The things I do when researching the entire topic of frequent flyer miles. Read this and you’ll find out.

It’s no secret that March Madness is called such for a reason — reportedly 41% of the U.S. population are college basketball fans. What that means is with the NCAA Basketball tournament just weeks away, just about everyone will be watching the games a little closer, trying to find their sleeper, or Cinderella team. Additionally, researchers have also found that 27% of employees participate in March Madness office pools. The majority of these workers are men, as only 8% of women have participated in the workplace pool. Surveys show that almost half of them spend at least 30 minutes at work to fill out their brackets. With bracket pools ranging from $5 to $25 per person, office pools are now worth an incredible $2.5 billion dollars.

And that little place in the middle of the desert in Nevada? They expect between $80 and $90 million to be bet on the college games, though this year with the economy in the dumps, it will likely be less. According to news reports, Americans wager between $2.5 billion and $3.5 billion on the NCAA tournament via online sportsbooks or betting Web sites despite the grey area of legality.

So, what does this mean and how is it tied into the topic of frequent flyer miles? Well, it’s because if you have your sights set on winning the big one this year and often find yourself winning the office pool (and even if you don’t) then let me show you how to turn that passion (OK, that skilled observation of winning basketball teams) into some frequent flyer miles.

If you’ve never heard of Bookmaker.com, then let me introduce you now. It is an online gambling Web site that allows you to wager on the March Madness tourney, in addition to possibly winning frequent flyer miles from playing online poker, casino games and even the racebook (the horses). And it’s not all about college basketball. You can bet on other basketball games, baseball, soccer, tennis, hockey, and even handball and motor racing. If that’s not enough, then consider you may hit the betting line by betting on who will win the next season of Dancing With The Stars.

Essentially you sign up and become a Gold, Platinum or Diamond member and by betting, playing different games, winning and reloads, you earn BetPoints which can be redeemed for actual and real frequent flyer miles with American AAdvantage, Delta SkyMiles, Northwest WorldPerks, United Mileage Plus or US Airways Dividend Miles.

And, to add to my point earlier, they will even host your office pool for March Madness if you are just now thinking about it.

Here’s the rub. I’m not a gambler by any means and would warn anyone reading this to consider your current enjoyment of the topic and would never recommend that you start playing the horses just for a chance at more frequent flyer miles. But if you are going to bet and enjoy it, then the question is, “Was it Connecticut to win the tourney with a side bet for LSU as the spoiler … or was it the miles?”

There have been a number of questions regarding the combined accounts of Northwest WorldPerks and Delta SkyMiles and what, if anything, will happen to the Delta SkyMiles Million Miler Program.

I’ve been snooping around and have it on good authority that by the year’s end, both accounts will be merged and the combined flight activity of the two accounts will count toward a newly revised Million Miler Program from SkyMiles. However, be forewarned that until the official merger date of the two programs later in 2009, there will be no combined activity that will get you the type of “lifetime” status that some members are hoping for. Here’s a review of the current SkyMiles program:

Million Miler Status

The Million Miler™ Program recognizes and rewards those customers who have flown an exceptional amount with us.

• Members who reach one million Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Silver Medallion status.
• Members who reach two million Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Gold Medallion status.
• Members who reach four million plus Medallion Qualification Miles are currently awarded complimentary annual Platinum Medallion status.
• Every time you reach a new level of Million Miler status you will have the opportunity to choose an exclusive gift by Hartmann™ as a token of our appreciation.

Million Miler balances are based on total Medallion Qualification Miles earned over a member’s lifetime.

The key here is to appreciate that the combined accounts will only count EQMs toward the Million Miler Program, not total miles earned or combined as the American AAdvantage program does. What is still up in the air is the continuation of the Hartmann gifts since most members are pretty well set with luggage and travel accessories and of course there is the budget cutting mandate that almost all companies face these days. A little recognition and the lifetime status are seen as enough of a perk these days so if the Hartmann perk is eliminated, we should still be pretty happy (though I do not know for sure that it will be cut).

Bottom line: even if you are currently merging accounts, do not assume and expect that this will create a new Million Miler status for you this year but certainly you can expect it for the next calendar year of elite status and this effects members of both programs once the EQMs are merged and accounted for.

Q: What takes 16 months to do?

A: Switching global airline alliances.

In June of last year, Continental announced its plans to join the Star Alliance, thus exiting the partnerships and alliances with both Delta and Northwest. For a while, it looked like it wasn’t going to happen as the CEOs of each airline postured about how important they were to themselves. I still think that Continental outplayed United in this hand.

It can now be announced that Continental will end its participation in the SkyTeam Alliance after the last scheduled flight on Oct. 24, 2009. This means a lot for frequent flyers and I’ll be bringing you what you need to do and know over the next nine months.

Pssst! Got some frequent flyer miles you barely use … or better yet, want? Or do you need a few miles to reach an award level? A new Web site aims to provide frequent flyers with the ability to barter their frequent flyer miles for products, services and other miles. You can also list items you’d like to exchange for an award ticket or specific number of miles. Immediately comparable to eBay or craigslist, milehighswap.com is for people who are using frequent flyer miles instead of cash to barter with. Signing up and posting an item to swap is free, but it will cost $0.99 to contact another user about a possible exchange or you can sign up for a subscription and contact as many users as you want for one monthly fee. If your transaction includes a transfer of miles, you or the person you are trading with are responsible for paying the transfer fees imposed by the airlines. You can also agree to split the fees. In general, it costs approximately $10 per 1,000 miles plus a $25-$30 service fee to transfer miles between accounts.

BUT, they aren’t the only garage sale on the block, sharing member-to-member trading with LoyaltyMatch.com, where members can buy or trade award merchandise with members of other loyalty programs. The difference is that Mile High Swap takes the idea one step further and allows members to exchange miles or points for anything someone else wants to “sell.”

You can search for thousands of items offered by loyalty programs across all sectors including airlines, hotels, car rentals, restaurants and retail merchants. When you see an item that you want, you can set a price or make an exchange offer. The price is the amount of money you will pay a seller to redeem their miles or points for that particular award. You can also choose to offer a trade.

For example, Air Canada’s Aeroplan offers an Apple iPod Shuffle for 15,000 Aeroplan miles. You can offer to buy or trade an item offered by one of your loyalty programs and would then see a list of members who have at least 15,000 Aeroplan miles in their account and could get an iPod for you. In order to make your trade request public and contact potential traders, you would then need to activate your 60-day listing for a $1.99 CDN fee.

But in the great lingo of the Internet, you might want to try testing these two out to get “in before the lock.” You see, loyalty program rules prohibit the buying, selling and bartering of miles and points. So far these same programs haven’t exercised their infamous legal might to prevent their merchandise awards from being freely exchanged, but given the trading of miles for merchandise … I’m not so sure that this doesn’t entail a little risk.

We certainly expect the surge in “award transfers” to get someone’s attention but until such time, hey, how many miles will you give me for a Garmin nuvi GPS unit that I got for Christmas (I prefer using the GPS on my iPhone)? OK, I’ll give you 15,000 United miles for a Krups toaster oven!!!

Mile High Swap

Loyalty Match

Tough love is a really relevant application to the loyalty of frequent flyer miles. There are just times when one has to reward the love with a tough statement or action. Certainly most frequent flyer programs get defensive when they see a critical review of something they have instituted, but there is hope — OK, very slight hope — that they will see it as tough love.

The tough love? I started it with this editorial from InsideFlyer magazine:

The 2008 Dumb Decision Award goes to American AAdvantage. What were they thinking in adding a $5 online award booking fee for their program back on June 21? While this gem was quietly rescinded in early October, it nonetheless stands out for a few reasons. First of all, AAdvantage became the only loyalty program I know of in the world to require some sort of fee to redeem any award. There was no opportunity to redeem an award, no matter how simple or no matter the outlet, without paying at least $5. American suggested that the fee would help them offset the technology investment the airline has been making to its Web site. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the Web site paid for by those members who don’t like to book online and still to this day call a service center and are charged $20? And correct me if I am wrong, but I can’t remember AAdvantage recently introducing anything specifically to their Web site that wasn’t an offshoot from the airlines’ normal reservations Web site. The award calendar? It was launched back in March of 2007. A little late to begin paying for that wouldn’t you think? And all the AAdvantage enhancements were offshoots of price-and-scheduling tools developed for the aa.com Web site. Did this 13-week period really pay for the technology investments? It could be argued that AAdvantage redeemed nearly 850,000 awards during this period. Assuming that 73 percent of these awards were redeemed online at $5 a redemption, minus the exception for their EXP members, that would mean roughly $3 million in special fees. I’m just not getting this decision–absolutely no way to redeem a single AAdvantage award without paying for the privilege. Sorry AAdvantage, love you, but hate seeing you act this dumb.

There are two other programs that can share in this award, but as the industry leader over the years, I place more responsibility for this dumb move in the hands of AAdvantage. But, as we have seen, they did wake up and rescinded that fee for online award redemption.

Today, I’m glad to say that peer pressure and tough love is alive and congrats to Frontier EarlyReturns. They have now seen the light and yesterday announced this:

To better serve our loyal flyers Frontier is eliminating the $25 redemption fee and $75 expedite fee for award redemptions booked on or after December 15, 2008.

So, we are now down to only a single frequent flyer program here in the U.S. that still has a Dumb and Dumber type fee to redeem from your mileage account. And to clarify, I’m not talking about redeeming by contacting the service center — this is about online redemption. The reaming holdout? Glad you asked and it is none other than US Airways Dividend Miles. Here is their last holdout policy:

Online Award Processing fee – $25 continental U.S./Alaska/Canada, $35 Latin America/Caribbean, $50 Hawaii/international

Considering where we were just a month or so ago, life for the frequent flyer is better (I didn’t say best!) but as long as US Airways tries to hold down the best interest of the frequent flyer, we’ll unfortunately have to judge the industry by its dumbest competitor. So what’s it going to be Dividend Miles, Scrooge or lose?

So far much of the work that Delta and Northwest has put into the merger of the two distinct frequent flyer programs has been well above board and in fact rather excellent with the communication and the ensuing details. They have jumped to early reciprocal benefits for the two elite programs and now comes crunch time – the start of the real merger of two databases of members and miles and miles to go.

I’m predicting that early February will be when we see the start of their database merger with both programs allowing members to convert miles from one program to the other — without a transfer fee. This full mileage transferability is not as easy as it looks since to squeeze the pennies, Delta has opted to do the technology work in-house.

Basically, members will be able to move miles from WorldPerks to SkyMiles or SkyMiles to WorldPerks as often as they want, as many miles as they want until later in 2009 when the two programs are actually merged.

Now this may help some members with their mileage accrual as it will allow them to combine the two types of miles should they need them for award redemption in 2009. As well, it will perhaps help those who are wondering which is the right way to work on their elite-level status in 2009 and perhaps even more importantly, it allows members to control the merger of accounts. 

Back in 2001 when the merger of AAdvantage and Aviators (American and TWA) were going on, that program relied heavily on merging accounts by database and as a result, some members were never credited with their correct miles since some accounts were dormant and/or contained differing address matches. With this self-select method that Delta will introduce, readers of this blog will get a head start on actually making sure that all your miles end up in the correct account of your choosing. So I strongly suggest you follow along when the time comes. For instance, I have two WorldPerks accounts, one with BizPerks going strong and a regular account that came from my elite status. I have retained the two independently since i got enrollment bonuses for each account and did not want that “double” to be discovered. With this new Delta system to move miles, I think I’ll be able to do it from both accounts into SkyMiles without discovery. BUT, wait a second. The other unique advantage of this new system or pre-merger just might be if you have miles two different ways is to move them to the award chart that will best benefit you before the merger. Yes, things aren’t always the same and those SkyMiles members who have more miles than their neighbors just might find that a “false” transfer to WorldPerks might allow you a chance to save some miles come redemption time.  And of course vice-versa.

Examples: Northwest members who want to opt out of the Saturday night stay over requirement for the 25,000 mile award might transfer those to Delta where there is no Saturday night stay requirement. SkyMiles members – why pay 40,000 miles to Hawaii when you can transfer those SkyMiles to WorldPerks and go to Hawaii for only 35,000 miles. As well, why pay 60,000 miles to Europe when you can transfer those miles to northwest for the same award only paying 50,000 miles.

Get the idea? I’m on this and will be your guide to the varying differences of this merger of the miles.

On Thursday, Nov. 20, Dividend Miles will announce a sudden reversal of their change to elite benefits some 3 1/2 months ago. With the economy of fuel stabilizing and the growing wariness of both Star Alliance (well, Continental is soon to be) partners, Continental and United adding back in 500-minimum mile bonuses and never even considering ending their elite bonuses, Dividend Miles has found that it may be better than late since there is the usual interest in year ending mileage runs to validate or complete elite status for the following year. Look for official announcements to come from US Airways, but if you had read my original statement of the chages:

http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/printable/article.php?key=4787

and then my subsequent recommendation for solution in an earlier Mileopoly column:

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onthefly/2008/08/

Shake it up with a little SaveDividendMiles (1.6 billion miles registered)

http://savedividendmiles.com

And you have a best-case-scenario for appeasing the remaining and hopefully faithful members of DividendMiles.

Along the windy way of earning miles and points, there comes a time when one just really has to let loose — you know, unwind. And when staying at a hotel racking up the points, what’s the second thing that comes to mind when really unwinding while sleeping in someone else’s bed? Yea, you guessed it – jumping on the bed.

This childhood activity continues to this day and there’s a real chance that you could immortalize yourself by submitting a photo of yourself, jumping on your hotel bed when you submit it to 

http://www.hotelsbycity.net/blog/bed-jump/

You go ahead and post your picture, I’m still working on finding the hotel room with the highest ceiling …

As has been reported, the actual merger of Delta Air Lines and Northwest was approved which means that in the months ahead miles you have in both programs will be merged (though as we know from the days of the American/TWA merger, some of you may get caught in the undertow of trying to match accounts). What this means is that we’re entering the official period of the honeymoon, when members of both programs should be looking for easy ways back-and-forth to boost their accounts. Here’s an example of what I mean:

Here’s a promotion by Northwest WorldPerks with Sentry Insurance, offering 1,500 bonus miles just for receiving a no-obligation quote on auto or homeowners insurance. (Don’t get fooled by other mentions of a 1,000 bonus mile offer for the same) Now, Sentry Insurance is not currently a partner with Delta SkyMiles and does not offer the same offer. This means for the opportunity seeking SkyMiles member, make sure you have a WorldPerks account, get the insurance quote with the WorldPerks bonus miles and in the months ahead, those miles will convert into your SkyMiles account. Simple as that.

WorldPerks to SkyMiles Bonus

OK, year end melt-down when the holidays and more take us away from the paperwork of actually managing your frequent flyer miles. For many, the year-end is when they lose track of time. And with that, they lose their frequent flyer miles. Here’s a quick tip, only taking a single minute that can help you from losing any American AAdvantage miles from expiration.
AAdvantage members were moved to an 18-month activity policy on December 15, 2007, which means that the next period for expiration will be June 15, 2009. Now, AAdvantage members can wait until then to start to worry, but let me help with that.
To keep your AAdvantage miles active, you need some sort of activity in your account because each qualifying activity extends the expiration date of all unexpired mileage credit in your account for 18 months from the date of the qualifying activity. Why worry about it? Head on over to this URL:
Bose Headphone Video Earns Frequent Flyer Miles
Spend one-minute, that’s all … one-minute, to watch this Bose headphone video and you will earn 150 AAdvantage miles, which means that no matter your situation with AAdvantage, your miles will not expire before April of 2010. That is perfect peace-of-mind. This one minute exercise buys you 10 more months of no expiring miles!

Each qualifying activity extends the expiration date of all unexpired mileage credit in your account for 18 months from the date of the qualifying activity.