I know you’re fed up. You’re sitting on 25,000, or 100,000 or 1 Million frequent flyer miles and you just can’t figure out how to use them to see the Statue of Liberty, the Pyramids of Giza, the Sydney Opera House, or the Great Wall of China. Every time you look online, the award seats are booked and you’re about ready to throw in the towel.
The good news is that I’m here to help. I’ve used frequent flyer miles to see every one of those places, and most of the time I’ve flown first class. Over the last five years I’ve used over 2 Million frequent flyer miles to visit six continents on tickets that would’ve cost me over $150,000 if I had actually paid for the flights. Here’s how I book my travel, every single time:
#1 Know Who Your Partners Are
Every major US Airline has international partners, and you can use your miles on them in the same way you can on your flagship airline. For my honeymoon I used 125,000 Continental Miles (each) to book first class tickets around Europe and the Middle East valued at over $15,000 per ticket. The routing goes from San Diego to Washington D.C. on United Airlines, D.C. to London on Virgin Atlantic, and London to Jordan on bmi airlines. On the way back it’s Lufthansa from Venice to D.C., and then back from D.C. on United. I used all of those Continental miles, and I’m not on a single Continental Airlines flight! Partners are what make the redemption world go around.
#2 Look at the Partner Route Maps
Once you have your destination picked out, you need to know which partner airlines fly there. Every airline has a route-map published somewhere on the web (I’ve compiled them all for you at milesjunky.com) which points out all of the airline hubs, and which cities they fly to from those hubs. Sure, it would be nice to get that direct flight to Europe on United, but that flight is often fully booked. Instead you could take Air Canada through Toronto and make it their almost as easily.
Once you know the route maps of the partner airlines, you can simply connect the dots to anywhere in the world you want to go. This will be especially important for the next two steps.
#3 Always Call the Airline
If you’re trying to book an award ticket online, you are not getting all of the partner options. You’re probably not even getting half of the options. It’s that simple. Many of the partner airlines run on completely different booking systems that are not integrated within the website of your mileage provider. Therefore you’re only getting the parent airlines inventory and maybe a couple of partners, which is why you can’t seem to book any flights. When you call in you’ll be able to check every option, and if your desired flight is also available online you can always book it yourself to avoid any fees.
#4 Tell the Phone Attendant What You Want
You’d be surprised by how many phone attendants don’t understand the frequent flyer programs any better than you do. They are good at pulling information together, but YOU need to tell them what information to pull. Now that you know your partners, and you know the routes that they fly, it’s up to YOU to be the director here. Mention the different route’s that you’ve researched, and if you’re really diligent (like me) you can even tell them the exact flight numbers and dates that you’d like to book. At that point the attendant simply plugs in your inputs and tells you the availability. If you feel as if the attendant isn’t being helpful, just hang up and redial for a new person. We all do it!
#5 Plan At Least 6 Months Ahead and Be Flexible
From six weeks out to at least six months out is “no man’s land” when it comes to most award seats. No matter how many options you uncover in your partner research, reward seats still have limited availability and they book up fast. Deciding in January that you’d like to see Paris in the spring is not going to cut it. Most flight calendar’s open up 331 days before take-off, and if you’re looking for premium flights you’ll want to book that far in advance. As long as you’re somewhat flexible with your flight times and partner routings, you should be able to find something in the six to ten months range. Otherwise, you’ll be left to see what award seats are released in the weeks leading up to the flight, which are impossible to bank on.
If you’re worried about booking that far in advance, don’t be. The fee for cancelling an award ticket and putting the miles back into your account is almost always less than $100 and sometimes totally free. I booked my first class award ticket to Australia 11 months in advance when I had no idea if my schedule would actually permit me to go on the trip. Once I put that “possible” vacation up on the calendar, a funny thing happened. I started planning for it and eventually made my schedule work around it. You should try the same. You could end up scoring the trip of a lifetime, and the downside is minimal!
Use www.MarsFrequentFlyer.com as Your Workbook (not compatible with all browsers yet)
MARS Frequent Flyer compiles every different Partner and Alliance for all of the US Airlines. Rather than jumping around to 15 different sites in order to book your award travel, we have aggregated all the information in one space. We even link in the credit cards that transfer into mileage programs. On each page you have one-click access to research route maps, frequent flyer booking engines, and general information such as the reward booking phone number for each airline.
Armed with this easy to use information, you should be able to start booking award tickets today. Stop waiting to use your frequent flyer miles. There’s a big world out there and the best way to see it is from the window of a free flight. Enjoy!
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