If you’re like 85% of Americans, then you probably believe most of these myths are facts.
And if you’re the other 15%, you’re most likely trying to constantly convince people that these myths aren’t true and that frequent flyer miles really can help you travel around the world for pennies.
Interestingly enough, I’ve been on both sides.
2.5 years ago, I didn’t have a single frequent flyer mile to my name.
It was because I believed these myths.
But then I began to dig deeper, to uncover the real truth about frequent flyer miles.
And within 2 years, I was staring at more than 1 million frequent flyer miles.
I was traveling all over the world and paying next to nothing.
And now, I’m debunking these myths about frequent flyer miles so that you can do the same.
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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
- The 6 ways to earn frequent flyer miles.
- How I earned 9,000 points for a hot air balloon ride.
- How to book a $2.50 ticket instead of a $600 one.
- My personal rankings of the best airlines to earn frequent flyer miles with, from 1 to 8.
- The 3 best websites to use to find award availability.
And much more!
Links Discussed in This Episode:
- Best Current Credit Card Deals
- The Truth About Fuel Surcharges series
- Stopovers and Open Jaws Explained
- EPoP 002: The FUNdamentals of Frequent Flyer Miles
Cheers!
Trav
Was the groupon hot air balloon ride just through groupon, or through one of the shopping portals? Which one?
@Alexandra- It was through the Chase shopping portal. So I went to the Chase shopping portal, then clicked on groupon, then it redirected me to groupon’s site, then I bought it. It was for Christmas a few years back.
As far as I can tell the Qantas ( the U in Qantas is spelled YOU) who is old enough to know who this quote belongs to? The Qantas website DOES NOT show availability for Japan Airlines. You can use the airline world’s MOST unfriendly website JAL, or Expert Flyer or similar.
Trav: You are little TOO! optimistic about the use of FF miles, at least on American/One World. If you are single, with no signifiant other, have no job or are retired and can plan on a trip on a moments notice then they are nice, maybe.
What you said about trying to book 331 days in advance in todays climate is in most cases, a myth. Go ahead try to book any seat from SFO to LHR, use a window of 300 to 331 days. for 50K business on American only. You will find NO SEATS, using 100K business and what you find there is NO discounted seats, not one, they locked out all discounts seats for months. If someone beat me to them that’s OK, When all the flights show NO seats booked, that’s a problem for me! Except for ‘free’ tickets business class seats are NOT booked far in advance, not 300 days plus.
@Larry- Definitely valid points. Qantas is the best for searching OneWorld, but it isn’t perfect. I agree with you on that.
And I’ll also agree that American/OneWorld isn’t as good as United and Star Alliance. And most of that reason is that it is very hard, even booking far out, to find seats that you want that on specific flights, especially business class. Most of the time, I’m looking for economy class, so it’s not as big an issue, but biz class does seem to be drying up on AA/OneWorld more and more.
When do you suggest people start looking for biz class tickets at the SAAver award level? Is there another time that they tend to open up?
Great episode! I had to listen to it a few times just to get all the good information written down! I look forward to the accompanying post.
@Margaret- So glad you liked it. It was a lot of information. I’m thinking that maybe next time, I’ll cut it up in to two segments. I never planned to talk that long or about everything I mentioned, but once I start talking frequent flyer miles, I can’t stop. I want everyone to know ALL the secrets!
I’ll get that post out soon!
A blog shouldn’t really have podcasts. Or there should be a transcript.
@AZTravelGuy- A podcast is just another medium to spread the message of frequent flyer miles and travel to people. I used to never listen to podcasts either, but after I started, I couldn’t stop. Now, I prefer them to reading.
But you are right, some people can’t listen to them (like if they are at work or something), so I’ll look in to providing a transcript for each podcast from here on out. Might take a few weeks to figure it out though.
And for this podcast, I’m actually going to be writing a post to accompany it as well because I think it translates well to a post. Trying to keep everyone happy!
“A blog shouldn’t really have podcasts.” LOL – what? I don’t even know where to start with that. Plenty of blogs have podcasts, in fact some may argue that a podcast is a form of blogging.
I really appreciate how you’re pretty much the ONLY FF blog to have podcasts. I know they are not easy to produce – I used to produce them myself and they were only 5 minutes in length. I enjoy podcasts, but I recognize they’re not for everyone. And I rarely see podcasts with transcripts. While it would be nice, show notes usually suffice to show you what’s in the episode.
@Rachel- You’re right, it takes a ton of work to produce. However, I get a ton of enjoyment out of it and I know from the response (55 ratings, 90% 5 stars) that people love it too. And that’s what keeps it going.
I do realize that people learn in different ways (hence the podcast), and will look to provide transcripts. But I think you get a TON more value out of listening to it, since the enthusiasm and energy of the guests doesn’t really shine through the transcript.
Download only a black screen No video.
@Jerry Mandel- It’s a podcast, so it should open a black screen with a play button on it. Then, it will just have audio.