Airline mileage programs have become so complicated, it’s hard to know how many miles you get. You used to get one mile per mile flown and more when you flew business or first class. But nowadays, you might get less or no miles for deeply discounted economy class tickets. The big US carriers have all switched to revenue based earning, so you get miles for dollars spent. And it gets worse when trying to earn miles on one of the many alliance partners. But there is help – the web site WhereToCredit is giving you a quick overview of which airline give you the most miles for your flight!
I’m a member of countless airline programs and know many of them very well, yet even after spending hours combing through the programs, I have given up to figure out the best program for a given flight! It just takes too much time to figure it out. But not anymore. WhereToCredit has stored the rules of all the major airline reward programs and makes it quick and easy to find out how many miles you’ll get for your ticket.
You get a simple entry screen for the airline you are flying and the booking class of your ticket:
The booking class is key as it is driving the miles earning across most of the airlines these days. You’ll find it on the booking screen (often hidden among the “Fare Rules”) or on your flight itinerary and invoice.
Once you’ve entered these two pieces of information, you’ll get an overview of all the airlines you can credit that flight to – and discover the stunning differences between alliance partners!
I recently booked a deeply discounted ticket on Singapore Airlines (SQ) with a booking class of K. United or Lufthansa won’t give you any miles for that ticket and even SQ will only offer 10%! Yet StarAlliance partner Ethiopian Airlines give you a full 100%. In my example, it’s the difference between 536 miles in SQ’s KrisFlyer program or 5,358 in Ethiopian’s Sheba Miles program, and worth consideration as either airline program will allow you to redeem the miles for StarAlliance flights!
That example also shows that knowing which program offers the most miles doesn’t necessarily mean that you should credit your miles to the highest bidder. Having orphaned miles that might expire at some point in a large number of programs isn’t the best strategy, especially if you don’t fly a lot. But having an alternative program to your “main” airline rewards program IS a good strategy, especially with all the recent devaluations and revenue-based earning by the big US carriers. I have previously posted about Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer program, ANA’s MileageClub and Thai Airways’ Royal Orchid program as great alternatives to United’s sinking MileagePlus program – and WhereToCredit makes it easier to work with those alternative programs. Stop loosing out on hard-earned airline miles and check out WhereToCredit!