Triangle Trip

No airline miles are useless. Airline miles, next to SPG points, are a very valuable currency even though they are being devalued daily. You should set a notification in your calendar to alert you to check your frequent flyer miles every year. If you have not done so, check your old frequent flyer programs and look for a great deal. I just found one on American Airlines which also allows you to book one way trips unlike other airlines.

Alternatively, here are just a few easy ways to keep your miles from expiring:

1.  Use your miles to redeem for a magazine subscription – which I’ve been doing for the past several years.
2.  Tie your frequent flyer account to the Rewards Network mileage dining program. Here’s the link.
3.  Or you could do what I did below:

My friends and I decided to sign up for the Paris Marathon occurring in April 2015.  And more recently, I got the expiring American Airlines miles e-mail notice.  I only had 20,000 so odd miles from 5 or 6 years ago that I never touched and almost forgot about.  Little did I expect I could purchase a San Francisco (SFO) to Paris (either airport) flight for 20K miles one-way.  With all the devaluation going on at airlines, this was a pleasant surprise.  I booked an USAirways flight (AA partner)  for 20k with one stop in Charlotte and minimal fees.  Note that British Airways (another OneWorld partner) requires you to pay an excessive stopover in London for $300+.

If your USAir miles somehow expired, refer to our previous post to get re-activated.

Good article from the Wall Street Journal regarding the recent flurry of elite qualifying mileage promotions:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123966495750415057.html

Here’s Triangle Trip’s recent post regarding Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM or MQM for Delta).

United announced that they will offer Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) from today to June 15, 2009 (here’s the link to register). With this promotion, you can make Premier Executive on UAL with 5 coast-to-coast trips. United obviously did this promotion in response to American Airline’s recently EQM promotion (here’s the link to register). Had you gone with UAL’s previous offer of paying for EQM or miles to gets status (see my previous post blasting on UAL for being desperate), you’d feel like a total fool.

So … will ghetto Delta be the next airline to offer a similar promotion? Delta did a similar promotion in 2008. It would not surprise me to see them counter UAL and AA in the next day or two.

All airlines have depreciated their mileage programs and offering fast track to obtaining status. What’s the value of earning actual miles and having loyalty to an airline? Hence we recommend you book hotel points with your credit cards (see previous post) and choose the most efficient way to travel as status does not matter on US airlines. The entire industry is heading to a bail out like banks, Detroit, etc.