Alright, let me start this Travel Hacks post with a confession: I’ve been a massive airline nerd for years and I’ve slowly gotten better at using that nerdiness to my advantage. When I first started flying on my own, I didn’t have a clue about the benefits that being a committed frequent flier with one airline could bring, or any sort of plan as to make that happen. Once I started my career and I needed to fly for work, or to see my family or friends in other parts of the world, I wanted to find a way to make my flying experience better. I know, from my experience at least, that when you’re a traveler with no status or airport perks, the day of travel can be miserable, to state it bluntly.

In this post, I’ll walk through how and why I picked the airline I’ve stayed loyal to over the past 6 years, how I’ve maximized my mileage earning outside of my flying, and how I’ve earned (and kept) higher status tiers over time. This post will mainly focus on the United States and may involve scouting out another airline for yourself, but the same principles apply regardless of where you live. My approach may not be what’s best for you, but it’s worked very well for me, allowing me to single-handedly pay for all of our major flights (over 25 individual segments each!) during our world trip.

How To Pick An Airline, or Global Alliance

Wherever you are, you probably have several major airline or airline alliance options when choosing how to consistently reach your destinations, but when you look a layer deeper there is probably one airline that makes more sense than the others. There are three major airline alliances in the world, Star Alliance, SkyTeam, and OneWorld, with 26, 19, and 16 airlines in them respectively. In the United States United Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, Delta Air Lines is affiliated with SkyTeam, and American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and, as of later in 2024, Hawaiian Airlines are all members of the OneWorld alliance. In addition to alliance flying, there are non-affiliated airlines like JetBlue, Southwest, Frontier, or Spirit but these airlines are typically disadvantaged when it comes to international flying since they may not have a robust partner network to leverage.

If you’re planning on frequently traveling internationally, or around the world on a big trip like us, you’ll most likely want to prioritize an airline that’s a member of one of the three worldwide alliances. Each alliance has their own worldwide regional strengths and weaknesses, and depending on where you fly most often one will make more sense than the other two. Below you can find a summary of each alliances respective strengths and weaknesses by region:

**Star Alliance**

**Strengths**: Europe *(Lufthansa Group, Scandinavian Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Aegean Airlines, Croatia Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, Turkish Airlines)*, Asia *(Thai Airways, Air China, Air India, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, EVA Air, Singapore Airlines)*, Africa *(Ethiopian Airlines, Egyptair, South African Airways)*, North America *(United Airlines, Air Canada)*, Latin America *(Avianca, Copa Airlines)*
**Weaknesses**: South America, Oceania, Australia

**SkyTeam**

**Strengths**: Latin & South America *(Aeromexico, Aerolineas Argentina)*, Asia *(China Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Xiamen Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Korean Air, Vietnam Airlines)*, Europe *(Air Europa, Air France - KLM, Czech Airlines, ITA Airways, TAROM, Virgin Atlantic)*
**Weaknesses**: Oceania, Middle East, Australia

**OneWorld**

**Strengths**: North America *(American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines - as of later in 2024)*, Europe *(British Airways, Iberia, Finnair)*, Middle East *(Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, Oman Air - as of later in 2024)*, Oceania *(Qantas, Malaysia Airlines, Fiji Airways - connect partner)*, Asia *(Japan Airlines, Cathay Pacific, SriLankan Airlines)*
**Weaknesses**: Latin America, South America, Africa

When I was first picking an airline, I was living in New York City and frequently traveling around the United States for work, to visit my family, and to visit my long-distance girlfriend (now fiancée) in Europe, so there was only one airline group that made sense for me. With two airlines that have overlapping hubs and strong networks in my most frequent destinations, Alaska Airlines (Portland & Los Angeles) and American Airlines (Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York City, & unofficially London), it made the most sense to fly with the OneWorld alliance.

To pick which airline made the most sense between the two OneWorld members, I looked at a number of factors, including how to earn miles outside of flights, owned flight networks from my home base of New York City, and airline partners outside of the OneWorld alliance. After looking at these factors, American Airlines was the airline that made the most sense for me since they offered several ways to earn miles outside of flying, they had a robust network from both LaGuardia and JFK, and at the time they had an excellent partnership with JetBlue which greatly expanded their network from the East Coast. American Airlines was also the more sentimental choice for me as my original hometown airline, America West, bought US Airways in 2005 and acquired American Airlines in 2013, opting to keep the acquired airlines name and branding both times. This all meant that I was really flying with my old hometown airline, even though the name had been gone for over a decade.

If you’re having trouble figuring out which airline might be the best fit for you, ask yourself some of the questions below, they might help you figure out your best option:

Which 3 airlines operate the most flights out of my hometown?
Where do I plan on flying most frequently over the next few years?
Which of those top 3 airlines fly to the places I think I will frequently visit?
Do I plan on frequently traveling long-haul internationally?
If yes, where are my top long-haul destinations in the next few years?
Do any of those top 3 airlines fly, or have partners that fly, to these destinations non-stop or one-stop from my hometown?

How To Maximize Mileage Earning

Now that I had picked an airline I was going to focus on growing my relationship with, I wanted to make sure I could be as efficient as possible in earning miles, status, and making this partnership work the most for me. For many people, earning miles with an airline equals your activity flying on that airline, and maybe credit card spend, or significant sign-up bonuses, on co-branded cards. However, there are typically many more ways to accrue miles and earn travel perks outside of these more traditional and well-known channels. For example, American Airlines offers at least eleven other channels for earning miles:

While this is a more detailed look at American Airlines loyalty offering, United, Delta, Southwest, Alaska, and JetBlue all offer similar ways to earn rewards in the United States, while airline groups like IAG (British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Vueling, and LEVEL) and the Lufthansa Group (Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels, Austrian, Eurowings, ITA, and Discover) offer comparable methods in Europe. One thing to note, however, is that it is generally easier to earn miles and other travel perks in the United States compared to other countries, thanks to a mix of different financial regulations and consumer expectations.

For us, we’ve maximized our miles earned with American Airlines by taking advantage of several of these different channels:

We’ve both installed the AAdvantage eShopping extension on our Google Chrome browser which automatically checks any website we’re on and alerts us if we can earn extra miles, to the tune of nearly 100,000 miles over the past few years.
We have regularly checked SimplyMiles for extra offers and applied them to our account. This automatically earns extra miles for transactions made with registered cards whether in-store or online.
We registered our credit cards with AAdvantage Dining and automatically earned extra miles if we dine out at an eligible restaurant, with no extra effort needed on our part.
We have regularly used AAdvantage Hotels to find good deals in cities we’re traveling to, earning us over 100,000 miles in the past few years.
We have rented a car through one of their partners several times to earn extra miles. This is made even better when renting through Avis with the automatic Preferred Plus status that comes with being an Executive Platinum frequent flier.
We each make yearly donations to Stand Up to Cancer during American Airlines elevated offer period and earn thousands of miles while, hopefully, making a positive difference.

When combining the miles we’ve earned with those earned through the traditional channels of co-branded credit card spend and flying on the airline, it has allowed us to accelerate earning status and building a travel bank of over 1,000,000 miles.

How To Earn & Retain Status

Let’s start off by re-emphasizing that having frequent flier status with an airline can be awesome! Frequent flier status brings lots of perks like using premium check-in counters when you arrive at the airport, increased complimentary baggage allowances, use of premium lounges, pre-boarding with early groups to secure overhead bins, and complimentary seat upgrades on many flights. These benefits are enhanced even more when your airline of choice is a member of one of the alliances, as your perks are then available to you on any airline in the alliance, improving your travel days around the world. Now that we’ve established a bit about why you might want to chase status, let’s look at how it’s done and how you can improve your travel days.

Beyond just earning airline miles or points, it is now possible to use credit card spending to meet some frequent flier status requirements with many airlines. Several have even taken it one step further, allowing you to earn & retain frequent flier status solely off co-branded credit card spend. American Airlines was the first major US carrier to adopt this approach in October of 2021, but since then Delta has also adopted a “revenue focused” model within their SkyMiles program. Several other carriers including United have updated some elements of their frequent flier programs to align more with a “revenue focused” model. Outside of the US, Lufthansa’s Miles & More program (used by Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, Brussels Airlines, Luxair, and LOT), and IAG’s Avios program (used by British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus among others) have both made initial moves towards more of a revenue-based system as well.

While it is now possible to earn & retain your status solely with co-branded credit card spend on some airlines around the world, many still require you to meet thresholds across several categories such as segments flown, miles flown, or an airline-specific category like “tier points” for British Airways. Thanks to these unique, airline-specific requirements it’s important for you to understand how the airline you’ve chosen measures loyalty. For example, one measure United Airlines uses to determine frequent flier status is Premier Qualifying Flights (PQFs), which only counts activity when you fly on revenue tickets with either the airline or partner airlines. As a result, many United fliers will find them close to the required PQFs near the end of the MileagePlus collection year and will take several unnecessary flights to reach their target status level. This is not a very economical or environmentally-friendly way to earn or retain airline status, but for many frequent fliers the benefits of having status outweigh the costs.

One thing to keep in mind with all airline loyalty programs is that legally, the airline can make changes at any time, with no advanced warning to fliers. In practice, airlines typically give fliers at least a 6 month fore-warning before making significant changes to their loyalty program. One recent example of this was when Delta modified how travelers earned SkyMiles status, simplifying it to only Medallion Qualifying Dollars (MQDs), following American’s lead with a “revenue focused” loyalty program. However, this change made headlines not for its new simplicity and ease of use for travelers, but instead for the huge increases in MQDs fliers would need to earn before reaching status levels. This significant change in how the program operated, angered tens of thousands of Delta elites who let the company know by tweeting about it, calling their customer center, and writing old-fashioned letters to the airline. The outcrying of anger and disappointment from their customers ultimately led to Delta temporarily reversing some of the new changes, but not until an untold number of their most valuable fliers had switched their status to other airlines like American, United, JetBlue, and Alaska.

I have one more insight in earning status: sometimes the quickest way to reach a status tier is to sign up for one program, but fly on their partner airlines. It sounds counterintuitive and it is, but the way an airline rewards flight activity isn’t always consistent across the airline itself and it’s partner network, with some partners having lower earning rates, while others actually rewards flying more. For example, since American and Alaska Airlines are both in the OneWorld alliance, fliers from one airline can earn miles with flights on either carrier. Where this gets strange, is that an AAdvantage member can earn more miles & loyalty points towards their American Airlines status when flying on Alaska Airlines rather than American themselves. To give this a little more context let’s use a real-world example, both American and Alaska fly from Portland, Oregon to Miami, Florida – a distance of 2,700 miles. If an AAdvantage member with no status buys a full-fare economy ticket on American Airlines for a cost of $165 before taxes and fees, they will earn 825 miles & loyalty points since flights on American earn miles based on base fare. However, if they fly the same route, regardless of price, on Alaska Airlines they will earn 2,700 miles & loyalty points, a 212% premium over the rewards they would have earned flying on their regular airline since American rewards activity on Alaska Airlines based on distance flown. With several flights like this one, an AAdvantage member could reach their target status tier much quicker by traveling on partners, rather than American Airlines. But be warned, this isn’t the case with all partners, some will reward you at the same level while others won’t be eligible for rewards for the same ticket types. Therefore, it’s important to know how your airline’s partner network works, and who they over-reward or under-reward travel with.

To finish this section, let’s talk about how earning status once makes it easier to maintain status over the following years through one common frequent flier perk: enhanced earning rates. This perk generally does what the name describes: variably enhancing the number of miles and status points earned based on a flier’s pre-existing status before their flight. American Airlines, for example, rewards simple AAdvantage members 5X miles per dollar spent on a ticket with the airline but this increases to 7X for Gold members, 8X for Platinum, 9X for Platinum Pro, and 11X for Executive Platinum. This enhanced earning enables existing elite fliers to retain status faster than non-elites can earn it, because they’ll earn between 2 and 6 more points per dollar spent than a non-elite member. Think of it this way, if you became a new member today and earned 40,000 miles with the airline on flights flown, you would accrue 40,000 loyalty points, enough to become a Gold AAdvantage member. If you flew the same amount next year, you would now earn 56,000 miles & loyalty points because of your 7X earning rate instead of 5X, getting you much closer to earning Platinum status. This enhanced earning rate generally carries across multiple channels with higher status fliers earning extra miles & loyalty points through most associated airline activity, making it far easier to retain status once you’ve earned it.

Summary
There are hundreds of airlines flying right now all over the world, but there are probably only one or two that make sense for you to build a long-term relationship with. Which airline that is, truly depends on many factors like where you live, where you frequently travel to, and what type of travel you plan on doing in the next few years, etc. The sooner you can decide which airline is the right fit for you the better, because it can often take a long time to accrue these top tier benefits. It took me four years of flying with American before I reached their top status, but with a long-term focus on reaching my goal, I now enjoy all of the perks that come with it. There truly is no time like the present to find your airline partner, (responsibly) sign-up for a credit card, or two, with a sweet sign-up bonus, and start earning your way towards top-tier status and a rewards bank that would make Tom Stuker jealous.

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