I love traveling around the world, but when you do it for free, it kinda makes it even more rewarding. Although, and with fuel excises and taxes using your Frequent Flyer Miles aren't as rewarding as it used to be. But if you're smart about the way you earn your frequent flyer miles, you can use those extra air miles to pay for these extra costs.

Or better still get an upgrade and travel in style.

So here are my best ways to get more frequent flyer miles.

Best Ways to Get More Frequent Flyer Miles

Fly More Often

Ok, this is a no-brainer. As everyone knows you get more air miles the more you travel. But I'm not talking about flying on holidays, I'm suggesting you fly more so you can elevate your Frequent Flyer Status.

Gaming Frequent Flyer Miles is all about getting to the highest status as quickly as possible. As each level up provides additional benefits such as free upgrades, extra luggage, preferred seating etc.

And by taking advantage of deep discounts on flights, you can rack up the miles needed to earn your status upgrades fairly cheaply. I once considered doing a 50-minute flight I found for $39 over and over again just to rack up the status miles I needed to move to the next level.

As usually there's a minimum value of status credits you earn even a shortest of routes. So I calculated the cost of 12 flights in the day (12 x $39 = $468) versus the cost of a taking a longer flight for a lot fewer status credits.

It always just about the math and knowing a good deal when you find one.

Yes, this is what I mean when I say fly more often. If you find a 'super' cheap flight consider spending the day traveling backward and forward just to rack up your Frequent Flyer Miles Status Credits.

Sure it's not sexy, but for just a few days discomfort, it could mean you're instantly upgraded to the next status tier, for a fraction of the cost of conventional air travel.

Remember you usually lose your tier credits after a year, and when you move up to the next tier you'll need a lot fewer credits to maintain it.

Get More Credit Cards

Ok, unless you've been living under a rock you'd know this is one of the best hacks to get more Frequent Flyer Miles for little effort and often at no cost.

Most credit cards linked to Frequent Flyer programmes are happy to give away thousands of Frequent Flyer Miles to lure you in as a customer because for the majority of people, they'll spend the money they don't have and then will need to pay the bank interest repayments month after month.

But you're smarter than that, right?

Sure go ahead and sign up for that new credit card with 100,000 Frequent Flyer Miles attached, but make sure there is a fee waiver for the first year and there and no conditions for canceling the card early.

Then all you need to do is pay a few bills to meet the minimum spending requirements, wait for your points to hit your Frequent Flyer Account, pay off the credit card and then close the account.

You must close the account before incurring costs, or this system is pointless

Then you simply apply for another credit card account from a different bank, then rinse and repeat.

Each time you must meet the minimum spending requirements and pay it off in full before you incur interest and credit card fees.

You can usually do this 2-3 times a year without getting on the bad side of the credit providers because they all think they have a chance of securing your lifelong business. :-P

Just remember to avoid the same bank twice in the same year, no matter how tempting their offer is as you'll want to stay on their good side and not get on any sort of banned list.

Accrue air miles but don't spend them until you've moved up to the highest status tier you can manage in a year.

Frequent Flyer Miles are much more valuable on the higher tiers.

Buy More Stuff

The bulk of Frequent Miles aren't actually earned in the air, but rather through purchases with associated partners.

You've probably heard of the guy that earned 1.2 million air miles, by buying excessive amounts of pudding in an air miles promotion with the vendor.

For every 10 labels, you sent you'd receive 1,000 air miles and he ended up buying 12,000 cups of pudding at a cost of $3140 which is probably the cheapest 1,000,000 travel miles anyone will ever hack.

And just imagine ripping the labels off 12,000 pudding containers. That's real travel hacking dedication for you.

Alas, these deals are much harder to find, so you're better off checking out where you're dining out for that next meal or where you're staying at that next hotel.

And even for a competitive market like car rentals, you can usually find a decent car rental price that has air miles associated with it. You might even earn more points for completing surveys and contests.

The points all add up over time, so start spending. (within your limits of course)

In the next part of this travel hacking series, I'll share with you the Best Way to Spend Your Frequent Flyer Miles

So stay tuned...

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