Admit It…You’re a Mileage Whore

Corporate cults are a dime a dozen these days. We, as a society, have come a long ways since the days of Occupy Wall Street Movement. People still only drink Starbucks coffee, get their groceries from Walmart, and live and die by whatever is streaming on Netflix.

One of the biggest corporate cults, however, is within the airline industry. Whether you be a part of AAdvantage, SKyMiles, Mileage Plus, or Rapid Rewards, we all crave getting outside and experiencing the world through travel. Every major bank now has a travel rewards credit card of their own and offer some huge rewards for booking through your bank, and more and more people are trusting their banker to be their travel agent, too.

Yes, that’s right, when you book a trip through your credit card company, they are your travel agent, and thus, your airline, your hotel, and your tour operator can’t do anything aside from service you in your travel. They can’t make changes to dates, and in some cases, can’t even give you upgrades. Additionally, depending on how they do your booking, you might not even earn your rewards with the airlines or hotels the same way you normally would.

Airline credit cards, the in-house ones, are often the most popular way for people to earn miles because, well, it’s mindless. Often times, airlines will entice you with bonus miles, some as high as 100,000 miles, for you to sign up for them. These can be very lucrative offerings. Meanwhile, you continue to earn milage based on how much you spend on the card, often 2 to 4 miles for every dollar you spend with the airline, some other travel related category, and then 1 mile for everywhere else.

Many people stop there and call it a day. However, if you did that, you’re leaving mileage on the table. The Dining Rewards Network has partnered with the 4 major American airlines, American, United, Southwest and Delta. Their secure server links up ANY major credit or debit card in your wallet, and they partner with about 30,000 restaurants across the country and around the world to buy milage just for dining out. Every time you swipe a registered credit card with a participating restaurant, that restaurant buys miles for you. I, personally, went for some drinks with a buddy of mine at a pub, a local hole in the wall, Fisher’s Pub, here in Greensboro. Don’t get me wrong; we got after it, and by the end of the evening, had a $110 tab. That was 330 AAdvantage miles in my pocket just by having my regular Truist Visa Debit card registered on the network.

The other way to earn that gets overlooked by many is the Shopping Rewards Network. All four majors have their own networks and participating partners. But it has nothing to do with your form of payment; simply shop online through the network. American and United even have their own Google Chrome Extensions that pop up when you shop. It simply shows up with a pop-out when you hit a site offering miles and says “Click here to Activate the Offer”. My kid busted my office door a week ago — literally ran head-first into the door, put a hole in it. New door from Lowes: $71. Purchased on Lowes website and picked it up in-store about an hour later. 71 miles earned. Shippd flowers to my mom for Mother’s Day — FTD hooked it up with 10 miles for every dollar. That was 1,200 miles in my pocket. Ordered my groceries using Walmart+ and had them delivered to my door about 2 hours later. That adds up to be about 100–150 miles every single week.

This is not mileage hacking. You’re not violating any terms and conditions anywhere by using these programs. The businesses that pay for these miles for you, they love it because you’re spending the money to earn those miles with their business. And from the businesses buying those miles for you, it is revenue for the airlines. In fact, it’s prepaid revenue, so it gives those airlines more money and more leverage to buy more planes and travel to new destinations for you. They keep that cash, essentially, until you choose to redeem it. Take advantage of it.

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