my experience be a lesson so you do not suffer the same fate.

While I was used to issuing my account numbers for my United MileagePlus and Southwest Rapid Rewards accounts, it did not even register in my mind to try to accrue points when flying on China Eastern Airlines or EVA Airways.

Here are some tips to maximize value:

1.  Before flying on a specific carrier, research on what program you can accumulate points.  I made the mistake of opening a new Evergreen Club (EVA Airways) account when flying LAX-TPE-SIN instead of realizing that I could have credited those 8,780 miles to my United MileagePlus account since EVA Airways is a member of the Star Alliance.  Avoid fragmenting your mileage accumulation across frequent-flyer programs within an alliance.  Flying different airlines within an alliance is perfectly okay.

2.  Append your account number as soon as possible, before your flight(s).  It is an annoyance to have to remember to submit the missing mileage request.  Delayed requests often result in delayed or even no credit.

3.  Open any new account as soon as possible, before your flight(s).  Airline policies vary on retroactively issuing credit on flights flown.  United Airlines will accept credit for flights completed up to 31 days prior to the enrollment date of their MileagePlus program.  However, American Airlines will not grant credit if an individual were not enrolled in their AAdvantage program at the time of the flight.

Chase United Card

Four months ago, I received application approval for the Chase United MileagePlus Explorer Visa Signature Card, with a minimum credit line of $5,000.  At the time, the sign-up bonus was:  30,000 MileagePlus miles after the first purchase on the account.  My mother informed me that I had received an offer that was 50,000 MileagePlus miles after spending $1,000 within the first three months.  I called the phone number on the back of my Visa card, and the female representative reassured me that she would upgrade my promotion to the one I had received in the mail!.

1000 MileagePlus Miles in One Minute

For those of you with United MileagePlus accounts, this is one-minute way to earn 400-1000 miles.  Sign up for BCKSTGR.  Your MileagePlus account will be credited with 400 miles upon sign-up and an additional 200 miles each for linking your facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare accounts.  Unlike other mileage posting, these miles are credited within minutes of submission.

I do not have Twitter and Foursquare accounts, so I received 600 miles.  MileagePlus miles have a long-run value of approximately 2 cents per mile, so I am happy to make $12 per minute, or $720 per hour.

Anti-Mileage Run

Avid frequent flyers will resort to what are termed mileage runs to maintain their elite status in a loyalty program. These mileage runs entail booking and actually sitting on the flight for the sole purpose of accruing miles to be credited. These maneuvers are usually executed in the last quarter of the year when a member will likely fall shy of a given tier. Since the benefits increase at the elite levels, an individual will sometimes be willing to pay rates higher than the redemption value for the required miles. Airlines sell miles in the neighborhood of 3.5 cents per mile, but 1) this is a poor value and 2) the miles do not count toward elite status qualification.

On mileage run forums, potential flights of varying distances and prices are posted. These flights usually cost from 3 to 5 cents per mile (cpm). A great long-haul circuitous itinerary may cover a quarter of the world and cost only 3.2 cpm.

Two weeks ago, I completed a one-way commercial flight in economy class that had as poor a cpm value as one could find. On TACA International Airlines (El Salvador), I flew from Belize City (BZE) to San Salvador (SAL) to Guatemala City (GUA). For this 110-minute, 417-mile (671km) itinerary, I paid $403.25! This works out to $3.67 per minute flown or 97 cents per mile traveled! Who can beat this?

Yesterday, I booked an Award Flight on United Airlines for my brother.  The current price for the desired itinerary was $1168, but I booked it for 60,000 miles + $57 in taxes and fees.  This transaction values the miles at ($1168 - $57) / 60,000 miles = 1.85 cents per mile, which exceeds widely accepted valuations of a MileagePlus mile!

I have made enough online travel queries to know that there are severe quirks in the system.  Two of the more prevalent lead to illegal, at least according to the airlines, practices called hidden city ticketing and throwaway ticketing.

Hidden city ticketing is often pursued by value-conscious travelers because flying from Buenos Aires to Toronto with a stop in New York may be cheaper than the first leg of the route alone from Buenos Aires to New York.  A person wishing to fly to New York may purchase the fare to Toronto without any intention of completing that leg.

Throwaway ticketing results when the round-trip fare is cheaper than the corresponding one-way fare.  I often check the round-trip version of a one-way flight I am interested in to see if there are savings to be had.

The travel search engines could make extracting these savings easier, but these practices are actually illegal.  I understand that the supposedly efficient market forces determine these prices, but there is a lot of room for more accurate pricing if round-trip fares are occasionally priced less than their one-way counterparts.