Save Money With Airline Mileage Freebies

Jan. 31, 2007 — -- If you are like me, you may have a small number of miles in frequent flier accounts for several airlines.

When I worked in a high-travel job more than a decade ago, I signed up for every free mileage program available. Now that most of my traveling is done with my family of four, we tend to buy discounted airline tickets unless we are fortunate enough to have 100,000 miles with one airline to get four free tickets, which is not often. It takes us about four years to accumulate that much mileage!

As a result, I pay little attention to the low-mileage balances in most of my frequent flier accounts. However, after United Airline's recent announcement that it would start placing limits on people who didn't use frequent flier miles got my attention, I checked to see whether I had any mileage due to expire at the end of the year.

Indeed, I have a grand total of 2,805 miles, far from the 25,000 miles I need to get one free ticket. However, there are ways I can use this small number of miles to take advantage of easy freebies. Based on what I've learned, you may want to check your balance, too.

I have two choices: I can either find a low-cost, low-effort way to earn additional United miles to hold onto my 2,805 miles, or I can find some low-mileage redemption opportunities to get valuable freebies with my mileage.

The Mileage Plus section of United's Web site lists redemption opportunities. Below are some of the ideas I like the best.