The Major Frequent Flyer Program Alliances and Their Partners

All major airlines have some sort of loyalty, or frequent flyer program where you can earn various levels of status and privileges based on how many miles you accumulate. In addition. Most of them have partner airlines with whom you can also earn mileage. The miles you earn, serve 2 purposes: one, they can be used for earning free reward tickets, and two, you accumulate 'Elite Miles' towards achieving Elite Status, which allows you varying levels of perks depending on which level you attain. Generally, there are 3 levels of Elite Status; silver, gold and platinum, on most. When you have Elite Status within your own airline's frequent flyer program, their partners will also acknowledge your status so your perks and benefits are portable.

In deciding which frequent flyer program to join, you should start by considering which airline best serves the areas you tend to travel to and from, and also, who their partners are. Below is a list of 3 major frequent flyer program alliances, and their partner airlines:


SKYTEAM

• Aeroflot
• Aeromexico
• Air Europa
• Air France
• Alitalia
• China Southern
• Continental (only until October 24, 2009)
• Copa Airlines
• Czech Airlines
• Delta
• Kenya Airways
• KLM
• Korean Air
• Northwest

STAR ALLIANCE

• Air Canada
• Air China
• Air New Zealand
• ANA
• Asiana Airlines
• Austrian
• BMI
• Continental (starting October 24, 2009)
• Egyptair
• LOT Polish Airlines
• Lufthansa
• Scandinavian Airlines
• Shanghai Airlines
• South African Airways
• Spanair
• SWISS
• TAP Portugal
• THAI
• Turkish Airlines
• United
• US Airways

ONE WORLD ALLIANCE

• American Airlines
• British Airways
• Cathay Pacific
• Finnair
• Iberia
• Japan Airlines
• LAN
• Malev
• Qantas
• Royal Jordanian

Our Exclusive On All-Inclusive

What is an All-Inclusive resort? Basically they are hotels that provide lodging and unlimited meals, alcohol, and activities in the daily rate. They are usually gated, protected communities... so that there is not much reason to leave, however, included activities often extend to off site locations, such as tour visits to local attractions and adventure packages such as rafting or swimming with dolphins. The types of resorts available vary from inexpensive to luxurious, but they are almost all concentrated in warm locations. They are ideal for the kind of vacation where you just want to kick back and relax and are usually not ideal for folks who really want to explore a country and culture. They are also not a wise economic choice if you are not planning to take advantage of the meals and activities.

Generally, staying in one location on our trip is not how we prefer to travel, however we do enjoy a change of pace every now and then and the break from having an itinerary. We also sometimes like to balance out our long trips by spending a few days at an all-inclusive and the other days exploring.

Recently, we found that the Sun Palace in Cancun, New Mexico (pictured above) lived up to all the positive hype. We highly recommend it. For you trivia buffs out there, although Club Med is generally credited with inventing the all-inclusive resort, Frenchman's Cove in Port Antonio, Jamaica actually holds the title.... also highly recommended, though no longer all-inclusive.

Dining Rewards... a.k.a. Airmiles for Eating

Most airmiles programs partner with the Rewards Network and allow you to also earn miles when dining at certain restaurants. The Rewards Network is often seamlessly integrated with your airmiles program. There are no extra or hidden costs for you, and it is completely automated once you take a few minutes to set things up. You just need to open an account and register your credit card numbers with the program... up to 5 cards, and, then any time you dine at a participating restaurant with one of these cards, airmiles will magically post directly to your airmiles program account usually within a week. These really are free miles that you are likely missing out on, especially if you eat out with any regularity.

Generally, you will accrue miles at a rate of at least 3 per dollar spent, however, there are often promotions and incentives that can increase that rate. Our favorite is the one that kicks in after a number of dines within a calendar year (usually between 10-15); the rate then jumps to at least 5 miles per dollar spent for all dines for the remainder of the year. When you do this on a credit card that also gives you miles for purchases, these miles are in addition to the miles that you get per dollar spent on the card, so this often means you are getting at least 4 miles per dollar spent. The particular rates, of course, vary depending on the airmiles program.

Although only a small percentage of restaurants in a city will choose to participate, you can often find a few that you like. You can search for participating restaurants here. We have our favorites, but it is a nice surprise when we eat someplace new and discover it has netted us some additional miles. And, every now and then, we browse the list and look for a new place, esp. if we know we are about to spend a lot on a meal.

You can belong to many dining rewards programs, i.e. one for each participating airmiles program, however, a credit card can only be associated with one airmiles program at a time. We recommend choosing the dining rewards for one airmiles program and adding all of your credit cards to it.

For your reference, here are some quicklinks for registering for dining rewards with our favorite airmiles programs. Happy Dining!

• Northwest WorldPerks Dining for Miles
• Delta SkyMiles Dining
• United Mileage Plus Dining
• Unfortunately, Continental OnePass no longer participates in the Rewards Network and has no dining rewards program at the moment.
  

Airmiles, Do You Have What It Takes?

Although it is easy to do, collecting airmiles takes some effort. It adds a few extra steps to the travel planning process and those extra steps will require a little bit of your time. A little extra time translates into a lot of inconvenience... if you have not found the right motivation. To this end, picture yourself seeing Paris or London for the first time, walking over a lava field on the Big Island in Hawaii, visiting the Taj Mahal, strolling down the Vegas strip, or wherever it is that you would like to be that seems unattainable at the moment; and keep that vision in mind. This is what it is all about for us as well. We keep our eyes on the prizes. As a result, we have come to view those extra steps as the tools that help us to achieve our travel goals. They are no longer inconveniences, but opportunities that we are excited to discover and use to our advantage whenever possible.

Collecting airmiles also requires a bit of patience. Airmiles are not something you can amass in an instant nor are they a discount program that allows you to save on a trip that you are planning right now. You collect airmiles so that 6 months from now, you can take a trip or several trips and ideally many more!

If you can find your motivation (i.e. picture yourself traveling), roll-up your sleeves and put in a little extra effort, and recognize that it will take a little time, we promise you that you will see great results. We have taken countless trips on airmiles and are eagerly planning where to go next with our stockpiles... and, of course, how to earn more miles!

A review is only as good as the reviewer

Yay! Trip Advisor has recently added an invaluable feature to its reviews: a history of the reviewer right next to their screen name. We use Trip Advisor a lot; in fact, we never book a hotel without checking it out first. Trip Advisor is a free travel guide and research website that hosts reviews from its users and other information designed to help plan your vacation. The review database is sizable, with reviews of over 400,000 hotels and over 90,000 attractions around the world. Most reviews are helpful and really go above and beyond what you might find on a hotel-booking site but occasionally there are extreme reviews; either extremely favorable, or extremely poor. When I see those, I always look up the history of the reviewer to see if it’s just a troll or a one-time reviewer venting over a single bad experience which completely skews their review. Well now, you don’t even have to leave the page to find that out; you can roll your mouse over their names and see immediately how many posts they’ve put up and if you actually want to see some of the past reviews, that information is one click away. Now this already great resource is even better!

The Expedia 24-hour Sale... hotel deals in a hurry

If you haven't already, consider making the Expedia 24-hour Sale site a part of your travel planning repertoire. This site is truly an undiscovered gem. We know that there are a ton of hotel booking resources available online, but, if you are flexible on your choice of hotel and/or looking to save a few dollars, the Expedia 24-hour Sale site can reveal some remarkable discounts. There is one catch... these hotel deals are available for one day only (from midnight to 11:59 PM, Pacific Standard Time). To be clear, you can book your stay in advance, however, you have to actually make the reservation the day that you see the deal.

This isn't an empty recommendation. We have used this site several times to book hotels and each of these were instances when we were not expecting to find a deal anywhere, for example, a decent hotel with availability in Waikiki for under $100 per night in the week between Christmas and New Years. That was quite a find. We don't always find a great deal here, but we do often enough to keep this site very much on the radar.

One note of caution when purchasing through Expedia, check the refund policy before you hit the final submit button. We find that some reservations are refundable, while others are not or sometimes incur a change penalty.

Which airmiles and rewards programs should I join?

It should come as no surprise that not all airmiles programs are created equally. What are the differences? And which ones should you join? These are important questions. We can't answer them all in one post, but we can help get you on the right path.

How you collect points in these programs varies. Most programs award you miles based on how many miles you pay for and fly, and they also provide numerous ways to earn additional miles through non-flight-related activity. A handful of programs reward you with points for each segment that you fly, e.g. a non-stop flight is 1 point, but a flight with 1 layover is 2 segments and thus 2 points. Some programs even provide both types of rewards system. We lean toward programs that offer miles rather than points.

Every major airline has a travel reward program. We believe that it is a good idea to belong to several of them. At the moment, we recommend Continental OnePass, Northwest WorldPerks, and Delta Skymiles, because these programs provide the best opportunities to both earn and redeem miles. Many other programs out there tease you with great opportunities to earn miles, but then make it very difficult to find available seats when you try to redeem those miles. The three programs that we recommend don't always provide you with the perfect seats on the perfect dates, but they do so more often than other programs. We also really like that they are a part of the SkyTeam alliance and have reciprocity with each other (as well as other airlines) which gives us more options. They also offer very competitive prices for their airfares which makes earning miles on paid flights a bit easier on our wallets, which is a farily important part of our strategy in collecting miles.

There are some major changes on the horizon however. In December of 2009, Northwest WorldPerks will collapse into Delta Skymiles. Also, in October of 2009, Continental OnePass will no longer be affiliated with the SkyTeam program. This, of course, means that we may need to change our strategies for collecting airmiles... more about that in a future post.

So, when should you join these reward programs? Often, the programs will give you additional miles when you sign-up. Ordinarily, you may want to monitor for a while to see when they have one of these promotions as it can sometimes net you a great deal of bonus miles. Of course, the longer you sit out, the longer you are NOT accumulating airmiles. We recommend that you just jump in and get that airmile wheel running as soon as possible, esp. since there are changes to these programs on the horizon. It is in your interest to collect as many airmiles as possible, before some of these opportunities go away for good!

Why are we so excited about Airmiles?

We think that airmiles are the greatest invention since the airplane itself! Why? Because airmiles are essentially what enable us to take amazing trips to distant places while paying nothing or only a nominal fee for airfare. We have used airmiles to travel to Europe, Central America, and Hawaii, and plan to use them for many more trips to come!

So, what are airmiles? Airmiles (aka frequent flyer miles or rewards programs) are points that all major airlines allow you to collect that can then be redeemed for air travel (or other products and services). A point is generally earned for each mile that you fly and/or each dollar that you spend. Why is this such a great thing? Because it is actually not that difficult to collect a significant number of airmiles -- through strategic travel choices, wise credit card use, and being savvy about how you make everyday purchases and payments. For example, purchasing a gift on a store's website rather than in person will often net you airmiles, and often several airmiles for each dollar spent, plus a dollar for each mile on your credit card. To sweeten the deal, sometimes stores even give you a slight discount for purchasing an item online and even throw in free shipping!

If you are strategic about what you do with the airmiles once that you have them, it often works out for some rather exceptional deals -- like visiting Provence or Hawaii during peak seasons when ticket prices are the most expensive, or making trips to locations that are always expensive, for example, Asia, the South Pacific, and Australia. This is why we are excited about airmiles! They essentially enable us to do more of the thing that we love most and to visit amazing places that would ordinarily be out of our financial reach.

So, how do you get started, what rewards programs are best, and how do you get started?! More to come in upcoming posts...

What's all the buzz about Kayak Buzz?

We have found that a great place to get travel ideas and find great air fare deals is Kayak Buzz. We have discovered several insanely cheap deals on it and it is one of the first tools we reach for when planning a trip. So, what is so great about Kayak Buzz? This site allows you to search the results of recent air fare searches on key travel sites from a departure point of your choice to the top 25 destinations in 10 regions of the world. This makes it a pretty useful tool as it replaces the need to do a separate search for each destination of interest, and instead, presents you with 25 options for the best place to go depending on your dates and budget, since you can further fine tune the results by lowest fare, length of trip, and even specific airline. The lowest fare option, of course, being the one that displays the sweet deals. An added bonus is that a search will often reveal destinations that hadn't already crossed your mind thus making it a great starting place when you are itching to take a trip, but are not quite sure yet where you want to go.

Alas, there is some room for improvement. It would be great if Kayak also allowed you to search purely for the lowest fares available from a destination, but at the moment it first chooses the top 25 destinations within a region and only then allows you to drill-down on the lowest fares for those destinations. This means that places like Vanuatu, do not often show up and you have to specifically search for that destination. Also, if a destination is not that popular, you cannot be sure that Kayak is finding all the deals for it, since it is only searching the results of searches by other users. If Vanuatu, again for example, is not a popular destination, it may not discover that a particular airline is having a great deal in a particular month from your local airport. These gripes don't at all detract from the value of Kayak Buzz, but, if these options were a part of it, it would truly be a formidable travel resource.

Have you had any good experiences with Kayak Buzz? Do you know of any other similar tools on the web? Please share.