Dining can fatten your air mileage
By Tim Winship
Winter is travel's slowest period, which paradoxically means that it's the ideal time to earn miles and points in travel rewards programs, and to redeem miles for free flights.
NEW YEAR'S PERKS: MORE MILES FOR DINING
Dining has become one of the most lucrative sources of airline miles, offering customers up to 10 miles per $1 spent at participating restaurants.
And the earnings are even more generous when the programs shift into promotional mode, as many have done in the first quarters of recent years.
This year, dining promotions ranging from extra miles to accelerated dining elite status are on offer from American, Delta, Northwest and United.
Registration is required.
Members must first register, by Feb. 28. Thereafter, they'll earn 1,000 bonus miles for every $100 spent at participating restaurants through March 15, up to a maximum of 10,000 bonus miles.
To qualify, members must register in advance.
Members must first register, by Feb. 15, after which they will earn 5,000 bonus miles and be upgraded to Elite Dining status for the remainder of 2007 after dining out 10 times at $25 or more (including tax and tip) by March 31.
United's is potentially the most lucrative of the offers, awarding program members up to 20 bonus miles per dollar, plus accelerated Elite status.
Delta's offer amounts to an extra 10 miles per $1 spent, while American's ranges between five and 10 miles, depending on the total spent during the promotion period.
By comparison, Northwest's offer is only so-so.
While most of the current dining promotions are offered through the airline programs, there is one available from the frequent-stay program of the InterContinental hotels network:
Elite dining members earn 16 points per $1 spent at participating restaurants during 2007, versus five points per $1 earned by nonelite members.
Registration is required.
CASH IN YOUR MILES WITH SEASON IN MIND
If tracking down an available award seat often seems like finding a needle in a haystack, during the winter months there are at least a few more needles lurking in the hay.
That's simply because the sale of paid tickets falls off following the year-end holiday travel surge and remains soft until the traditional Memorial Day weekend start of summer excursions. And the more empty seats there are, the more likely the airlines are to make seats available for award usage.
So this would be the best of all possible times to redeem miles for an award trip.
But while the overall odds of securing award seats are heightened during the winter, there remain seasonal supply bottlenecks to work around. For example, flights to such ski destinations as Salt Lake City and Aspen are routinely filled close to capacity.
And travel to such warm-weather destinations as Phoenix, Palm Springs and Hawai'i will be strong as well (meaning Islanders, traveling in the other direction, have trouble cashing in miles even during this "slack" time of year).
Since both cases involve leisure markets, travel will tend to be heaviest around weekends. So would-be award travelers will fare best by avoiding Friday and Sunday when booking trips with miles.
These strategic considerations suggest a general rule for intelligent, hassle-free travel management: purchase tickets for travel during the high-demand summer and Christmas holiday periods; schedule award trips for the off-peak fall and winter months.
And be ever mindful of the exceptions to the rule.
Tim Winship is the founder of FrequentFlier.com
Reach Tim Winship at questions@frequentflier.com.
