Maximising Frequent Flyer Miles - but at a Price.

As most of us know, getting mileage award tickets is becoming increasingly difficult and more complex. Different airlines in an Alliance charge different amounts, some airlines have a flexible policy as to when mileage seats are released – often just a month or two before travel, and the rules now change more rapidly than before.

There are a number of free sites on the internet which try to help, flyertalk.com being one. But if you are travelling more regularly – and especially in the premium cabins – it may well be worth your while joining a dedicated paid site to work out your best and least costly routes to take. An article in today’s New York Times outlines how such sites operate.

As an example, Milepoint.com works with what mileage you have in your account, even if that seems relatively small. But it charges a fee of US$150 per person.

AwardExpert is a booking service of the frequent flyer website Upgrd.com. Its founder seems to have a knack for uncovering “last-minute tickets”. For one client -

who needed to fly from New York to Italy the next day for a funeral, he pieced together a trip using 60,000 American Express points for flights on United and Swiss. For someone who needed a same-day ticket from Chicago to Munich, he found a first-class ticket on Lufthansa for 125,000 miles round trip — half the miles for a “standard” first-class award ticket.

Another site named SavvyTravel saved a client “about $10,000 on a honeymoon trip to Europe by helping plan and book hotels, airport transfers, activities and two non-stop business class tickets from New York to Madrid. The fee for the service - $700.

http://travel.nytime...rescue.html?hpw

As has been discussed on this forum before in relation to the tens of thousands of miles you can get just for signing up to certain credit cards and spending a small amount in the first months, a first glance at the article suggests it’s only useful if you are based in the US.

According to one of the responders to the article, other sites worth looking at are expertflyer.com and awardexus.com.