18 Things Everyone Should Know About Airline Miles

To maximize your value, always try to get at least two cents of value out of each mile when you redeem them in exchange for a plane ticket. Check out this blog post for a more detailed explanation of how to calculate mileage value.

You can actually redeem your miles from the airlines or banks that issue them for a value of one cent each, but it's not a good idea. You'll get a lot more value out of your miles by redeeming them for travel.

It's true. Co-branded airline credit cards offer huge sign-on miles bonuses which are often good for a free flight — or two! The best cards do have an annual fee, but, depending on how often you travel, you'll often find that the value of the flights you'll get to take can outweigh that fee.

Most of the credit cards also offer perks like trip insurance, baggage delay reimbursement, and free checked luggage. Keep in mind that you'll need a good credit score to get approved and qualify for even better bonuses with these cards.

Lots of people use both words to describe the same thing, but technically airline miles are only given out by airlines. Points are given out by banks. Points earned can usually transfer to airlines and become miles.

Chase's Ultimate Rewards points from Chase transfer to United, Southwest, British Airways, and several other airlines. American Express has Membership Rewards points you can use with 17 airline transfer partners, and Citibank has gotten in on the action with their Thank You program, which is new but starting to improve.

If you have some time to kill, you can earn miles by answering random surveys at sites like e-miles and e-rewards. It's usually only a few hundred miles, but it's an easy way to top off your balance when you're close to an award redemption goal, or to keep your account active.

The big American airlines partner with lots of international airlines you might not know about, and therein lies some of the best ways to get to cool places with your miles.

For example, American partners with Fiji Airways and Air Tahiti Nui — just in case you want to go to Fiji or Tahiti. United partners with Singapore Airlines, which offers one of the best business classes in the world, plus tons of other world-class airlines.

Delta partners with Air France and Virgin Australia in case you'd like to visit Paris or Sydney, respectively. Other cool partnerships are American with Finnair, United with South African Airways, and Delta with Aerolineas Argentinas (which has flights to extreme southern South America).

For the longest time, I thought I had to credit Air Canada flights to Air Canada's frequent flyer program, United flights to the United Program, Aer Lingus flights to their program, etc. Wrong! I could have credited all those miles to one program, because all those airlines are part of the same alliance.

Crediting everything to one airline program builds up your miles balance in one place, where they can accumulate and be useful faster. Check out this list of airlines and their alliances (or non-alliance status) so you know which ones are partner's with the airline you want to credit to.

Most programs have miles that expire within 18 months, on average. That's quite a while, but time can pass by faster than you think, so make sure to read the fine print.

By shopping through the portals, dining at a restaurant in your airline's dining program, or taking a quick survey online, you can reset the clock for your miles. Having an airline's co-branded credit card and using it here and there will also help. Taking a flight will do the trick, too, of course.

The terms are sometimes more flexible with an award ticket and let you do some cool things that would be super expensive on a paid ticket.

Some programs will let you add in a stopover, which can be anywhere from a couple of days to a few months, before continuing on to another (final) destination. Others will let you fly into one airport and then fly home from another one — this is called an "open jaw" award. You may also be able to mix and match flights from multiple airlines within an alliance on one ticket.

I subscribe to the "earn and burn" philosophy for my miles. You never know when airline programs might change the value of miles or require more miles for awards, sometimes without notice.

The best way is to approach miles is with a goal in mind, and once you reach that goal, redeem your miles for it! Don't hoard miles for a trip you'll take "someday."

If you ever see an offer to get a new toaster for "only" 30,000 miles, don't do it. It's never a good value. Ditto for using your miles for magazine subscriptions, goods and services, and even to partially offset the cost of regular paid tickets. Using miles for award flights — and being sure to get two cents of ticket value for each mile — is by far the best way to use your miles.

You'll often see airlines advertising the ability to buy miles on their websites. It's usually not a good idea, unless you're thiiiiis close to qualifying for a specific awards flight somewhere and need to top off your account right away.

Top-tier status with an airline typically begins when you've flown 25,000 miles (of literal distance) in a one-year period. That elite status comes with bonus miles earned for each mile flown, anywhere from 25% extra to 100% — double miles — and even more if you're flying business class. This alone is a great reason to stay loyal to one airline.

Patagonia in fall? Venice for Carnival? Sydney for New Year's fireworks? Anything's possible, so think big and start reading up ways to earn the airline miles that will get you there.