Five Steps to Start Saving Airline Loyalty Points

Sometimes it is difficult to know how to start gathering points and miles. Your first step should always be to understand the trip you wish to take. Only by knowing where you want to go and how many will be traveling, can you begin to understand how many points and mile you may need.

But then what? How do you start? This is where I recommend having a strategy. With so many travel awards credit card welcome bonuses out there,it is easy to be pulled in a direction that may not serve you best.

So, if you are at the point where you are ready to start acquiring points and miles, there is one step you must take first. You must assess your current situation.

Take Stock of Your Current Situation

By take stock, I mean you need to look at a number of things in order to judge which path will get you to your points gathering goal the quickest. This means you need to assess where you stand right now. Unless you have never flown or stayed in a hotel in your entire life you have some history that needs to be considered.

Here are five things you should look at when starting to accumulate points and miles.

#1: Current Points and Miles Balances

The first question to ask is what points and miles do you currently have? This is important because existing points and miles can be the foundation of your miles accumulation and set you well on your way to your free trip. So, check all of those active and dormant accounts. You never know what is there. And if you have an account that you’re not sure is still active, call the loyalty program and have them check for you.

When I started I had a decent number of miles on American and United airlines. I also had some seemingly insignificant balances in some hotel accounts that I thought were long since expired. But I called to double check and it turned out I had enough points to cobble together an additional free night on a recent trip to Paris.

#2: Employer’s Loyalty Program Preferences

If you travel for business, does your employer have a preferred airline or airlines that they want you to use? Many employers that have employees travel a lot have preferred travel partners that they have often worked out preferential rates with. Regardless, if your employer has preferred hotel and airlines they like to use, and you travel for work, leveraging business travel is a great way to accumulate miles and points on someone else’s dime.

Over the years I’ve worked for several large corporations and most of them have had preferred travel partners. If you travel for work,you know how the miles can add up fast. For my most recent employer I traveled around the country regularly for business as well as a trip to Japan. This amount of travel gave me a decent number of miles as well as status on United,my employer’s preferred airline. I also accumulated a number of points in a few hotel programs.

#3: What Airlines Service Your Home Airport?

It is important to understand what airlines service your local airport. For example, if one airline has ten flights out of your airport a day and another offers 200 flights a day, it is much more likely that the airline with more flights will offer a flight to your desired destination when the time comes.

I know this seems obvious, but it’s an important piece of information. If you get an amazing credit card offer with a welcome bonus of 60,000 miles but it is on an airline that does not really service your market or offers minimal service, it may not be such a great offer after all.

If you live in a larger city like New York, LA, or Chicago, this is less of a factor because your area is serviced by most airlines. Other markets serve as hubs for one or more airline: Atlanta, Denver, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Philadelphia, just to name a few. But in smaller markets you may only be sufficiently serviced by one or two airlines. Understanding who services your market is important.

I live in Los Angeles. This means that American and United are good domestic choices for me since they both have a lot of flights out of LAX. If I lived close to Atlanta for example, it would be a different story, and Delta would be the strongest option since that is their main hub. Look at where you live to determine which airlines offer the most flights near you.

Also keep track of changes as airlines can leave or enter a market. In my market, Los Angeles, Delta has invested millions of dollars over the last couple of years in a new terminal, lounge and increasing flights. This means that Delta is now a strong competitor and yet another option for me.

#4: Do You Have Any Preferences?

The next thing to factor in are any airline preferences you have. If you’ve flown, is there an airline that you like more than the others?

This assessment can be based on a number of different criteria. For some, price could be the most important factor which would lead them to discount carriers. Others may feel the determining factor could be the number of destinations in an airline’s portfolio.

I like larger airlines that serve a lot of destinations and have a loyalty program that is relatively lucrative. On the other hand, I do not like the bare bones service and limited loyalty programs of discount carriers.

#5: How Big is Their Airline Alliance?

No single airline can take you everywhere. This is where airline alliances come in. Airlines partner with other carriers from other nations in order to give customers the option to fly to markets that they do not service themselves, or they may service the market but not as comprehensively as an alliance partner.

Look at the airline’s global alliance partners. Each of the three main legacy carriers, American, Delta and United, are members of the largest airline alliances. These are partnerships that allow travelers to travel among alliance partners as if they were all one airline.

For example, if you have Delta miles, you can use them to fly on Delta or on their Sky Team Alliance partners. I really like the alliance partners that United has. Lufthansa, in the same alliance as United, is one of my favorite ways to fly to Europe. United has many other highly rated partners as well, as do all of the alliances. Consider which alliance is most appealing to you.

• American = One World
• Delta = SkyTeam
• United = Star Alliance
• There are other great options to fly smaller airlines as well. Alaska and Jet Blue are both highly rated, but I’m focusing on the three larger airlines for simplicity and because I feel they offer the most options.

Once you have completed this initial assessment, it should become fairly clear where your starting point should be. For me, United was the clear winner.

My Personal Assessment Results

Things to Consider	American	Delta	United
Current Miles Balances	X		X
Airline Status			X
Employer Preferred Carrier			X
Where You Live	X	X	X
Airline Preference	–	–	–
Alliance Partners			X

As the chart above clearly illustrates, the fact that I had miles and status on United, it was my employer’s preferred carrier, my city is a major hub, I don’t favor any of the legacy carriers, but I like United’s alliance partners, it would be foolish for me not to use United as a starting point. What does your grid look like?

Conclusion

Starting to accumulate points and miles can seem like a daunting task that could seemingly take an eternity. It’s easy to wonder if you’ll even have enough miles and points for a free trip. But by starting with a strategy that has, at its core, an assessment of where you stand, you will have a solid and efficient path to accumulating points and miles. And before you know it, you’ll be well on your way to that free trip.