Points 5: U.S. Airline Frequent Flier Programs

When I described the SPG Amex card I explained the advantage of belonging to American frequent flier programs. But even if you don't have the annual spending that makes this card's fee worthwhile, there are other ways to earn miles in these plans.

Most of the airline programs offer a joining bonus. It's usually only 1,000 miles, but it's a nice start. However, you'll need to find ways to keep earning miles because most plans' points expire if you have no activity during a 12-24 month period.

You can, of course, take a flight, but for most of us leisure travelers, that's an occasional thing, and our choice of airline usually depends on price and schedule, not loyalty points.

But you can also fly on one airline and credit the miles to another airline, as long as they are both members of the same alliance. There are three global airline partnerships: Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and oneworld. For example, you can fly on United Airlines and credit the miles to Aeroplan, and vice-versa, because both Air Canada and United are members of the Star Alliance.

Remember I told you to join the loyalty program of every hotel you stay at? Here's why: you can earn miles in your chosen airline's frequent flier program. That's right: you can stay at the Hampton Inn or the Super 8 and earn Aeroplan miles (for example). You don't have to accept the hotel program's points. Join online prior to your stay. When you set up your account, in your "profile", set your earning preference to the airline program of your choice (you'll have to register your frequent flier number). You can change it as often as you want in order to keep the points in different plans alive.

And if you've earned a significant number of hotel points, but not enough for a free night, you may be able to swap them for airline miles. Many hotel plans let you do this, but they all have differing minimum point levels and exchange rates.

There's another way to keep frequent flier points alive and that's through Points.com. It's a free point tracking and swapping website and it allows swaps between HBC points and airline programs, including Aeroplan, Alaska, Cathay Pacific (Asia Miles), Delta, and US Airways. They do exact a hefty premium for their service, but if you want to keep points alive, or boost your total to the level where you can redeem for a flight, it might be worth it. You can even swap Petro Points, if you first exchange them for Asia Miles at the Petro Points site and then swap Asia Miles at Points.com.

There are also several annual-fee credit cards available to Canadians that earn points with U.S. airlines. I'll tell you where to find out about them when I describe the blogs and websites that I find useful. But first, I want to go into a bit more detail on hotel programs.