Advanced Search for Efficient Earning and Spending Frequent Flyer Miles

For the traveler who has no idea how many miles they have accumulated from their frequent flyer program (FFP) and better yet what to do with them, 30K.com has a solution.

The new website is a travel meta-search engine that will show travelers which flight will give them the most miles and which partner airlines they should consider. This free site takes the complexity out of managing frequent flyer miles with a graphical representation of the traveler's current status and how they can earn enough miles for that ever elusive upgrade or reward. And, unlike other products on the market, 30K displays airfares side by side with the amount of earnable miles based on the traveler's FFP balances.

"For the first time, travelers can see how many miles each flight earns before deciding which one to buy," says co-founder and serial entrepreneur, Alex Jawad, who after a frustrating flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong that earned him no miles, knew that there had to a better way to manage your FFP.

Added to that is 30K.com's proprietary 'best deal' feature that shows the absolute best flight option for the specific user in every search based on optimizing miles earned, price, and duration. 30K also keeps track of the user's mileage balances and sends alerts whenever miles or status is about to expire. Given that more than 20% of all miles earned already come from purchases using co-branded credit cards, 30K also allows the user to know mileage accruals when paying with a credit card.

"Travelers often forget to accrue miles, let their miles expire, or enroll in several programs without reaching any of the earning thresholds," says 30K's co-founder and CMO Rui Bom.

The website is expected to create additional revenue streams for the airline industry, which has been brought to its knees by low cost flight options, with up-selling opportunities valued at an estimated US$ 5 billion. By 2015, 185,000 trips are expected to be booked online by FFP members who, according to travel industry experts, are prepared to pay, on average, an additional US$30 per flight to earn additional points.

The site is still in development. While you are able to get fares and deals for all airlines, mileage accruals will be visible for the airlines they already signed affiliation agreement: United Airlines or Delta Airlines. More programs will be added really soon.

For more information, visit www.30K.com.

Sources and Additional Information:

http://www.examiner.com/article/new-online-search-engine-enables-you-to-maximize-value-of-frequent-flyer-miles

http://www.travpr.com/pr-19858-30kcom-launches-online-flight-search-engine.html

5 Best Online Tools for Frequent Flyer Miles Management

Managing frequent flyer miles can be a pain, especially when you're ready to use your miles before they expire and need to go through the lengthy process of checking airlines and looking for frequent flyer award seats. There are a few websites that make the process much easier and allow you to consolidate and manage your frequent flyer balances, while others help you book seats or swap miles. Here's a look at some of the best online tools for managing your frequent flyer miles, where free version of the services can be considered operational.

Note that the Airlines become concerned with their customers accessing Frequent Flyer Accounts through the third parties, and started to change their arrangements with the former partners.

Consolidate & Manage Your Miles

If you want to consolidate and manage your frequent flyer miles, here are the websites that can help:

Award Wallet

This free website is easy to use and includes an online forum for discussions.

Cost: Free for the regular account, and consumers can name their own price for AwardWallet Plus.

AwardWallet advantages in sync capabilities with hundreds of rewards programs (even retail stores and credit cards, in addition to travel programs) and its operational experience associated with fact that it is one of the oldest programs (founded in 2004). Both the regular AwardWallet account and AwardWallet Plus track reward balances for an unlimited number of programs and track rewards for family members. The regular account sends up to three expiration notifications, but AwardWallet Plus offers unlimited notices.

As of December 2012, United and Delta canceled their partnership with Award Wallet. Which does not change the fact that AwardWallet still supports more than 500 other loyalty programs.

Website: http://awardwallet.com/

UsingMiles

Cost: Free (Premium membership-temporary)

Usingmiles.com is offering a free lifetime Premier membership for a limited time. You can take advantage of this limited time offer that is worth $30 per year. Usingmiles.com keeps track of your various frequent flyer miles and other loyalty points in addition to a number of other services such as discovering more opportunities for you to earn additional points and showing you when your various loyalty points are about to expire.

Use the promotional code/link LFLYER to sign up for your free lifetime membership through LufthansaFlyer or use the promotional code/link MIL1CLICK to sign up for your free lifetime membership through MilitaryOneClick (if needed).

Website: https://www.usingmiles.com/

MilePort.com/MileTracker.com

Cost: Free

MilePort.com and MileTracker.com are basically the same application--the difference is that MileTracker is affiliated with USA Today and MilePort with FrequentFlier.com. If you register at one of the two Web sites, your login and password will work for the other one as well. MileTracker used to be available only as a downloadable software program. The service went online in 2008 but continues to provide the downloadable application. Members who have been using the desktop application and sign up for the online version can easily import their information. Both the online and downloadable versions will track your miles and provide account summaries and recent activity.

Also free, this website offers an intuitive system for managing various loyalty and frequent flyer programs at once and alerts you when your miles will expire.

Websites:

http://www.mileport.com/

http://miletracker.com/

GoMiles/Traxo

Cost: Free

Founded in 2010, this free site tracks hotel and airline rewards programs, as well as daily deal sites like Groupon and car rental programs. Users can check bonus offers to earn more miles, and its search engine capabilities show mileage redemption options. Joel Coffey, an accountant in Seattle, uses GoMiles' expiration date tracking to "see which miles are close to expiring without having to log in to each of the individual airline websites." (He's lost miles in the past due to account inactivity.) Although he and his wife don't log thousands of miles each year, Coffey says it's still useful for casual flyers to participate in mileage programs and track their miles using a single website like GoMiles.

Since 2012, GoMiles was acquired by Traxo, and now miles manager is a part of their Digital Travel Vallet.

Website: https://www.traxo.com/

Points.com

This website works like a bulletin board and allows you to list requirements or see what other people are looking for. If you find a match you can swap. While the site works with most airlines, you'll need to pay very high fees to your airline. Fees can be as high as 2 1/2 cents per mile, which is more than most miles are worth to the average person. Each person swapping must pay this transfer fee, along with the transaction fee paid to Points.com.

Stay away from trying to sell your miles, which violates the rules of every airline and may result in canceling of accrued miles, legal action and more.

Website: https://www.points.com/

Sources and Additional Information:

http://creditforums.com/visa-mastercard/2388-best-online-tools-managing-frequent-flyer-miles.html

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2011/10/17/5-online-tools-for-managing-airline-miles

http://www.insideflyer.com/articles/article.php?key=5861

http://www.hustlermoneyblog.com/usingmiles-com-offering-free-lifetime-membership-with-promo-codes/

How to Earn more than 1000 United Miles Fast and Easy?

For long time I was out of the Frequent Flyer Miles activities, therefore I have not posted any tips for fellows readers in this direction. However, life itself in form of the rising costs of air transportation, especially overseas, pulled me back to the miles-collection mode. Thus, from now on, I am going to share with you some nice giveaways for the Frequent Flyer Miles.

First of all, what is the value of these miles? You need to understand that for yourself to assess how much time and efforts are you willing to apply for each opportunity. There are different approaches for the mile monetary costs, but the range is 1 to 2 cents per mile, depending on destination. Let’s say, internal roundtrip ticket in the USA costs $350. If you use your 25K miles, the cost of a mile is 1.4 cents. And if overseas roundtrip ticket costs $1,800, and you use for that 60K+$200 fees, the cost of a mile would be 2.6 cents. Just for simplification, I will use the averaged value of the mile as 1.6 cents.

So, do you want free 1000 United miles, which cost $16, for 5 minutes of your time. Note that this is a time-limited proposal, and it is suppose to expire by end of March.

The story is that United Airlines and its heavily-subscribed MileagePlus frequent traveler program have linked up with Chicago’s newest twist in social media engagement, Bckstgr.com. The site invites visitors to become members and earn MileagePlus reward points by promoting Bckstgr.com partner brands through a variety of social media outlets.

Bckstgr.com’s proprietary technology will be able to track each member’s points of social engagement related to a particular brand and immediately award the member the appropriate MileagePlus credit. Those points of engagement could include tweeting, liking, following, writing specific phrases on various social networks or watching videos and filling out surveys.

According to Bckstgr.com founder and CEO Justin Jarvinen, the company made the decision to link its member rewards program to MileagePlus because his research showed that “frequent flier miles”.  

So, the future miles earning opportunities are on the way, but for now, you can get 1000 miles just for signing to become a member and linking you other social media sites at Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. You can complete a full linking procedure, or chose just some of the sites (you get appropriate portion of the miles, site registration only – 500 miles).

It will take just 5 minutes of your time.

OK, you want to get more? There are additional possibilities when you become a member. Review the listing at https://bckstgr.com/node/390

For example, you can get extra 10 miles for simply liking the company at your Facebook page, or extra 25 miles for posting the phrase “Check out BCKSTGR’s  Experiences here http://www.bckstgr.com/redeem” on your Facebook wall.

Website: https://bckstgr.com/

How Legitimate are Unbelievable Car Rates through RentalCarMomma?

I am pricing a rental vehicle from Feb 16-23rd in Orlando...pickup and dropoff at airport....as we have a total of 6 people, we need a minivan or large SUV...RentalCarMomma blows away the competitors.....for a Dodge Durango for example,$956.99 with Thrifty and only $265 with RentalcarMomma apparently with Thrifty using codes...same with Dollar $956.99 with Dollar ; $269 with these codes for same vehicle through Dollar,,,what gives...I am from Canada, but frequently book in the US, ad dont buy any insurance , as I buy some kind of extra on my own car insurance here at home that they say covers me.....I want the best deal of course, but am leery because it seems to good to be true.........anyone use them lately?.....is there anything to worry about? (From TripAdvisor Message Board).

First of all, I would like to ensure everyone that Rental Car Momma is completely legitimate agency, and the discounts you get with their help, are accepted by the rental car companies. When I first stumbled on this site and got 50% discount on my rental, my personal feelings was very similar to the expressed above. You do not have to buy anything, you do not have even to sign at the site. Just search for the most attractive discount and click through or just record the discount code.

I decided to share this site with blog readers, since I just performed the search for a best discount again, for our summer vacation. I located overall 5 different codes and promotions, but our Momma’s was still the best, giving as much as 10% percent difference, comparing to the next best offer.

Website: http://www.rentalcarmomma.com/