I Need to Figure out this Miles Thing

I have been following One Mile at a Time for a few years now and really enjoy his posts. The unfortunate part is that a lot of the credit cards he talks about only apply to USA, so not directly applicable to us in Canada.

I have decided that I want to start doing this miles & points thing properly and use the system to my advantage. I found another blog called Prince of Travel which is Canadian and might have information more applicable to me.

My goal is to go to Europe on points this fall. I am not sure if this is doable, but you have to start somewhere. I would be content with economy class, but any upgrade would be acceptable too

What I Know So Far

I have been aware of the airline alliances for awhile. Well explained here. The three main alliances are Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam. I am part of one loyalty program within each alliance.

These were airlines that I have used often so it made sense to sign up. What wouldn’t make sense (I think at this point) is to sign up for another loyalty program in the same alliance. For example, if I travelled to the USA often I might fly with American Airlines. They are part of oneworld and my travel with them could be credited in Avios to my BA Executive program. If you travelled with AA enough to get status it would probably make sense, but not just so you could have another number somewhere.

1/ Flying Blue loyalty card

I Have to Chose

What I have gotten out of this so far is that is pays to be loyal. By using the same alliance often you build up points and also status and get rewarded for that. You can see from the table above that I am part of three programs, but don’t have any significant value of points in any. If I had done all my travelling with one airline, then maybe I would have something of significance.

This means that I should choose an alliance and try to stick to them more. I can’t choose.

• Air Canada is convenient because you can go many places from Canada (like when I went to Hong Kong in February). I never use them when I travel to Europe, because I always find something else cheaper, but maybe I should?
• I really like British Airways and use them very often when I am in Europe. Oneworld is also a large alliance so getting points shouldn’t be that hard.
• I also really like Air France. The Flying Blue program is jointly AirFrance/KLM but I have never flown with KLM so I can’t say. When I was in Asia, Garuda Indonesia ended up being a SkyTeam member so I got Flying Blue points. The alliance is the smaller of the three, but somehow I still see it as useful.

I Need Points

I have started doing research on how one goes about beginning. One way to get points if through credit card bonuses. I will write more about credit cards later but I will say: If you are not going to pay your credit card in full every month do not get one.

Right now I am leaning to an American Express credit card and the points system is Membership Points, which can be transferred to all three loyalty programs.

Soon I will figure out how many points I would need in each alliance to get to Europe, which is the most plausible, and how I will do it. More to come!

2/ View from Hong Kong Airport

Do you have any tips?