For those who signed up for a BMI account with the free Silver Status promotion, there is bad news. They won’t be honoring the free status and it would be downgraded to Blue status soon. I got the following email today morning:

Dear ‘The Nomad’
We’re pleased to see that you recently joined our Diamond Club frequent flyer programme. However, I’m writing to you because unfortunately the link you used to join was an exclusive by invitation only offer and as noted in our terms and conditions was non transferable.
Regrettably, we will …

One of the eternal dilemma’s faced by travelers is choosing between a low cost flight ticket and sacrificing the miles that one loses by buying that ticket, or buying higher fare tickets that will earn the full miles. Yes, you don’t always earn one mile for every mile flown.
Airlines sell tickets in different fare buckets. In the case of some airlines all fare buckets do not earn 100% miles. In fact, some fare buckets may earn no miles at all.
Cheap Fare buckets:
All airlines sell airline tickets in different fare buckets. …

As I was updating the spreadsheet I use to track my miles over the weekend, I happened to glance down at the bottom row, where I show a grand total of all my miles. It said 1,001,238. Cool! I wish it was bank balance that read that, but miles balance is a good start. I am no way anywhere near hard core road-warriors who travel over a million miles in a year (I am an UN-road-warrior, remember). Gary from View from the Wing just wrote a blog post about the …

All about Airline Upgrades:
Editorial Note: This is my first article as a blog hosted on BoardingArea.com. I would like to personally thank Randy Petersen for the invite to move over and to the excellent staff of BoardingArea.com who made this a smooth transition both for me and my readers. I consider it an honor to join all the travel Bloggers who are already a part of the BoardingArea.com community.
If you fly much, especially on long flights, you probably savor the idea of getting an upgrade. Be it for the flat …

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 …

Airline miles you earn are an asset. They represent a reward owed to you by the airline whose program you have earned the miles on. If that airline goes thru a merger, acquisition or bankruptcy, it can adversely affect the value of or even existence of all your hard earned miles. This article takes a look at airline mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies and how they can affect your airline miles.
In today’s turbulent economic times, we are seeing the airline industry go thru serious consolidation. Just in the US, Frontier Airlines …

How to Maximize Airline Mile Earnings
In my previous articles in the series ‘Economics of Airline Miles’ I covered the Value of Airline Miles in part 1 and the Value of Elite Status in part 2. Continuing in the series, in this article I will discuss practical tips on how to maximize the airline miles you earn. As I mentioned in part 1 of this series, your airline miles are an asset. Treat your collection of airline mile accounts like a portfolio. To borrow a quote from the greatest portfolio owner …