Working with a frequent traveler program is like working with a Bank:

The fact that nowadays you may have the chance to sum up miles from different services and then put it on an account is not something new. People do it with the joy of thinking that someday after being loyal to that service they will get something back for free.

The problem to start with is that it´s not for free, is obvious that you need to spend a lot of money to get something in return without charge. The usual rate of journeys to get a free Y (economy) ticket is for example: form South America to Europe you need probably to travel between 4 to 5 times (back and forth) per year to get a free ticket, or from North America to Europe 5 to 6 times (sometimes even more depending in the airline).

The second issue is that it´s not a totally free ticket: you have to pay and sometimes even with restrictions. Many airlines when you issue the awarding ticket you have to pay taxes and fees (depending of the destination you will have to pay more or not) and even sometimes the ticket comes with restrictions as for example non free cancelling ticker or non free change the date of the ticket after emission.

The third factor is that the attention that you may get even so sometimes you are in Premium levels it´s not the best and it could take even more than one hour and a half to issue the ticket by phone. This is to the fact that many airline operators are slow or none attentive in the phone, so if you lose your patience they may become more restrictive to what you desire. And it that desire you may find that the date in which you want or need to travel there are non available seats for awarding tickets (as there´re only a limited amount of seats per aircraft for awarding tickets and they´re not inclusive available for all the trips that that aircrafts does). So if you need to travel on a Monday you probably will finish travelling on a Thursday, paying the extra fee for taxes and talking in the phone for more than one hour. Conclusion: is not for free.

So the bits and tricks to have a more enjoyable time and energy consuming way to obtain that golden ticket is the next:

   

1)     Sky Team / Star Alliance / One World: airlines which belong to that group have the obligation to offer you a way for you to reach that destination even so the airline that you are calling to get the award ticket doesn´t reach. For example you are in Buenos Aires, Argentina and you want to travel to Dubai. You are calling Aerolineas Argentinas (horrible example that airline but is the easiest in my mind) and you tell them about where you want to reach. They will tell you that Aerolineas Argentinas doesn´t reach Dubai so they you´ll have to tell them that they are in Sky Team, Sky Team has different types of code shares (alliances between airlines) and that Alitalia also belongs to Sky  Team and they reach Abu Dhabi; or that Air France reaches Dubai. So you ask them politely to know how many extra miles you´ll need to invest in Air France or Alitalia to get that ticket (there is always an exchange rate difference of miles from one frequent flyer program form another). So after that you choose which airline is more convince to you taking into consideration the exchange miles rate, flying dates, restrictions, transit hours and taxes / fees you´ll have to pay. That applies for every airline that has or code share or that they are with alliance with another airline.

2)      You may use your flying miles to book a Hotel but ask for the restrictions of that booking. It may be from the fact that you have non cancel policy to non extra use of benefits that you have from another program that participates in that Hotel (upgrades, free breakfast, late check-put, etc.).

3)      Be aware which frequent flyer program you are going to put in your miles. For example if you are travelling Lan (it´s an important airline from South America) you may still put your miles into the Qantas account even so you didn´t travel Qantas. This is because as they have a mutual agreement through One World you may do so. But check what is more convenient for you, which program brings you more benefits and which you have to spend fewer miles to get a “free” ticket or upgrade.

4)      Print every paper that they send to you and write the name and surname of the employee which you talked to and the hour in which you did the call: that may help you if then you have a problem with the ticket as for example restrictions that they didn´t tell you or knew about because they didn´t appear anywhere in your booking.

5)      Ask for all the restrictions and a complete explanation (even with examples) of each one; then ask them to send you via mail all of what they explained to you.

6)      If they (the call center) say to you “no Sir, that can´t be done” and the airline you want to use to travel to that particular destination belongs to the same frequent flyer program (One World / Star Alliance / Sky Team) insist: many times they don´t know that that can be done or they just don´t want to do it because it implies a little more work than usual.

Soon I´ll make a list of the programs and the problem that you might encounter in each airline when you call their call center to perform a booking through there awarding tickets system.

(I don´t own the above picture)