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Business Class Travel » Travel Tips »10 Mistakes Every Frequent Flyer Need To Stay Clear Of
10 Mistakes Every Frequent Flyer Need to Stay Clear Of
Frequent flyer programs were initially started by American
Airlines in 1981
as a reward for passenger loyalty and to motivate travelers to patronize the
same airline for all air travels. The concept gained in popularity and seeing
its remarkable success, all airlines followed suit.
The purpose behind frequent flier programs was to attract business particularly
from the business
travelers and company employees. These frequent flyers could
accumulate points by using the airline and related facilities like hotel accommodation
and car rentals. The points thus gathered could be used to upgrade seats or
to transfer to family members and friends for free tickets.
What basically started as an allurement to capture increased business are
now costing the airlines in excess of six billion dollars a year and the airlines
are now finding it difficult to withdraw the scheme. The pity is this huge
financial burden is passed on to the other fliers and they have to pay dearly
for air travel.
Notwithstanding the above factors, it may still be worthwhile to highlight
the ten most common mistakes many genuine frequent fliers make:
- Avoid switching airline carriers particularly when on long distance
flights. As a rule, your air miles are not transferable and no airlines
will permit you to transfer your miles from one airline to the other.
If you stick to a single airline you will be able to rapidly gather more
frequent flyer miles.
- Please be aware that every airline has its own frequent flyer miles
expiration policy. Many travelers zealously accumulate abundant frequent
flyer miles, - only to see them go waste by not utilizing them within
the validity period.
- Remember you can earn mileage while buying groceries, shopping, or even
when incurring the tuition fees of your child’s education. To avail
this, you must link your frequent flyer mileage program to an airline
credit card. Most fliers fail to do this presumably due to lack of awareness.
- It is not uncommon for airlines to offer you mileage when you shop online.
Several airlines including American Airlines offer mileage provided you
shop online from designated stores.
- There are quite a few airline carriers that offer you mileage when you
eat at restaurants that participate in their mileage program. Ascertain
the relevant details to take advantage of these specialty programs.
- You can gather plenty of extra mileage if you use your credit card to
take advantage of the other mileage programs - like shopping online or
eating at a participating restaurant. In fact, these will fetch you almost
twice the mileage.
- All airlines often come up with bonus programs that can be advantageous
to you. Many airlines offer you additional mileage for traveling to specific
destinations or traveling along a certain route. Miss not to register
yourself with such programs as you may then be able to accumulate more
miles for regularly scheduled travel.
- Never consider receiving e-mails from airline carriers as a nuisance
and delete them without reading or opt out of receiving them. Several
of these e-mail messages may pertain to frequent flyer benefits.
- While flying to a certain destination you should meticulously calculate
how many miles it will generate for you. You can easily ferret out the
details from the website of your airline carrier. This is important as
it is your responsibility to keep track of the miles that you generate
to avail the benefits of frequent flyer miles.
- If you have been regularly traveling in economy class, it is time you
check up the possibility of upgrading to business
class. By keeping regular
check, you will know how many miles you have to travel to move up to that
higher status.
It is evident that there are many mistakes that frequent flyers commit and
these mistakes can seriously impair your points balance. Be guarded and desist
from making these mistakes so that you are able to fly when you want and enjoy
optimally all the benefits available to a frequent flyer.
Important
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