Hello, I'm Karl.
I discovered the allure of frequent flyer miles about 15 years ago when I started flying Southwest Airlines on short flights and earned free tickets all over the country. About 6 years ago I upgraded to international travel and have since used over 2 million frequent flyer miles to visit over 50 countries on 6 continents.
I use a combination of points from American Express and actual frequent flyer miles for the majority of my bookings. In doing so, I know how complex the Airline Partners and Alliances have become. I also know that if you understand these complexities you can go wherever you want in the world.
I created the website www.marsfrequentflyer.com to aggregate all of the Alliance information into one spot, which saves me countless hours of time when I'm making a complicated booking. My preference is to save up vast quantities of miles and cash them in for ludicrously expensive international first class tickets. However, I will still trade in miles for smaller increments when I see great value.
As of now here is my status among the various Airline programs:
- Continental OnePass Gold
- Delta SkyMiles Gold
- US Airways Platinum
- Virgin Atlantic Gold
- I have the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass
- I have previously been Silver on United, and Platinum on American Airlines but I do not currently have status on either.
The airline credit cards are tricky. It has always pained me to see my friends choose the wrong airline card and only get a fraction of the benefits that they could be receiving with the correct card. In order to rectify this injustice, I will soon be launching the mother of all airline credit card sites. Stay tuned for that one...
Until then, please enjoy my other insights on how to earn and use your frequent flyer miles to travel the world.
Please feel free to contact me for any reason at: karl@marsfrequentflyer.com
Thanks!
