This is a topic that demands a lot of planning and time, perhaps the most challenging part of a frequent traveler strategy, as results come gradually over time.
You can for sure devise an efficient miles accumulation strategy; it just requires a bit of dedication and studying the possibilities.

But let's start with the basics of everything.

What are Air Miles?

Miles are a kind of "virtual points" that airlines have been issuing and using for decades. It's a massive business that moves billions per year worldwide.
The most basic idea behind miles is to create a bond between the customer and the company, incentivizing you to consume from that same company again.

You know that coffee loyalty card, where you get a free coffee after 10 stamps?
The basic concept is similar to miles. The significant difference is that miles are traded by companies and can be transferred between partner companies or those belonging to the same group, creating much greater incentives and a massive market around it.

Why do airlines negotiate Miles?

The main reasons are:

  • To create customer loyalty to the company.
  • When you buy Miles, the company receives the paid amount as an "advance" for the tickets you will issue in the future, which might not even be issued. Hence, discounts on mile sales are possible.
  • When you purchase a ticket and pay with a credit card, the company will receive that amount weeks later, sometimes even 60 days later. Thus, there's no incentive for the airline to sell you tickets in cash.
  • It's possible to use Miles for upgrades, purchase other services, and consume during the flight, making it beneficial for the company that you have miles.
  • Every sold Mile is money the airline earned without you having consumed anything.
Important:
  1. Platforms to buy Miles in Europe/North America are not covered yet.
  2. Pay close attention to the expiration date of your miles. Generally, they can be valid for between 2 and 3 years, but especially promotional miles might have a much shorter validity period.

Which airlines to accumulate miles with?

Although there is a lot of information online suggesting to accumulate miles with a single airline, do NOT do that. It's crucial to understand airline alliances, formed by multiple airlines together, partnerships, and the possibilities of transferring miles between them.

If you live in Europe, in particular, another common mistake is to focus solely on your country's main airline.

For example, if you live in the Netherlands 🇳🇱, KLM is excellent and has routes all over the world. But by using various tools to accumulate miles, you can probably find much better deals, sometimes in Business Class, to fly with Iberia departing from Madrid 🇪🇸 or TAP departing from Lisbon 🇵🇹, cheaper than the same economy class route with KLM.

Study and understand the airlines, their alliances, and partnerships well before focusing everything on a single company. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

How to Accumulate Miles

Here is where everyone needs to study their local options and create a strategy based on the available choices.
As mentioned, it's important to know in which frequent flyer programs it's most advantageous to accumulate miles, so read in detail about airline alliances and partnerships.

The most common ways to accumulate miles are:

  • Flying and earning miles per segment/flight
  • Booking hotels in chains that offer points/miles
  • Credit Cards (dedicated section)
  • Shopping online using links/coupons from loyalty programs
  • Renting cars from chains that offer points/miles
  • Fueling your car at gas stations that offer points/miles
  • Supermarket points and cashback programs, very common in various countries
  • Purchasing miles (within the ceiling limit)
  • Bonus point transfers
Important:
Although this is repeated in other sections, it's worth emphasizing that when creating accounts on hotel platforms, car rental companies, etc., you need to use the SAME NAME on all accounts. Many of these platforms only allow point transfers between accounts with the same name/last name.

Hotel Reservations

Major hotel groups often have partnerships with several airlines, and you can accumulate miles by booking hotels through airline websites or the hotel network.

Almost all loyalty and cashback programs have partnerships with hotel chains (examples in the section below). They also have their loyalty programs where you can accumulate points and convert them to miles. These points can also be transferred with bonuses to other airlines.

Always remember to use the same name/last name and email on all accounts to transfer points between them.

For more details, see the page about hotel groups.

Using accommodation portals

For sure the most common way to reserve accommodation is to use big portals like Booking and AirBnb.

The hint here, again, is the same to everything miles and points related: never go straight to the website of the service you want to use!

Example: through the British Executive Club website, you accumulate Avios using AirBnb, you just have to start the session via the Executive Club website instead of going straight to AirBnb.

The same goes for the portal Booking.com, many loyalty programs and airlines have partnerships with Booking, all you have to do is enter the travel portal of the program and use Booking from there.

Other excellent portals for earning miles with accommodation:

Points Programs and Online Stores

There are various platforms that generate their points, similar to hotel chains, or cashbacks, that can be converted into miles. Each country has its options, and often the loyalty programs themselves have partnerships and online stores for booking hotels, renting cars, etc.

In many countries, this even happens with supermarket chains, where loyalty cards generate points and discounts, and many of them have partnerships with airlines, and the points can be converted to miles.
Check if you already use a supermarket or large retail store's loyalty card in your country.

An extremely crucial tool to use is partnership links, bonus links. You visit your loyalty program's website, and through it, you'll find links that direct you to other online stores, like Amazon, for instance.
By making purchases using these links, you directly earn points/miles. Moreover, the points/miles generated by your credit card represent a double score. Over 1 or 2 years, you can accumulate a significant number of points using this strategy.

The main hint is: never go straight to the website of the service you want to use!
Always use the points programs' portals or airlines, and through the partner links you will be directed to the service you want.

Some examples of points, loyalty, and online shopping platforms around the world:

  • 🇩🇪 Germany - Miles & More, Payback, TopCashback
  • 🇦🇺 Australia - Qantas, Everyday Rewards, Flybuys, TopCashback, Uber One
  • 🇦🇹 Austria - Miles & More, Payback
  • 🇧🇷 Brazil: Livelo, Esfera, Smiles
  • 🇩🇰 Denmark - SAS EuroBonus
  • 🇪🇸 Spain - Iberia Plus
  • 🇺🇸 USA - TopCashback, Rakuten
  • 🇫🇷 France - Shop For Miles (Flying Blue), TopCashback
  • 🇫🇮 Finland - Finnair Plus
  • 🇯🇵 Japan - TopCashback
  • 🇮🇪 Ireland - AerClub
  • 🇮🇹 Italy - Payback
  • 🇳🇱 Netherlands - Shop For Miles (Flying Blue)
  • 🇳🇴 Norway - Finnair Plus
  • 🇬🇧 UK - TopCashback
  • 🇵🇱 Poland - Payback
  • 🇵🇹 Portugal - TAP Miles & Go
  • 🇸🇪 Sweden - SAS EuroBonus
  • 🇨🇭 Switzerland - Miles & More

Two examples of platforms operating in various countries:

  1. Payback: 🇩🇪🇦🇹🇮🇹🇵🇱 - Generates Payback points that can be directly converted to Miles & More miles and often has bonus transfer promotions. [referral link]
  2. TopCashback: 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇪🇫🇷🇯🇵 - Generates cashback that can be transferred as Avios points to British Airways Executive Club (only in the UK TopCashback version), and used for other airlines in the IAG group, such as Iberia, Air Lingus, or partner airlines like Qatar Airways. Check the withdraw and transfer options in your country. [referral link]
Payback
Payback offers automatic point transfer to the Miles & More program in some countries. Do NOT activate this option as Payback often holds promotions for point transfers to Miles & More, with bonuses between 20% and 30%, usually a few weeks after the automatic transfers occur.

Remember that almost all airlines, loyalty programs, have partnerships with online stores or their own online shops, and you can make bonus purchases to earn more points/miles.

Please use the links in the footer to contact us and contribute by listing online shops and platforms from other countries. 🙏