Miles/FF

[roseflower]

I am new to the miles/rewards thing. We had been flying a lot and happened to be flying with United quite a bit so we got the United Chase card. We earn points on flights and money spent on the card but we also have Frequent Flyer miles. What is the difference and how do you all best utilize your miles?

I am also getting ready to take a last minute trip and the price difference between other airlines and United is like...$200 so I am thinking of just going with a different airline. I would still use my United card to purchase the flight which get me points but I really don't understand the points, the FF, status and fare class.

Can someone help break it down for me?

[GilliC]

You earn frequent flier miles whenever you fly on United or a partner airline and provide your MileagePlus number. The number of miles you earn can vary depending on the fare class (which is extremely difficult to track down when you're booking a ticket, and sometimes isn't even the fare class that they consider to accrue miles, which really drives me nuts). If you really want to understand fare classes and how they affect your earned miles, you really need to study the charts on the airline website and spend ages at a place like FlyerTalk.

For all intents and purposes, assume that you will earn 1 mile for every mile you fly on United as long as you actually paid a normal amount for the ticket (as opposed to something like Priceline's name your own price, flying on a free companion fare, etc). The only way the fare class will really affect you is if you fly Business or First, you will earn more miles.

Premier status is earned when you fly enough to be considered a frequent flier by the airline.

This is where miles get confusing because they fall into two categories: Award Miles and Premier Qualifying Miles. Award Miles tell you how many miles you have that can be redeemed for a free ticket or upgrade. They're the miles that you use. So when you buy things with your credit card, you're earning award miles. If you book a rental car with a partner company and give them your MileagePlus number, you can earn miles. If you shop online through the MileagePlus website, you can earn miles. Once you save up enough miles, you can cash them in to book flight tickets.

The miles you earn from the credit card (or from rental cars, shopping online, etc) typically do not count as Premier Qualifying miles. This means that even though you're earning miles that you can spend, they don't count towards your elite status. Premier miles are usually earned only from actual flights on United or close partner airlines. Typically this is 1 mile for every mile you fly, but you earn extra Premier Qualifying miles when you fly on a Business or First class ticket. To reach Silver, you need 25,000 Premier Qualifying miles in a single calendar year. Gold is 50,000; Platinum 75,000; etc. Because there are some people who fly short flights quite often, there is also a way to qualify for elite status through the number of flight segments (each flight is a segment, so if you have a connection in the middle, that's 2 segments). Basically, if you manage to fly 30 flights without actually flying 25,000 miles, you can still qualify for premier status. And like the qualifying miles, you get to count extra segments if you're flying Business or First.

I have no idea what the points are, since I don't have the card (the Chase site says that with the MileagePlus Explorere card you earn 1 mile per dollar, and it doesn't mention points anywhere).


So, long story short...
- You get miles when you fly and when you use your card. Once you have around 20,000 miles stored up, you can use them to buy a free ticket.
- If you fly at least 25,000 miles or 30 flights within a single year, you become a Premier member (which means you get a few benefits and you earn extra award miles whenever you fly).

[wanderlustfoodie]

If you are new to amassing frequent flier miles or credit card points generally, then I would suggest browing the flyertalk forums (flyertalk.com). You can also start to follow various blogs that focus on these topics (e.g., Boarding Area, Frugal Travel Guy, Million Mile Secrets, The Points Guy, etc.). These will help you with what credit cards to sign up for and when and also what categories of purchases are best to put on each card in order to maximize points.

[roseflower]

Thank you both! All the information and blog names really help.

I am definitely new to it all so I have a lot to learn. Some of it it just really confusing.