In my last article – The Value of Elite Status, I discussed why you should have a goal to be an Elite on the airline program you earn miles on. I discussed the benefits airlines offer to their Elite Customers. This article was Part 2 of my series on the Economics of Airline Miles. In Part 1 I talked about the value of Airline Miles. In this article, I am taking a break from that series to do an in-depth description of what Elite Status is and how you qualify …

The Value of Elite Status
As I mentioned in part 1 of this series on the ‘Economics of Airline Miles – The Value of Airline Miles‘, to me the most valuable miles I earn are status miles (EQM). That does not mean that award miles (RDM) are unimportant to me, but earning Elite Status is a critical goal. If I earn Elite status, earning award miles will become easier too, as I will talk about in this post. The benefits of Elite Status are tremendous and worth a lot to you …

The Value of Airline Miles
Airline Miles are an asset. They hold true value. Like any collection of assets, your miles in the multiple programs you participate in need to be treated like a portfolio. They need to be managed. Their value to you evaluated (it is subjective, as I will discuss). Over time their value will change and it needs to be monitored. And eventually they need to be redeemed. Their value to you will determine what you should redeem them for and when. I will talk both on the …

Why you should never redeem miles for an award ticket for yourself.
For a Frequent Flyer like me who does not travel so much that I make the highest Elite level on an airline with no struggle, I have an axiom:
He who earns the Miles should never redeem the Miles on himself for a free flight!
That statement gets a lot of quizzical looks whenever I make it. Here is my reasoning:
You do not earn any miles when you fly for free!
That’s it, plain and simple. Of course, it all depends upon …

Picking the right Frequent Flyer program can have significant impact on your ability to earn or redeem Airline rewards and to earn and enjoy Elite status. Most uninformed travelers start like I did – they take the credit for any flight they fly on the frequent flyer program of the airline they are flying. This results in miles scattered across multiple programs. That too miles that are not enough for any kind of award. And of course, they never qualify for any Elite status. The only thing worse than this …

An airline will usually ‘op-up’ an economy passenger to an empty upper class seat to create space in economy for people on the waiting list. … Aircraft come in 1 class, 2 class or 3 class configurations. 2 class configurations have Coach (Economy) and First. 3 class have all three, Coach, Business & First.

Continental Airlines is leaving SkyTeam and joining Star Alliance. Virgin Atlantic is considering joining Star Alliance after resisting joining any alliance all these years. Russia’s S7 airlines is joining OneWorld. Airlines seem to make a big fuss of Airline Alliances. Should you care? If you want to maximize your earning of miles and attaining Elite status and maximize your ability of redeem your miles for awards, alliances are something you need to understand and leverage.

Airlines enter in partnerships with other airlines thru two means. The first is a bilateral agreement …

In Part 1 of this article I went over the different types of Credit Cards available that earn Airline Miles.
In this post I will provide you with 10 simple questions you need to ask your self that will help you pick the right credit card for you and maximize your airline miles rewards.
The most important question you want to ask your self is what is your goal for getting the card – is it just to get the maximum airline miles for every dollar spent or do you have a …

This article (in two parts) is going to help you travel thru the maze of choices of Airline Miles Credit Cards and help you pick the right card for you. Part one here is a survey of the landscape of the cards available. Part two will contain a series of questions and a flowchart to help you pick the right card.
Search on Airline Miles Credit Cards on Google and you will get pages and pages of all kinds of cards out there. Some of the offers seem absolutely unbelievable – …

You may not know the balance of your checking account, but you know your airline frequent miles account balance – both RDM and EQM!
You refer to cities by their airport codes rather than their regular names. ‘My parents live in CMH, but we are originally from MSY…’
Your family is surprised to hear that other peoples families actually have to pay for the tickets to their vacations
You catch any mistakes in the pre-flight safety announcement made by the Flight Attendant
You know which airline flies out of which gate at your home …