Another money saving tip. Airline frequent flyer programs.
These can save you money, even if you are not traveling every month. Unfortunately with some of the programs, points expire if one does not have a transaction with the airline, or at least one of its partners, at least once every 24 months. Transactions include flight or transaction with an airline partner. Partners usually can be hotels, rental car agencies, credit cards, sometimes even other airlines.
In October 2015, I used American Airline frequent flyer points to fly from Providence to Kansas City to see the Royals play the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. The total length of that trip was about 30 hours but the air fare was FREE. (I won’t say what I paid for the game tickets but it was worth it because my father is a Royals fan and we went to the game together.) In February 2016, I used my Alaska Airline points plus about $115 to fly round trip from Boston to Honolulu with an overnight stop in Portland, Oregon and an overnight stop in San Diego on the return trip.
I no longer have American Airline frequent flyer because the seats are too small and the rows to close together, even for me and I am not very tall. I get claustrophobic on American Airlines so no more. I had United but cancelled that, forfeiting thousands of unused points, because they don’t know how to treat their customers.
I try to concentrate my flights on Southwest and JetBlue. I also have a frequent flyer with Alaska Airline because at one time, one of the major banks had an affinity ATM card for Alaska Airline that allowed one to accumulate points with the airline for using your ATM card. Unfortunately, this is no more. You have to get an Alaska Airline credit card now to accumulate points that way.
As I said, I try to concentrate my travel with only a few airlines in order to accumulate points faster for free flights. I sometimes book my rental car through the airline website but only if the price is competitive with the individual rental car website or one of the discount rental car websites. Remember, even if you use the individual rental car website or a discount rental car website, when you show up at the counter, give them your airline frequent flyer account number to accumulate those airline points.
According to the JetBlue website on June 8, 2017, there are no blackout dates on JetBlue operated flights. Points can be used for any seat at any time. The two best things are that points DON’T EXPIRE and can be pooled with other family members. That allows for even more flexibility. One can also earn points with certain ‘partners’ that include Marriott, several rental car agencies, by obtaining and using a JetBlue credit card, Lyft and even SimpliSafe.
As of June 8, 2017, according to the website, Southwest Airlines program, Rapid Rewards, has not blackout dates and points don’t expire. There is also a Southwest Rapid Rewards VISA card that also helps one accumulated points. One can also gift points to another individual. There are several partners to help accumulate points including several hotel chains, several rental car companies and even 1-800-Flowers. With Southwest, one of the most important things is that you can check TWO pieces of luggage without an extra charge beyond your air fare. The thing I don’t like about Southwest is the open seating meaning NO ASSIGNED SEATS. Everything has a tradeoff.
Southwest–Rapid Rewards, JetBlue—TrueBlue reward programs and Alaska—Mileage Plan, are the three that I use to save money on airfare. Southwest covers a large chunk of the continental U.S. JetBlue covers the east and west coast but not the Midwest except for Chicago. JetBlue also covers Latin America, the Caribbean and a few places in South America. Alaska goes to Alaska, Hawai’i, the West Coast and Mexico.
I recommend signing up for as many frequent flyer programs as you want but by concentrating your travel with only few airlines, one cans accumulate enough points for free flights sooner. I will probably be using some of my Southwest points this fall or early next year.
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