One of my readers Jack asked a question after I posted my post on Earning United Miles on Jet Airways flights. In the article I talked about how I did not pay attention to the booking class I was being booked into on Jet Airways and I earned no United miles, as a result. His question was how does one pick a booking class when using online search engines. The answer is that it depends on the search engine. If you are using a generic search engine like Expedia or …

I am one of the few people who values hotel points more than airline miles. For airlines I care more about status and the perks I get – like upgrades and lounge access, but for hotels it’s about the free stays. While airline miles can add up real fast and get free flights all over the world, the flights are never ever actually free. There are taxes, fuel surcharges, sometime booking fees and whatnot. Hotel awards are really free! I just stayed at a Marriott recently and there was NO …

Yes, it has happened! As I had predicted in my last post, BMI has announced that in parallel with it’s exit from Star Alliance, it will allow for BMI Diamond Club Destination miles to be transferred to British Airways Executive Club Avios and vice versa. While the two programs have not been merged, they are now equal partners. BA is also reciprocating status between the two programs and allowing privileges like lounge access to each others Elite members. Full OneWorld membership is coming soon too, for sure.
The official date of …

United and Continental are taking the next big step in their merger this weekend – moving to a new common website. From what I have seen and heard, the new website will be based on the existing continental.com site. I personally liked the Continental site better than United’s. There is a reason United’s site was referred to as .bomb.
As with every big software release, nothing will go wrong… and if you believe that, I have some great deals on houses in Nevada for you. To make sure the transition goes …

Its December. Holiday season, travel time for people to visit family, winter vacation time, but for the mileage junkie (sorry, the ‘mileage aware’ traveler), it is the time to make sure they make their status level. It is the time for the Mileage Run.
I have been fortunate that every year I end up so far away from the next level that I have never had to consider a mileage to reach an Elite Status level. It would take two round the world trip thru Tokyo, Singapore and Dubai (IAD-NRT-SIN-DXB-IAD) to …

In Part I of this article on Airline Upgrades, I discussed the different types of airline upgrades airlines offer and how to get them. One has to understand here that there are only two reasons airlines offer an upgrade:

They have unsold First or Business class seats that they are trying to get revenue for (either cash or unredeemed miles)
They have unsold First or Business class seats and they are using them to reward their customers with Elite Status

There is no third reason. While there is some discretion a Gate …

The Economics of Airline Miles: Part V – Is it all really worth it?
The ‘Economics of Airline Miles’ started off as a single article I was writing on the topic of the ‘Value of Airline Miles’ to us, the travelers. It grew and evolved and took on a life of its own. It is now a five part series, with this being its fifth and concluding installment. I would like to thank all my readers for the interest and the feedback that helped set the direction of this series …

Here we go again – Starting a New Year of earning Miles and Status:

If you are like me, you logged in to your primary mileage account, the one you have Elite Status on, on Jan. 1st and saw a big fat Zero in your Status Miles (EQM) total. For almost every airline in the world, that was the case. There are a few exceptions – some airlines like BMI have a rolling 12-month window over which they award and reset their status miles. This gives every passenger his or her …

How to Maximize Elite Status Miles
In my last article I talked about How to Maximize your Airline Miles. But as I discussed in my article on the Value of Elite status, while earning award miles is great, earning status miles and hence qualifying for different Elite levels is where all the real returns begin. I also talked about the how and what of Elite status in detail in another article. In this article I shall cover some tips and techniques that can help you maximize your Elite Status Miles and …

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 …