How Do You Negotiate Frequent Flyer Miles?
• Recognize that frequent flyer miles are a marketing technique. That being said, you can use them to your advantage if you are careful about their usage. In short, always buy a ticket because of cost savings instead of the miles you would accumulate. • Calculate the value of a mile to you. Airlines sell miles to their marketing partners for $.01 – $.02 per mile – but this valuation can be deceptive. You can’t necessarily trade in miles for money – so don’t strictly think of miles as a monetary unit. ( You can sell your miles, but usually pay a transfer fee; you can also use your miles to buy another person a ticket via craigslist or a site that specializes in those transactions such as flyhub.com; however, it will involve overhead of both fees and your your time. Better to plan ahead and get miles you will use yourself. ) • Realize that frequent flyer mile cards often have a very high interest rate – so do yourself a favor. Make a list of all the bills that you definitely pay off ever
