I find that this subject, more than any other, is the most popular one that we blog about. My blog about this recently is the most popular I have written about to date. Although taking a cheap flight to earn miles seems like fun, I think you need to decide what your level of pain…
As the first of my Advanced Course subjects we should start with searching for that great flight you are looking for. Most people are familiar with looking on their favorite airlines website or one of the consolidated websites such as Orbitz or Expedia. Nothing wrong with booking through the airlines, but are you seeing all…
There is a lot written about credit cards that earn miles and points. In fact, probably too much to digest in one reading. This course will lay out the basics and stick to those until you are sure that you have it down thorugh months of experience. The last thing that you want to do…
We all know the military runs on RUMINT (Rumor Intelligence) which is often not true. This happens quite frequently when discussing frequent flyer miles as most people can’t believe you would be able to do all that I do for free. To be fair, there was a time in the 80’s and 90’s that the…
Fortunately, most airlines are part of an alliance. When I talk of alliances, I am not talking NATO vs. Warsaw Pact. Back when I was a Lieutenant, every time I flew on a different airline, I had to sign up for that airline’s frequent flyer program (FFP) meaning that I had a lot of miles…
This is the Basic Course for learning about airline frequent flyer miles and the various programs out there. Read it and refer back to it as it does take time to absorb all of the various program rules, tricks, and tips. Master these basics and we can move on the the Advanced Course. The first…
I have been writing The Military Frequent Flyer for a little over 18 months now and I have learned a few things. With the knowledge that I gained at the recent Boarding Area Convention (BACon) and the type of readers’ questions, I wanted to reorganize this blog to better serve the readers. After all, I…
I suppose some might consider it obligatory for any blog involving the military to discuss Memorial Day and I will be no exception to a good rule. Setting aside the usual diatribe on miles and points, I would like to take a moment to put down my thoughts on an important holiday that most Americans…
I have written quite about about my year-long experiment with the Veterans Advantage card.I am already convinced that it is a good deal and recommend it to anyone who qualifies for it. However, the Veterans Advantage leader, Scott Higgins, never stops adding benefits for the card. Every few months there is something new and this time there is a great benefit for travelers – 5% off all U.S.-originating Lufthansa flights including those flown on United metal. Combine this with the existing benefit of 5% off of all United flights and you can reach almost anywhere in the world at a discount. Of course, it really helps that both these airlines are members of Star Alliance so you can gather miles on either frequent flyer program. Get to Gold status on either one and you can use the United Club lounges while you are waiting for that international flight. For United’s discount, you simply put in your Vet Adv code into the United’s flight search. Lufthansa is a little more complicated in that you must use the Veterans Advantage Lufthansa site. As a…
It seems to me that one of the most sought after answers for aspiring FF addicts is how to do a mileage run. With my recent move to D.C., I am not racking up the miles like I usually did when living in Hawaii. Therefore, I have to do some mileage runs if I intend to keep my United 1K and Alaska MVPG statuses (stati?). Today, I am going to walk you through all the steps I took to book a mileage run this week. The first step is to look for a good candidate run and then optimize it to maximize the miles. I like to look on Flytertalk or Milepoint’s Mileage Run forums to see what others have found. I was looking a few days ago and finding many interesting runs. WAS-SNA, WAS-ONT, WAS-SJD (Cabo San Lucas), but what caught my eye was a comment from one person who asked if someone had taken advantage of the $348 WAS-ANC fare. Bingo! I love ANC…
