rewarding travel

Ask Randy

Randy Petersen answers reader questions about how to maximize travel-related loyalty programs.

Dear Randy,
I have many ticket stubs saved from about seven different airlines over the past year. Most airlines will allow me to get mileage credit for flights taken in the past 12 months. Is there any way to roll these miles all into one place?

In all cases, when you are trying to get credit for flights not yet posted: Before sending in boarding passes or ticket stubs, please make sure you are submitting the information to the correct airline.

You have ticket stubs from seven different airlines. Do you submit the stubs to each of those airlines? No. First, you should sort through the tickets and try to establish a few things.

You will want to cross-reference all your flights to common alliances. Even without knowing the airlines you've flown, I can comfortably say that at least some of them have reciprocal frequent flier partnerships.

Thus, you may find yourself sending ticket stubs for perhaps four of the airlines to a single allied frequent flier program, rather than each airline's individual program.

The idea is to build your individual mileage accounts with the partners. For instance, let's say you have boarding passes from American, Alaska, United, British Airways, Continental, Air France and Delta. You might see seven different frequent flier programs where you should send your boarding passes, but I see just two or three.

I know that while American and British Airways are partners, they do not allow each other's members to collect miles from transatlantic segments. I also know that American and Alaska are partners. And I know that because Alaska does not fly transatlantic, flights with partner British Airways could count for credit in an Alaska Mileage Plan account. But I must be careful, because on certain discount fares, flights on British Airways will only earn 25 percent of the miles flown. I also know that Continental, Delta and Air France flights will count toward my account in the Alaska Mileage Plan program.

If this were the situation in front of me, here's what I'd do. I'd send the boarding passes for my American, British Airways, Continental and Air France flights to Alaska for credit with their frequent flier program (remember to look up the fare code on the tickets first, because you may want to simply open your own British Airways account if only 25 percent of the miles flown on British Airways will be credited into the Alaska account). While I did say that Delta is a partner, it is a newer partner, and as such, some flights may not be eligible in the period of travel covered by your tickets. So, with Delta, you can credit those flights to your SkyMiles program instead.

You might be able to credit your Continental and Air France flights to Delta as well, but then you'd be splitting up your mileage balance, and it's much better to concentrate on a single account. As for United, you'd have to try to get that credited to the Mileage Plus program, as none of the other airlines mentioned have any sort of relationship with United.

Looking back at my suggestions, I can see where you might balk at the idea of depositing all those various airline flights into the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan program, because it's likely not a local airline for you. Never fear: Remember that just as you can earn miles for all other airlines' flights on Alaska's Mileage Plan, you can also redeem Alaska miles on those same airlines. I know many members of the Mileage Plan program who rarely (if ever) fly Alaska Airlines, but they still use Alaska's program because they like being able to add miles from a large number of carriers. You can redeem from Alaska on American or Continental—or these days, even with Delta.

Ask Randy.

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RANDY PETERSEN is publisher of Inside Flyer magazine and is president of Frequent Flyer Services. Email Randy at editor@executivetravelmag.com.