By Jason Steele, Bankrate
For decades, one of the perks airline travelers have enjoyed most is the ability to earn frequent flyer miles and redeem them for an award flight or other rewards.
Whether you get them via a travel credit card, an airline loyalty program or both, earning frequent flyer miles can be a great way to fund one or more vacations each year.
But not all airline bookings earn miles, and it’s not always easy to know in advance which are eligible.
Here’s when you should expect to earn miles on your flight, when you won’t, and how the best rewards credit cards can help ensure you’re getting the best return for your spending.
When will you earn miles on a flight?
Not every ticket earns frequent flyer miles, but most do. To earn miles for your flight, you must fly on certain types of tickets and take steps to ensure you receive the mileage credits you’re entitled to.
When you use your frequent flyer account
Before you can earn any miles, you need to create a frequent flyer account with the airline you’re flying. Thankfully, nearly all airlines allow you to set this up for free. In fact, you can even create accounts for your minor children.
But to receive mileage credit for your flights, you must then add your frequent flyer number to your reservation; it’s not enough to simply create the account and then book a ticket without logging into that account or manually adding your number to the reservation.
The simplest way to ensure your number is on the reservations is to log into your account when you book your flight through the airline; in that case, your number will be included by default when you purchase your tickets.
Alternatively, you can decide to use a frequent flyer number with a partner carrier and credit your miles to its program. Many airlines have partnerships with numerous other airlines that allow customers to earn miles in a partner program. Most of these partnerships also allow you to redeem miles for flights operated by their…
Read the full article here
