Do you vacation a lot with frequent flyer miles? How do you accrue them cheaply?

[jerseygirl07067]

I love to travel, it used to be my favorite thing to do. I would scrimp all year and then go on a great trip somewhere, sometimes a few trips per year. I stopped once I had kids due to financial constraints. Now that I have a family of 5, I have come to the realization that we likely will never be able to afford a lot of travel, particularly across the country or internationally due to the high cost of flying.

I would love to be able to show my kids other parts of the world when they are older one day, and for now at least show them various parts of the US.

I saw this tonight, and though it's a very extreme example, I was a bit inspired.

http://gizmodo.com/5710654/how-to-fly-35000-miles-visit-4-continents-9-countries-and-15-cities-for-418

I used to accrue frequent flier miles but stopped since so many of the cards seem to have a high annual fee, and I've gotten into the habit of spending with cash or debit only, so pretty much no miles at all, lol. I do find I'm less disciplined when spending with credit, which is why I have minimized it, so I don't want this to backfire and wind up spending more.

Any tips?

[citymama]

We flew to Hawaii last year with the whole family on miles. Both DH and I travel for work but I am not good about sticking to one airline which is the real secret to accruing miles. That said, I fly united most frequently and I have a united visa card. When they merged with continental we got a whole load of extra miles. I have a bunch of Amex points I'd like to convert into miles so we can go back to HI again some time! If you can't stick to one airline, try to stay within the same mileage program (eg Star Alliance) if possible (not something I'm good at!).

Joe Sharkey has some great suggestions for mileage accrual - do a search and see if he has additional ideas.

[niccig]

DH has United and American Airlines credit cards he's had forever. We keep them because of the credit history on them. We've used United miles the most as could never find a flight with American when wanted it. So work out who you'll fly the most with. I've discovered that it's best to book online as whenever we called, there were no flights on the days we wanted, but when I went online, there was!

We put most purchases on the united card (everything!). I don't know what the annual fee is, but on our trip last week we didn't get charged for our 3 bags, so there was $150 saved ($75 each way).

Last year we got 2 tickets to Maui (had to buy the 3rd ticket) and 3 tickets to skiing in Crested Butte. Normally we wouldn't use miles for short flight to CO, but the Denver to Gunnison flight was $500 per ticket on it's own! The year before we got 3 tickets to Australia at Christmas, and those tickets are $2000 each. DS and I are going to go see my parents in the summer in Australia and hopefully we have enough miles.

You have to be flexible for the dates you travel and book in advance. I've also found it's easier to get ticket for the airline your miles are with. You can use them with affiliated airlines, but there are fewer seats open for other airlines' frequent fliers. I hate United, loathe flying them to Australia, but it's the easiest miles for us to get. I prefer Qantas (affiliated with American) or Air NZ (affiliated with United), but I've never been able to use my american or united miles with those carriers.

[FSUMama]

We've gone to Thailand twice, Amsterdam and gotten a few domestic flights using miles. We exclusively fly delta and both my DH and I have credit cards for miles. There are good bonuses when you initially sign up for a card and the annual fee is usually made up with perks like free checked baggage or one free companion ticket a year. We book our free flight like 11 months in advance and call to have the delta employee check other partner airlines for available seats. We can't wait to travel with DS!

[BayGirl2]

Yes. DH and I both travel for work and have credit cards with United and Starwood for points. I make my travel booking choices based on points and I use my card for all routine expenses then pay them off. Points accrue sat once you get to a certain level.

We don't use points for vacations where it doesn't make sense, like Disney or Tahoe for hotels or for shorter flights. But I have enough now to use for one big trip. Starwood points I usually redeem at their timeshare properties because its expensive otherwise to rent a condo in a high quality resort.

It does take some planning but not to much, especially if you have business travel to help earn.

[stonecali]

We have several airline specific cards. United, American, Starwood (points can transfer to several different airlines), Southwest and British Airways. We got rid of our Delta card because we could never find flights on Delta. If we lived closer to a Delta hub that may have made a difference. On all our airline cards, we earn 1 mile per dollar spent. We have the best luck finding flights with United and American. I haven't really figured out Southwest's new system yet, so can't comment on that. British Airways has been a trainwreck. That was a mistake getting their CC as now we have a bunch of miles but can't find any availability at all. Starwood is great but we use that mainly for hotels (and love it for hotels). We have transferred Starwood miles to different airlines but it takes 3-4 days and many times the flight is gone by the time they transfer.

It is always a bit of a struggle booking award flights. There seems to be lots of availability on standard awards, but the "saver" awards (1/2 the amount of miles as the standard awards) are few and far between unless you book REALLY early. We end up booking our Hawaii fares exactly 330 days out to make sure we can get the saver fares. I set alarms on my calendar so I know exactly when we need to book. It is a chore. Luckily for us, we have lots of miles on many different airlines so we're usually able to work something out.

Recently we got the Capital One Venture card. We earn 2 miles per dollar spent. It is our NEW FAVORITE CARD! Now we can book ANY flight on any airline and pay with our Capital One Venture card, and then use our points to offset the cost of the airline tickets. It is called "purchase eraser" and you must erase the purchase within 90 days of the charge. It is $0.01 per point, so if you book a ticket for $300, you need 30,000 points to erase it.

An added bonus is that you can use the points for anything travel related.... including cruises/hotels/car rentals! As long as it is categorized as "travel" by the credit card company. So, even a super cheap $100 round trip southwest flight can be offset with 10,000 points. That is even better than the saver fares (usually 25K per round trip). Not to mention you earn twice as many points with the Venture over the airline-specific flights.

We just really like the flexibility of the Venture card. We are not tied down to one airline now (although we always try to redeem using our airline specific points first to get rid of them, a lot of times we can't get any flights!).

If you live near an airline's hub (like, United = Chicago/Houston/Denver or American = Dallas) you would probably have much better award availability so maybe getting that CC would be better. I live near LAX so a lot of airlines have a pretty big presence there, but being on the extreme west coast limits flight options.

http://www.capitaloneventure.com/

[magnoliaparadise]

Hi,
I haven't read through this thread, so don't know if anyone mentioned this, but Nightline did a segment on him (Frugal Travel guy):
http://www.frugaltravelguy.com/

[lhafer]

We use a Chase Sapphire card for everything. No black out dates, any airline, etc. We like using the Sapphire card more than a specific airline card because points also go towards hotel stays, car rentals, etc. So it's double bang for your buck. We live in a near an international hub and being able to choose various airlines is a must here. Venture One is also a good card.

HEre's a list of some good ones out there: http://www.creditcards.org/air-miles-credit-cards?gclid=CLOR0bix4LQCFSOnPAodFWgAQg&lp=1&utm_campaign=ORG+Airmiles+BrN-1&utm_medium=ppc&utm_source=Google&utm_term=credit+card+miles

http://air-miles-credit-card-review.toptenreviews.com/

http://air-miles-credit-card-review.toptenreviews.com/chase-sapphire-preferred-review.html

[hillview]

we HAD a citibank american airlines card and DH and I flew a lot on american. We have over 1m miles between us right now. We use them for our trips to UK to see his family. DH travels a ton and I travel enough that we usually have plenty of miles. I am planning a trip to Australia for some point in a summer or 2 using miles.