Tips for Earning Frequent Flyer Miles

So you want to travel for free? One of the only real, tried and true ways to do so is through accumulating and then redeeming your frequent flyer miles for flights. American Airlines is the airline that first introduced the frequent flyer program, and they have some tips for earning and redeeming miles for travel.

It's been 25 years since American introduced frequent flyer programs to the air travel world. These tips are geared towards the American Airlines' AAdvantage program, but a few of the tips may be useful for many of the frequent flyer programs out there.

American Airlines top 10 for earning miles so you can travel free faster...

• 1. Book online at AA.com - earn AAdvantage miles each time you do.
• 2. Sign up for promotions - some promotions have bonus miles offered just for signing up, making a purchase, or at times you may be eligible for double or triple the usual miles for flying a certain route.
• 3. Get a credit card to earn miles - if you get one of the Citi ® / AAdvantage® cards, you can earn up to 15,000 bonus miles after your first purchase is made with the card.
• 4. Stay at a hotel - American Airlines has 35 worldwide hotel partners representing nearly 75 hotel brands. And the miles add up quite quickly...five miles for every dollar spent at more than 10,000 hotels in the U.S. and Canada.
• 5. Rent a car - AAdvantage miles can be earned with eight major car rental agencies so you can drive and earn.
• 6. Dine Out - you can earn up to 10 miles for every dollar spent while dining out. More than 10,000 restaurants across the United States and Canada participate, and give you miles to eat.
• 7. Take a vacation - AAdvantage members earn 1,000 AAdvantage bonus miles when booking via American Airlines Vacations .
• 8. Financing - partnerships with financial services, such as banks, financial service firms, real estate companies, and home financing services, mean several ways to earn miles. Members can earn miles for banking, investing, or selling a home.
• 9. Go shopping - you can earn miles at more than 90 brand-name retailers.
• 10. Donate - Earn miles for making donations to non-profit organizations through the AAdvantage Fund Raising program from American Airlines.

There is a skill to redeeming frequent flyer miles. Not every seat on every flight is available for payment with frequent flyer miles, but rather a varying percentage of seats are made available. You will be competing for fewer available seats, so the top 10 list for how to redeem your miles is even more important.

Some of the redemption options that American Airlines offers are quite different from other frequent flyer plans such as teaming up with programs that allow you to use miles towards savings for college.

American Airlines' Top 10 ways to use the miles you've earned

• 1. Vacation Planning - members can use as few as 500 miles towards paying for vacations planned with AAVacations.com, including hotel, car rentals and local activities.
• 2. Off-peak travel awards - you can use less miles if you are willing to travel at less popular times which vary by destination.
• 3. Short-Hop awards - these are not always available and pop up more as a promotion which allow members to claim awards on trips of 750 miles or less at reduced mileage levels.
• 4. Gift of Travel - you can use your miles to give travel opportunities to family members, friends or even donate miles to various charities.
• 5. Admirals Clubs - use you miles to use the lounge. AAdvantage miles can be redeemed for annual Admirals Club memberships and really relax before your flights.
• 6. Hotels - starting at 500 AAdvantage miles, members can book vacation packages which include hotel stays, airport transfers and other features through AmericanAirlines Vacations.
• 7. Magazines - you can redeem miles for some of your favorite magazines. Subscriptions start at 400 miles and can be setup online through Magazines for Miles.
• 8. College Savings - American Airlines has teamed up with Upromise, to save for college. AAdvantage members can now redeem frequent flyer miles for college savings and deposit them into their Upromise account.
• 9. Shopping - Points.com allows AAdvantage members to exchange miles for shopping gift certificates at lots of well known retailers and restaurants.
• 10. Donate - you can donate your miles to various charities such as the Make-a-Wish Foundation. When you make a donation to one of American’s partner organizations, you will earn extra AAdvantage miles.