Getting Started

Getting started is half the battle, right?  You want to be able to take free first class flights to Europe and stay in a fancy hotel for free but you have no idea how to do it without being on the road 200 night a year.  Below are some of the basics to get started on this journey and in this game (because it really is a game).  Hopefully you are doing some of these already, but others may be new to you.  I will be putting together more detailed posts on some of these areas as we go but this should serve as a fairly comprehensive guide.

Step 1: Understand What is Possible and What is Not Possible
Step 2: Sign up for Frequent Traveler Accounts with Hotels and Airlines and Others
Step 3: Use Credit Cards the Right Way
Step 4: Create Goals and Work Towards Them
Step 5: Find Creative Ways to Earn Points/Miles

Step 1: Understand What is Possible and What is Not Possible

We have have goals in life and in travel.  Some are 100% doable, others are not.  If you are expecting to get an award ticket for round trip to Europe that is 100% doable.  If you are expecting it in 3 weeks or without putting in some effort that is not going to happen.  Understand what it takes to get what you want and know how long it might take to get there.  This will help keep you positive and motivated.  Not being able to reach an unrealistic goal is a great way to get discouraged and give up too soon.  I can tell you that with not a lot of extra effort you can take really nice vacations at very low costs, just not every month.  Keep things reasonable and you will be successful and very happy.  Trust me.  Now on to the good stuff.

Step 2: Sign up for Frequent Traveler Accounts with Hotels and Airlines and Others

Airlines are organized in 3 major alliances (OneWorld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance) and there are other
airlines which do not belong to any of these.  I have organized the airlines under these three groups.  As I will discuss in greater detail later it makes sense to focus on 1 airline per alliance but it still makes sense to at least have an account with each airline.  They are free and it can't hurt to have.  If you don't want to fill out all these forms I recommend starting with the major ones (American, United, Delta, etc) now and then sign up for the others as needed.

OneWorld:
American
Alaska
British Airways 
Iberia
Qantas
Lan
  
Star Alliance:
ANA
bmi
Qatar
United
US Airways


SkyTeam:
Air Canada Aeroplan 
Air France/KLM Flying Blue 
Alitalia
Delta 
Korean 

Others:
Airtran 
Emirates
Frontier
JetBlue
Southwest (Use promo code GNAVRPDRWDS for 250 free points)
Virgin America
Virgin Atlantic

There are other airlines that I have not mentioned here but this is the vast majority of airlines that you can easily earn miles for (or transfer miles to) in the US.


Now for the hotels.  There are not as many hotel groups as there are airlines so you won't have as much work to do here.  You should be able to sign up for at least the majority of these in short order.  I included some of the main brands each group has in case you don't recognize the names.  Again, I will discuss the details of the groups, the value of their points, and overall strategies in a later post.



 
Accor (Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery)
Best Western
Club Carlson (Radisson, Country Inn & Suites, Park Inn, Park Place)
Choice Hotels (Comfort Inn, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion, EconoLodge)
Fairmont
Hilton (Hilton., Conrad, Homewood Suites, DoubleTree, Hilton Garden Inn, Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn)
Hyatt (Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Andaz, Summerfield Suites)
La Quinta
Loews
Marriott (Marriott, JW Marriott, Renaissance, Ritz-Carlton, Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn)
Omni
Priority Club (Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn, Hotel Indigo, Candlewood Suites, Staybridge Suites)
Starwood (Westin, W, Sheraton, 4Points, Element, St. Regis, Luxury Collection, aLoft, Le Meridien)
Wyndham (Wyndam, Ramada, Days Inn, Super 8, Baymont, Howard Johnson)



Then come the rental car companies.  Not many of these at all.  I advise signing up for them all now but you can always wait until they are needed.


Avis
Enterprise
Hertz
National
Thrifty


Now that you have put your personal info into all of those forms, take a breather for a minute.  To keep track of all these new account (and hopefully some existing ones) use an online manager like awardwallet.com.  It is a great tool to store everything in one place and keep track of it.  Best of all, it is free.
Once your hands have recovered, move on to Step 3.


Step 3: Use Credit Cards the Right Way



This is not a full primer on credit card spending or strategies.  That will come later as it is important but can get complicated.  What you need to know is that credit card spending and sign up bonuses will be the single largest contributor to your miles/point balances.  There are single program cards (SPG Amex, Citibank American Airlines Visa, Chase United Visa, etc) and there are mutli-program cards (Chase Sapphire, American Express Rewards Gold,etc).  These points go into a proprietary program run by these companies which can be transferred to other programs at some transfer rate.  Most of these are 1:1 but sometimes it is 2:1 or even 1:2.  Learning about these programs and using them, can allow you to be very flexible when planning your redemption.  I will be putting together another much longer post about what I think are the best cards and why later.  For now, just know that this will be the key to growing your point stashes and reaching your goals.


Step 4: Create Goals and Work Towards Them

Speaking of goals, you need to set them and work towards them.  My advise is set your goals somewhat broadly.  Don't plan your entire trip now and then expect to use miles and points to pay for it.  Set a goal like, "I want to go to France next summer."  Don't pick and airline, a hotel, or even a specific time frame from the get go.  Saying "I want to go to Sydney on Quantas for Labor Day 2012" may be too specific to be achievable without spending a decent amount out of pocket.  The more flexibility you have up front the better.  Here is a good example.  My wife and I wanted to go to Italy on our honeymoon.  Those two were decided but we didn't pick an airline, hotels, or even which cities to start and end in until we did some homework.  We found award space on Iberia into Rome and out of Milan in business class and went from there.  If we had needed to be on American or Alitalia we may not have been able to use miles for the flights.  Our dates were not flexible but the rest was.
Once you know what you want (with some flexibility) start looking at the available options.  I will show you in a later post how to find award space on different alliances and airlines or hotels.  For now just know there are a number of ways to do it.  After finding what you want and what makes the most sense based on your current point balances and earning possibilities between now and when you need to book.
After all that is done, start taking advantage of those earning possibilities.  Award space is not around forever and often goes quickly.  That is another reason that flexibility helps.  I advise booking flights first (award space is tighter and there are fewer options to start) and then hotels.  There are plenty of hotels in most cities and paying for a night or two (or even all of them) is often less expensive than a single plane ticket when you are traveling internationally.

Step 5: Find Creative Ways to Earn Points/Miles

Creative ways to earn points is the bulk of what you will find in future posts.  These will be new techniques, simple opportunities, and tips for maximizing both the earning and the burning of the points.  While there are always new things out there (this is a very creative community) here are some of the most common:

Credit card spending and bonuses
Mileage shopping portals
Airline/Hotel promotions
Surveys and online promotions
Social Media
Actually flying or staying in hotels (OK, this one is not very creative)


That is all for now.  I will be filling in the gaps over the coming weeks and months but if you have questions now please let me know!

What exactly is this?

I love to travel. I enjoy seeing new places and experiencing new cultures. My day job is inside sales though. That keeps me from being on the road too much. I still want to enjoy as many of the perks and benefits of traveling frequently without all that time in the air, on the road, and away from home. This allows for not only better experiences but also for me to spend less when I do it. I hope to be able to share what I know and what I can find out there for everyone who is like me. Those of you who love to travel and want to be in first class to Europe and Asia, stay in suites in nice hotels, but not go broke doing it. There are a lot of secrets out there that I will let you in on. Some are well known to the frequent traveler community but others are my own.
I hope this site will allow me to share my experiences and knowledge with all of you and also get everyone out there's feedback so I can be even better and share those experiences with you. I am always open to new ideas and thoughts to please share them with me. I am looking forward to starting here and hope it is the start of something big!