Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Although you may have overlooked Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, this program may hold a lot of value even when you don’t fly overseas. With generous rewards charts for airline partners, Flying Club miles can take you many places in first class – not just the United Kingdom. When you get the Virgin Atlantic World Elite […]
Category: Finding Awards
How to Book Low-Cost Carriers with American Express and Citi
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
One of the easiest ways to use bank points programs is booking trips directly through their rewards centers. Both American Express and Citi allow you to turn points into flights, hotel rooms, cruises, and many other experiences. With American Express Travel and the Citi ThankYou® Rewards Center, you have access to dozens of airlines flying […]
Emirates Skywards Cheat Sheet – Award Charts, How to Use Your Miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Emirates is a pretty well known airline with a less than well known award program. They don’t necessarily offer the lowest mileage prices, but Skywards miles are fairly easy to earn. Here’s what you need to know about using miles with Emirates Skywards program. What airlines can you book with Emirates miles? You can use your […]
10 of the best Tier 4 hotels to use your Ritz Carlton Visa free night
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
The Chase Ritz-Carlton credit card, which is not thought to be subject to the Chase 5/24 rule, offers 2 free nights at a Ritz-Carlton hotel in reward Tiers 1-4 as an introductory offer. Ritz-Carlton has 5 reward tiers of hotels, so with this bonus you can get free nights at most of the luxurious Ritz-Carlton […]
Frontier EarlyReturns cheat sheet – How to get the most out of your miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Frontier is a budget carrier with lots of flights out of Denver across the U.S. and to Mexico and the Caribbean. The EarlyReturns program isn’t the most exciting, but there are opportunities to get decent value if you know what to look for and are flexible with when you can fly. Here’s how to get […]
Lots of business class awards to Brazil with AA miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
If you’re looking for award seats to Brazil, now is a good time to lock in a trip with your American AAdvantage miles. American has more flights than any other carrier from the U.S. to South America, but snagging an award seat in business class is hard if you’re not flexible. But for travel next […]
Alaska MileagePlan Cheat Sheet – How to use your miles for flights
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Alaska Airlines has an amazing award program that offers great redemption rates, stopovers on one-way awards, and reasonable routing rules. The toughest part about using Alaska MileagePlan miles? Getting them. Here’s a cheat sheet to quickly let you know what you need to know about Alaska miles. Award charts: How much do Alaska awards cost? […]
How to use Turkish Airlines miles (via Citi) for cheap business class flights
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
There are several reasons why a U.S.-based flyer might be interested in the Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles program. First, Turkish is a huge airline flying to almost 300 destinations and serving 9 U.S. cities from its Istanbul hub: Atlanta Boston Chicago Houston Los Angeles Miami New York (JFK) San Francisco Washington, DC (Dulles) Second, […]
Great Austrian Airlines Business Class award space next summer
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Now is the time to start planning your trip to Europe next summer. You can book awards through most of July, 2018 at this point, and while award space on United’s own flights isn’t great, Austrian Airlines is coming through with great space to Europe in Business Class. Even hard to get Los Angeles to […]
How to book flights for someone else with miles (rules for 20+ programs)
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Have some miles and want to use them to book a flight for a friend or family member? Most programs will allow you to use your points to book flights for others very easily. Occasionally, though you’ll have to nominate who you want to redeem for ahead of time or be restricted to redeeming for […]
How to get flights to Fiji with miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Fiji is one of those bucket list destinations for honeymoons and more, but a challenging place to get to with miles if you don’t know where to look. Before we take a deep dive into different mileage programs, let’s first look at what airlines fly to Fiji so we know where some options may be […]
The best miles to use for exotic stopover awards
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Using free stopovers is a great way to see more places for the same amount of money. Instead of simply changing planes at the connecting point, you can stay there for as long as you want. And if you know how stopover rules work, you can actively build your itinerary rather than just take the […]
A hot pocket of AA LAX to Europe award space in Business Class
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Getting the Saver award price using AAdvantage miles to get to Europe in Business Class for 57,500 miles one way is hard. Getting it from the West Coast on AA’s LAX – LHR nonstop is simply rare. But lately AA has had lots of space on the nonstop for travel in February and March of […]
How to ‘borrow’ miles with Delta Amex Fly Now, Pay Later
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
The Delta SkyMiles credit cards from American Express have a new feature that lets you top up your account with miles if you’re running short by borrowing them from Amex. Here’s how it works… If you’re short on miles, you can borrow them from American Express by logging into your Amex (not Delta) account, clicking […]
How to fly to Tahiti (and Bora Bora) with miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Tahiti, and its French Polynesia neighbor island Bora Bora are near the top of any exotic honeymoon bucket list. Getting there isn’t cheap, and you’ll usually pay well over $1,000 for a ticket, so saving up miles can be a big money saver that lets you spend more on an overwater bunglaow. If you want […]
How to fly to Argentina with miles (award charts for Chase, Amex, Citi points)
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Argentina has a lot to offer no matter where your interests lie – from big cities and museums, to beaches, to adventure-lite (but beautiful) Iguazu Falls, to extreme hiking and climbing in Patagonia. No matter how you like to spend your vacations, Argentina has something for you. It’s possible to find reasonably priced flights into […]
How to Upgrade Delta Flights with Miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
If a Delta flight is in your plans, and you don’t want to pay full price for a first class seat, using your miles to upgrade is an alternative. Delta charges a lot of miles for the privilege of an upgrade, often almost as much as an award ticket on its own, but if you […]
How to book LATAM award flights without using LATAM miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
LATAM, which is the new airline that’s the result of the merger between LAN Airlines and TAM Airlines of Brazil, is the biggest airline serving South America. If you want to explore the diverse continent of South America, where airfares are high, using your miles can save you thousands of dollars. While most people in […]
The best ways to fly to the Caribbean with miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
The Caribbean is one of the most popular reward destinations, and while using your points for flights to the Caribbean won’t get you the big value you can get saving them for longer trips, there are plenty of ways to stretch your points and save money you can use for your hotel room. Here are […]
The best ways to fly inside Australia using miles
Written by MileCards.com @ MileCards.com
Australia is not the easiest place to get to on miles, but it’s entirely possible. All three of the biggest U.S. airlines, American, United, and Delta, as well as two Australian carriers, Qantas and Virgin Australia, fly between Australia and the U.S., and you can see strategies for getting down to Australia with miles here. […]