I realize that many of you are more dedicated to the pursuit of miles and points than I am. And do k

OK, I realize I m probably in the minority here at Boardingarea.com and probably anywhere else in the world of miles and points, but I limit my loyalty. What do I mean? You won t find me attempting to hoard miles and points in tons of different programs. I pretty much stick to a couple of airlines, a couple of hotel chains and maybe a rental car program or two along the way. Throw in Chase Ultimate Rewards and a little bit of Amex Membership Rewards, and I m covered. I don t suppose that I should forget Royal Caribbean s Crown Anchor Society loyalty program either. While it doesn t work like a frequent flier program, I do get perks for cruising with them a lot, so I ve decided to focus on Royal Caribbean (and Celebrity which grants equivalent elite status for Royal Caribbean cruisers) for cruising.
There s a reason I don t pursue a points hoard in a plethora of programs. Primarily, I just don t have the time to keep up with more than a handful. Services like AwardWallet make it easier to track multiple programs, but given the airlines apparently growing antipathy towards services like that, I m beginning to wonder how much longer until other airlines and even hotels jump on the bandwagon of not permitting outside access to our balance information.
With a limited menu of programs that I m willing to invest in, I must choose my programs wisely ..with a focus on those where I m likely to obtain and sustain some level of elite status. Living in Atlanta, my choice is pretty much made for me . I must learn to live with Delta SkyMiles and find ways to make that program work for me. I look at earning elite status and earning redeemable miles as two separate things. Elite status is very important to me for my air travels so I must focus on obtaining jet blue air plane tickets that with the airline I m likely to use most. As a result, I ve pretty much gone full immersion Delta for the time being. SkyMiles are among the most challenging award currencies to use, but I need to increase my SkyMiles stash and that s where my focus is right now.
With SkyMiles notoriously stingy redemption opportunities, one must think about a backup plan. For me, that s either going to be AAdvantage or MileagePlus. I like AAdvantage. In fact, AAdvantage is my favorite all around mileage program. I have lifetime Gold status ..and a few miles in my account. I ll hold on to them, and fly American when it makes sense. But MileagePlus is where I will focus on building my backup miles. United jet blue air plane tickets offers fairly jet blue air plane tickets decent redemption, and the fact that I can instantly transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards points into my MileagePlus account jet blue air plane tickets makes this an easy decision as the Chase Sapphire Preferred card is likely to remain in my wallet for a very long time ..at least as long as the card product remains as good as it is today.
Hotels have become an easier decision for me. My travel patterns just won t allow for me to stick with my favorite program, Starwood Preferred jet blue air plane tickets Guest, exclusively. I ve always struggled with who I should choose as my backup .Hilton or Marriott. I m in another minority blogger category in that I prefer Marriott Hotels to the Hilton brand, but it s easier to maintain mid tier status with Hilton. Reward stays count for elite credit with Hilton, and the threshold for obtaining status jet blue air plane tickets is lower than Marriott. Nonetheless, I still struggled with making the call on this. Then the Hilton HHonors Reserve Card rolled onto the scene. I struggle no more. Hilton Gold status is a benefit of just carrying the card. Hotel loyalty jet blue air plane tickets settled.
I realize that many of you are more dedicated to the pursuit of miles and points than I am. And do know that I don t just forgo the opportunity to collect other currencies. jet blue air plane tickets If I m not using one of my focus program airlines or hotels, I don t just ignore their loyalty program, I just do not dedicate time to keeping up with other programs. I am sitting on enough Dividend Miles to fly us to Europe roundtrip in Business Class, and it s only a matter of time and opportunity before jet blue air plane tickets we do just that. However, I personally struggle to stay on top of dozens of programs. Keeping my focus on a select handful that benefit me the most is a strategy that works best for me and has helped me continue to travel well. Like all things mileage program jet blue air plane tickets related, YMMV. Look for a future post on cruise loyalty.
Good post. Like you, I stick to a few programs, AMX, Delta (good flights out of Boston usually and I have PLT status), jet blue air plane tickets and Starwoods (points from stays not a card). Having said that, I want to maybe expand to one more airline program. I cleared out my BA account (I still have the BA Visa) this year for a trip to HK and Bali and I have a AAdvantage account with no miles, but my wife flies UA for work so she has a small stash of points. I am trying to find the convergence of these programs that might be the most effective (an impossible task?) What are you thoughts? I would switch to AA for flying but I may not fly enough this year to maintain PLT so not sure flying AA next year worth the switch. With their ongoing financial issues and it seems like you have to fly 100K a year to make it worth while I am not sure this is a good move either.
I ve actually sung the praises of Alaska Mileage Plan on multiple occasions like here and here . Of course, I now live in a Delta hub, so that settles the question for me. As always, YMMV. Whether or not I elect to offer my thoughts on certain card products that I have benefited from as part of a post and include affiliate links depends on the topic. You, and all readers, are free to consider those offers or not at your leisure.
Same here, with United as my airline and Starwood as the hotel chain. I live in SF and travel to Asia and London a lot so United makes the most sense (not to mention SF is a hub). I also rack up lots of Amex points on my work credit card (to the tune of 15k/month average) and usually bank those with Amex and transfer them as needed or when they have a generous transfer bonus going on. And I just recently started collecting BA miles due to a) a pretty generous Amex transfer bonus a while back, b) the Chase BA sign up bonus, and c) their codeshare flights on Cathay (the best SFO = HKG option IMO).