A question that I keep hearing from our customers concerns their frequent flyer miles, and the changing rules regarding how to redeem them, or if they even can. People want to know what the best approach is: Should they hold on to their miles and hope for the best? Or, should they use them now and make sure they are able to get something out of them?

There are a myriad of answers to these questions, and I am hoping that I will be able to shed some light on the subject for those of you wondering what to do. I think that perhaps the outlook on this situation has a tendency to be overly bleak in the eyes of the travelers.

Frontier, in the face of bankruptcy, has declared that it will be raising the amount of miles necessary in order to claim your rewards tickets (from 15,000 to 20,000), but this is still below the industry standard. US Airways and Delta have also announced that they will be instituting fees to claim reward miles. However, if you think about it, it’s still a plane ticket that costs considerably less than if you had paid full price for it. Granted, it’s not as good of a deal as it was before, but it’s still a discount.

If you are really worried about your miles, you can always cash them in and take that trip that you’ve been meaning to. This could be the perfect excuse to get away for a great vacation.

Those who travel often for business can shop themselves out to other airlines if they are worried. If you can prove that you are a frequent and loyal flyer, many airlines will immediately give you the same status that you had with your previous airline.

However, the fact of the matter is, the chances that one of the major 6 airlines will go out of business is highly unlikely. The big companies will either ride out this cost crisis by changing their fare and route structure, or they will merge, as Delta and Northwest did recently. In fact, a merger could actually prove beneficial to mile holders if either airline will accept each other’s miles.

I hope this answers some of your questions, and alleviates some of your concerns,

Safe Travels,

Ted Phelps

Customer Travel Consultant