Top 8 Airline Miles Programs – 2016 Edition

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Tara

I last made my recommendations of which airline miles programs to join back in 2012 so with all the changes I think it’s time for an update! Which programs are still good? Which ones no longer exist? Which ones are less valuable than before? How can Australians and Americans get free miles from credit cards? Read on!

WHAT MAKES A PROGRAM “GOOD”?

I attribute greater value to programs which require minimal outlay of cash (no fuel surcharges) and better opportunities to get miles from everyday credit card spend and sign up bonuses.
“Buy miles 100% bonus” deals may have value to people who have cash to outlay but since this is a guide for cash poor people who want to travel I am not including them here.
These recommendations are for eco-tourists so I haven’t considered luxury travel to Europe and Asia redemptions.
Free miles from E-Rewards is a plus.
I have not taken elite programs into account in any of the below programs.
I am not a credit blogger so please use other resources to find the best deals on sign up bonuses.

1. American Airlines AAdvantage – One World member

Has more options between USA and Australia on Qantas, Air Pacific or Air Tahiti Nui, also great for LAN or AA to South America and Africa via Qatar or direct QF flights. Can book several of their partners online with AA planning to add more as they go along. One way awards at half round trip rates. Save AA miles for long hauls if possible, use BA for short haul. No fuel surcharges except BA and IB awards. E-Rewards participant.

Americans get miles from Citibank co-branded cards and the grandfathered Barclays Aviator cards (not available to new applicants). You can also transfer points from SPG best done in blocks of 20k to get 5k bonus.

Australians get miles by transferring preferably blocks of 40k Amex MR points to get 20k SPG, then blocks of 20k SPG to get 5k bonus.

2. United Airlines Mileage Plus – Star Alliance member

Good for awards to South-east Asia on UA, SQ & TG; Central & South America on Copa & Avianca and Africa on South African, Ethiopian and Egypt Air. Also very good for intra-Latin America and intra-Africa. E-Rewards participant.

Americans get miles easily via Chase’s Ultimate Rewards cards and co-branded United Explorer card.

Australians have a much harder time getting miles as the SPG route is a poor value at 20k SPG gets 10k United plus bonus of 2500. Most Aussies will find Singapore a better Star Alliance partner.

3. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer– Star Alliance member.

Don’t keep miles in here if you can’t use them within 3 years because they expire whether you have activity or not. Be careful of fuel surcharges on Asian routes. Good for redemptions on NZ between Australia and Pacific islands & redemptions on Avianca & Copa for Central/South America trips as no fuel surcharges.

Americans get miles from Chase’s Ultimate Rewards cards, Citibank Thank You cards, American Express Membership Rewards & SPG.

Australians get miles from American Express Membership Rewards 1000:1000 and transferable rewards programs from Westpac and ANZ.

4. British Airways Avios and Iberia Avios– One World members

Same Avios currency but you need to join both BA and IB’s versions to maximize it. Pretty easy to earn Avios via E-Rewards and can also credit stays at Accor hotels to Iberia’s program and transfer easily between BA and IB. Not a great program for long haul or itineraries needing connections but excellent for short haul within South America on partner LAN, the BA-Comair flights within Southern Africa or within Australia on partner Qantas. Some nice 5th freedom flights in the Caribbean – Trinidad to St Lucia gets you between 2 islands with good birding.

Americans get miles from Chase’s Ultimate Rewards cards and co-branded British Airways card. You can also transfer points from SPG best done in blocks of 20k to get 5k bonus.

Australians get miles by transferring preferably blocks of 40k Amex MR points to get 20k SPG, then blocks of 20k SPG to get 5k bonus. Aussies need to use a European or American address as they don’t accept memberships with Australian addresses.

5. Flying Blue – Sky Team member

Be careful as most redemptions here attract fuel surcharges. Flying Blue can get you some places that are otherwise very difficult to get to such as Kenya Airways flights to Madagascar and Garuda domestic Indonesia flights (no surcharges). Also use on short haul flights on Gol, Aerolinas Argentinas (no surcharges) and some other interesting partners. Participates in E-Rewards. Miles expire after 20 months of when they were earned unless you credit a Sky Team flight to Flying Blue. Non-flying activities such as credit card spend and E-Rewards don’t renew your expiration date.

Americans get miles from Citibank Thank You cards & Amex Membership Rewards. You can also transfer points from SPG best done in blocks of 20k to get 5k bonus.

Australians get miles by transferring preferably blocks of 40k Amex MR points to get 20k SPG, then blocks of 20k SPG to get 5k bonus.

6. Virgin Velocity – Not in an alliance.

Good for short-haul to New Zealand and Pacific islands, domestic Australia flights and sometimes long haul to USA and Asia. Participates in E-Rewards.

Americans get miles from transfering SPG points best done in blocks of 20k to get 5k bonus. You need an Aussie address to join.

Australians have numerous credit cards (basically every bank in Australia) that earn Velocity points directly or transfer there. Keep an eye out for huge sign on bonuses which have greatly improved in the last year or so. There is a new partnership with BP to get 2 points per litre with occasional targeted bonuses.

7. Etihad Guest – Not in an alliance

I never looked twice at this program until they partnered up with Flybuys. I did a recent review with Aussies in mind (sorry Americans) and found some interesting options with partners and decent value to Africa. Probably not a good program for Americans to join, better to use AA redemptions on Etihad awards. Beware of miles expiring after 2 years, don’t transfer them until you are within booking range. Activity does not renew the expiration.

Americans get miles from Citibank Thank You cards. You can also transfer points from SPG best done in blocks of 20k to get 5k bonus.

Australians get miles from American Express Membership Rewards 1000:1000 and the new Flybuys partnership FB 10,000: EY 4000.

8. Qantas Frequent Flyer – One World member

Use for domestic Australia or short-haul to NZ, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Has fuel surcharges on most routes with the possible exception of LAN intra-South America.

Americans get points from Citibank Thank You cards.

Australians get points from co-branded Qantas cards, just about every bank in Australia has them. Unfortunately the Woolies and Optus partnerships are gone so much harder to get points now outside of credit cards.

Obviously not everyone needs to use ALL these programs. It depends on where you want to go. Situations change so you need to be constantly evaluating. A month ago I wouldn’t have considered Etihad Guest but now I can see getting at least 16,000 free miles each year just by grocery shopping at Coles and using bonuses. From the previous list US Airways Dividend Miles is gone and the Avianca Lifemiles program is no longer as valuable as it once was due to devaluations. It is no longer so easy to get Qantas miles as they eliminated their best “every day spending” partners. American may lose it’s #1 position if they devalue their awards. I say as long as it’s free to join a program, then do so as you never know what deals may come in the future!

Etihad Guest For The Aussie Eco-tourist

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Tara

Etihad Guest is a program that wasn’t really on my radar as I have been concentrating on other programs. (I really need to update my old Top 8 Programs list.) Now that it will become easy for Aussies to get Etihad miles via Flybuys by simply doing their grocery shopping at Coles, it’s time for a closer look at Etihad Guest.

HOW TO GET ETIHAD GUEST MILES

This is geared for non-frequent fliers as there are other blogs who cater for frequent fliers as well as business travelers and airlines status seekers. I am concentrating on the non-frequent flier who is into birding and eco-tourism and wants to get free miles for a free airline ticket to somewhere they can watch birds.

Newest partner Flybuys as detailed in my other post.
Amex Membership Rewards (Australian) transfer at 1000:1000 with occasional bonuses where you get 10-25% extra if you are ready at the right time.
Etihad partners with E-Rewards so you can get miles doing surveys. Be sure to join using the Etihad invitation or one from a hotel chain. If you join with another airline’s invitation, you won’t get options for other airlines.

Be careful as Etihad Guest miles expire 2 years from date of activity so don’t transfer your points until you are close to booking an award. There is no way to reset expiration by performing any activity.

BEST USES OF ETIHAD GUEST MILES FOR ECO-TOURISTS

This is where it really helps to have a bucket list, dream travel list or whatever you want to call it. Then you can start analyzing a program and where it can help you go. With Etihad you can obviously redeem on Etihad and on their partners as well.

FLYING ON ETIHAD

Awards on Etihad are based on distance so amounts vary depending on the exact distance. You need to do an individual quote so I will show you an example. Since I like birding in Africa, I would possibly redeem between BNE and EBB since Uganda is on my bucket list. Business class is roughly double economy and more tax & fees but on such a long flight it would be nice if I could get that many points!

FLYING ON PARTNERS

You can also use Etihad Guest miles to fly on partner airlines.

Bearing in mind my travel bucket list, I can see that partners that could be useful in the next few years are Air New Zealand, Garuda, Gol, South African and Virgin Australia. Lets have a closer look at their award charts to see what is the best value.

Air New Zealand

I don’t like the looks of this chart for anything over 1750 and NZ is notoriously stingy about giving space to partners so this is probably not going to be my choice. Possible short haul between AKL and Pacific Islands but then again these flights can often be bought cheaply on “happy hour” type sales.

Garuda Indonesia

Again I can see good value in the shorter hops under 1000 miles. If I hadn’t already ear-marked Flying Blue miles for my 2017 trip to Indonesia, I’d be seriously considering this option. Using Great Circle Mapper one of my potential routes is Palu-Ujung Padang-Denpasar whic is 679 miles so 10k Etihad is great value here. Business class is also really good value.

GOL

Brazil is one of my favourite countries to go birding in so I would be very interested in this option. Since we would usually be landing in Sao Paulo I checked a few random cities around Brazil, most are well under 1500 miles so 9000 Etihad miles would be excellent value here!

South African Airways

As I mentioned before, I am planning a future trip to see birds in certain parts of Africa we didn’t get to before. Namiba, Zambia & Uganda are all part of this plan. WDH-JNB-LVI is coming in at 1317 miles so would cost 15,556 Etihad. It’s another option if I don’t go with BA Avios on this route. It will all depend on which miles are easier to obtain at the time.

Virgin Australia

For Virgin Australia, Etihad doesn’t have a nice, neat little chart. It’s all on one big pdf categorized by distance/mileage required so please look here. Find your home town and take note of where you can go and for how many miles. Just looking at my home town of Brisbane I can see a few interesting options.

6900 miles each way gets me to Tasmania, Vanuatu, basically anywhere Virgin flies in eastern Australia.

10,900 miles gets me to Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, New Zealand & Fiji.

16,900 miles gets me to Darwin, Perth, Samoa & Bali.

60,000 miles gets me to LAX.

Considering all the options, I am happy to see that my everyday grocery shopping at Coles will get me some valuable miles which can be used in some pretty amazing places!

Introduction To Flybuys

Posted on October 31, 2015 by Tara

I have to admit this is almost as much an introduction for me as it is for you. I’ve been in Flybuys for many years since it was once the only shopping rewards program in Australia although it didn’t get interesting until it revamped a few years ago and started sending out targeted email promos. They’ve also added a lot of new partners I wasn’t aware of since I wasn’t really paying attention to the program as I was chasing Qantas points with Woolies.

Using these promos and the quarterly coupon books they mail out is the secret to acquiring large amounts of Flybuys points in a short time. You usually get triple points or a target of (for example) spend $120 for bonus 1000 points. These offers can also appear on the bottom of your shopping docket so you have to save the docket to scan the offer next time.

Last year, I redeemed about 50k Flybuys on 4 Photobooks using a double value rewards and a weeks worth of free groceries so I started out with zero this year and now have just over 20k without even trying by shopping at the Flybuys partners, espcially Coles.

I wasn’t trying because I had been focusing on Woolies Everyday Rewards program to get Qantas points which I deemed more valuable. Now that that option is coming to an end, it’s time to take a 2nd look at Flybuys and especially their latest partner – Etihad. You can redeem in increments of 10,000 Flybuys points for 4000 Etihad miles. Flybuys also has some introductory offers to earn triple tier miles on Etihad which you can read about here. This is mostly of interest to those who are cashing status as you would need some flights to get you to a silver tier even with these bonus points.

Tomorrow, we take a closer look at Etihad and ways to maximize it as it deserves its own post!

A Few Interesting IHG Pointbreaks For Eco-tourists

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Tara

IHG Rewards has announced next quarter’s Pointbreaks, redeemable from 26 October to 31 January for 5000 points a night. First I’ll embed the map that shows the worldwide Pointbreaks, then point out the ones that can work for eco-tourists.

AUSTRALASIA

A big fat zero for Australia which is par for the course. If you’re birding West Papua or elsewhere in Indonesia you might want to chill out in Bali for a couple days although Benoa is not the best location.

AFRICA

Most people visiting any country in Southern Africa will be transiting JNB on either Comair or South African Airways so the Holiday Inn JNB Airport could come in handy.

SOUTH AMERICA

We have a couple interesting options in Brazil. Both Manaus and Rio Branco are in good staging points for birding adventures. Cucuta in Colombia isn’t super convenient to the Perija area but could be a stop-over. San Jose, Costa Rica and Panama City are also good gateways to the more attractive birding hotspots in Costa Rica and Panama.

A complete list is available so have a look and see if anything works for you!

Woolworths Guts Everyday Rewards – No More Qantas Points

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Tara

For the non-frequent flyer who can’t accrue miles and points from employer paid business travel, partner programs that allow you to accrue miles and points from everyday spending are very important. For the last few years I have earned a lot of Qantas points simply from doing my normal shopping and using products that attract bonus miles. On 31 Dec, this all comes to an end. Woolworths has announced that they will be starting a new program that is “supposedly” what customers want. (No one asked me what I want.)

The complete FAQ is here but I will highlight the 2 main reasons why I think the new program sucks.

YOU DON’T EARN WOOLWORTHS DOLLARS ON EVERYTHING IN THE STORE, ONLY ON ORANGE TICKET ITEMS

Previously you earned one Qantas point for every dollar over $30. No one knows how many orange ticket items will be available, if these items will be ones you actually want or if they will be priced well. They may email you targeted offers that you have to keep track of and you may randomly win $10 when you scan your card.

YOU CAN’T CHOOSE TO LET THE WOOLWORTHS DOLLARS ACCUMULATE, THEY WILL BE APPLIED AUTOMATICALLY WHEN YOU REACH A $10 THRESHOLD.

Before Flybuys hooked up with Etihad (very recently and I will be posting more later), at least Coles lets you accumulate Flybuys as long as you want, the points don’t expire and you can spend them at a time you want. I’ve cashed them in for free Photobooks that are worth at least $80 each and sometimes I wait until I have about a week’s worth of free groceries and use them at a time when my budget is tight. Apparently Woolies thinks we are not capable of determining the best time and method of spending our “Woolworths Dollars” and will just deduct $10 off the next shop once you reach a $10 threshold.

How do I spend/redeem Woolworths Dollars?

When your Woolworths Dollars balance reaches $10, you’ll automatically get $10 off your next eligible shop at participating Woolworths Supermarkets and BWS stores (excluding Tasmania). All you need to do is scan your Rewards card at the checkout and we’ll take care of the rest.

Remember: Woolworths Dollars can only be redeemed in multiples of $10. For example, if your Woolworths Dollars balance is $20 and you spend $28, you’ll get $20 off your shopping.

What’s the maximum amount of Woolworths Dollars I can redeem in one transaction?

There’s no limit to the amount of Woolworths Dollars you can redeem in one transaction. However, given that when you reach $10 Woolworths Dollars you automatically redeem on your next eligible shop, it’s unlikely you’ll have more than $10 to redeem at any one time. And remember you can only redeem in multiples of $10. Any remaining Woolworths Dollars will remain in your balance.

Whoopie do! Like $10 every few weeks is going to make enough difference to influence my shopping? I’m already good at getting discounted products by shopping when they mark down the meat and bakery goods and I get points on those items just like they were full priced.

I like the passive forced saving of Qantas points or even Flybuys so I can save a good amount and spend them on something worthwhile like a trip to Fiji or a week’s worth of free groceries. Over the past few years I have earned enough Qantas points for 1 round-trip Brisbane-Fiji ticket simply by shopping strategically.

I am not yet a member of Etihad but with the new Flybuys partnership I will be taking a special look at it over the next week. After 31 Dec, I’ll be shopping more at Coles except for the few products I like that only Woolies stocks. I expect a lot of miles and points collectors will be doing the same.

Attention Aussies: NAB Home Loan Could Get 2 People To Brazil

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Tara

Just when you were thinking Americans get all the good deals NAB comes out with this doozy! In a nutshell, if you take out a home loan for at least 250k and get a Velocity credit card and transaction account you get 250,000 Velocity points. Click on the image to see the complete offer and be sure to read the T&Cs.

So where can you go with 250,000 Velocity points? Pretty much anywhere they or their partners fly! Brazil, anyone?

United Offers 30% Partner Bonus – Ends Nov 20

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Tara

While this isn’t the most lucrative partner bonus I have ever seen, it’s still nice to get something extra if you were planning to do business with any of these partners anyway. Unfortunately the one partner that I could have used – Chase is not included!

You need to register first (click on the image) and you’ll earn 30% more with partners you haven’t used in the last 12 months. Click on each category in turn to see which partners you are eligible for the bonus. Here’s a sample.

You can still get a 10% bonus on MileagePlus Shopping, MileagePlus Dining and the MileagePlus X app. Be sure to scroll down and read the T&Cs.

I’m not too excited about this promo as I have used all the partners I normally use (mostly the survey ones) within the last 12 months so no bonus for me. But if you are just getting started with United MileagePlus it doesn’t hurt to register and see if any bonus miles show up!

Can Low Cost Carriers Bridge The Gap When Miles Let You Down?

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Tara

As I’ve mentioned before, the miles and points game is getting harder and harder to win. Credit cards are harder to churn and airlines have tightened up on releasing award space, especially in business & first class. You will find yourself in economy class more often than not, not because you don’t have the miles but because you can’t find any other seats.

Yesterday, one of my favourite travel bloggers – Drew from Travel is Free posted an intriguing round the world trip using only low cost carriers (LCCs). One of the commenters led me to a similar post by Trevor of Tagging Miles.

So I started thinking, “I am an eco-tourism & birding travel blogger based in Australia, what could I do with LCCs”?

Air Asia is a given with a wide network all over Asia and serves several Australian airports. The closest to me in Brisbane would be the Gold Coast OOL. Cebu Pacific also has a nice network but only serves Sydney but once you get to Asia it is very cheap and very useful.

So even after the miles & points game is dead, I can still get to some amazing birding hotspots in Asia! But what if I want to go further away, say all the way to Africa? I’ll need to switch to a different LCC’s network. Enter FlyDubai. Now we can use either Colombo, Sri Lanka or Kochi, India as a connecting point and the best thing is that both places have access to great birding destinations – Thattekad and Kithulgala respectively!

So here’s an example of a one-way trip from Brisbane (via OOL) to Entebbe, Uganda which is one of the countries on my proposed “Godmother of All African Adventures“.

We would fly on Air Asia to Colombo on Air Asia and stopover a couple days to re-visit Kithulgala which I loved the first time we were there. I’ll convert everything to USD to suit most readers.

Next we fly from Colombo to Entebbe on FlyDubai.

Please note that some LCCs will charge extra for checked bags, meals, seat assignments so you need to check the T&Cs of each carrier and consider if you would have any checked bags. If you can make these flights work for you, you can get from Brisbane to Uganda for $573.

If you booked direct from BNE to EBB, the cheapest fare I could find on Expedia to use as an example is this one on Etihad (which is a really good airline) for $811.

So you can save $238 by using the LCC option which may or may not be significant to you but you also gain the opportunity to stop over in Sri Lanka enroute! Or you may decide $238 isn’t enough to lure you away from flying a top rated airline that would earn you some miles in AA or VA’s programs.

I can think of many people who would prefer to pay more for Etihad and many who would choose Air Asia & FlyDubai. But it’s always nice to have choices!

Is The New Lifemiles Promo Right For You?

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Tara

While I do believe that credit card miles are the easiest and cheapest to acquire the fact remains that there are many people around the world who don’t have good deals on credit cards that earn miles. Australia does have a few deals going but playing the miles and points game here is mostly centered around buying cheap miles and redeeming them for premium class airfares at a huge discount. I don’t recommend buying miles on spec as the program could always devalue before you can spend them. Assuming I couldn’t get free miles from credit card sign up bonuses, I would wait until I was within 6 months of booking a trip before I would actually pay for miles, even at a discount.

The New Lifemiles Promo

The maximum you can acquire from this promo is 352,906 miles which will get you a few RT Star Alliance trips in business class. It would probably work out cheaper flying business class by this means than paying for economy tickets the normal way.

EXAMPLE – ROUND TRIP TO THE GALAPAGOS

This is one of the harder awards to get as I already said in my Lan post. There has been talk on Flyertalk that Avianca does occasionally have phantom award space on the United portal so I don’t consider United a reliable source for a Galapagos award.

Here’s the cost of using Lifemiles to go RT from Guayaquil to Baltra airport in the Galapagos.

10,000 miles per person on the outbound.

Please note that availability to/from SCY San Cristobal is much more difficult. This makes a difference to me since we are birding and not going on a cruise so chose this island as having the most land-based birds.

10,000 miles per person for the return flight from Baltra GPS.

You need 40,000 Lifemiles for 2 people to go RT from Guayaquil to the Galapagos. With the current promo, if you only buy the minimum to achieve the trip you are in the 4th tier which gets a 105% bonus. You still have to buy 20,000 miles to get at least 40,000 miles so you end up with 41,000 miles (I had 406 left over after my redemptions for next year so ignore those).

This ends up costing you $660 USD.

If you want to max out the promo, it will end up costing you $4950 for 352,500 miles.

So to determine if this is a good deal, lets look at our RT trip to the Galapagos for 2 people. When you buy miles, you still have to pay the taxes on top so you are only saving the cost of the base fare. In this case it’s $416 per person so $832 for both. You can save $172 if you use the Lifemiles promo to book these tickets. Before you buy the miles, you want to check the booking engine to make sure the award is available, especially if you don’t have much flexibility on dates. Personally, if I was ready to book right away and would otherwise have to pay cash, I’d be happy to save $172, otherwise I would hold off until I got closer to the booking window.

So this is basically the math you have to do before participating in these promos. They can be very useful in the right circumstances!

***Apologies for posting this after other bloggers beat me to it, we were out camping in the Aussie Outback!

Why You Can’t Get AA/BA Partner Awards On Lan To The Galapagos

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Tara

I experienced it myself – the frustration of trying to get award space on Lan from Guayaquil to the Galapagos. Most people want to get to GPS (Baltra) as that is where the Galapagos cruises depart from and Lan flies there daily. In my case, since we aren’t doing a cruise, I wanted to get to SCY (San Cristobal) since it has the best land-based birding options but Lan only has 4 flights a week there. For the purposes of this demonstration, I will use GPS so you can see the fluctuations throughout a week on a daily basis.

Most people going to the Galapagos will want to book as far ahead as possible, especially if they are connecting to a cruise. At the time I wrote this post, Lan has availability loaded to 25 July at the 20,000 round trip level (10,000 each way). BA has picked this space up although it usually doesn’t at this level. On the 4 days preceeding 25 July there is no award space on BA for this route.

You can see here the different levels of economy awards. Lan only flies economy class to the Galapagos. Usually you need seats at the 8000 km each way level to have it show up on a partner award request. These seats are selling for anywhere between 11,000 – 14,000 so you can only book them on Lan.

It can get much worse – have a look at these flights over Semana Santa (Easter Holy Week) which is ultra-peak season! Award seats can go up to 22,000 each way!

You can sometimes get lucky with close-in bookings. Although surrounding dates have the high award rates, there is a window of opportunity on a few dates in September as shown by the red dots.

And this is how it looks on BA’s booking system.

So how can you get to the Galapagos?

1. Lanpass: Get the US Bank Lan Visa card, then supplement the award with miles transferred from SPG. It takes about a week for the miles to land which is really frustrating as the award prices can fluctuate daily.

2. Fly on Aerogal, the Avianca partner who is a member of Star Alliance. Unfortunately Avianca doesn’t have any transfer partners such as SPG, Ultimate Rewards, Thankyou Points or Amex MR so you have to buy miles, preferably on a promo deal. They do have a co-branded card with US Bank.

3. Use United, although availability has been patchy in the past, I am seeing good availability at time of writing. Oddly enough if you are in GYE, you have to transfer in UIO to get to the Galapagos.

4. Use your miles to Quito or Guayaquil and pay for the flights to the Galapagos. Expedia search on random dates for RT flights.

However you manage to get to the Galapagos, rest assured it will be well worth it! We are going next year and can’t wait!

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