The Basics on how to earn

Alright lets get to the basics of earning Frequent Flyer miles. Before we can get to the secrets of how to spend , first we have to earn The idea is pretty simple, for each "mile" that you fly on an airplane you earn a "mile" or "point" into your account. Now already we have a problem, most airlines require a trip of at least 500 miles. However all is not lost, if its less than 500 miles the airlines will let you earn "segments" and you can earn a number of "segments" to gain status. For the first few entries i will stick to the "miles/points" section and omit segments.

Okay so now that we have the basics lets start. Most of the major airlines are grouped into 3 "alliances" or their own personal clubs. While being in these alliances help the airlines with cost effectiveness and code share the plus side to people like you and me is that we can earn miles on everyone partners without actually flying on their airplane. Confused yet? Lets start with the 3 major alliances. We have the Skyteam Alliance, Star Alliance and Oneworld. Let start with skyteam.

The same applies to all the other airlines alliances. Star Alliance, which is the largest and oldest alliance member include Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA(Japanese for those who don't know), Asiana Airlines (Korean),Austrian, BMI (British airlines),Polish Air, Lufthansa (German), Scandinavian Airlines,Shanghai Airlines (Chinese),Singapore Airlines, South African airlines, Spainair, Swiss Air, TAP (Portuguese airlines), Thai Air (Thailand), Turkish airlines, United (USA) and U.S airways.

The last major alliance is known as OneWorld which includes. American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific (Hong Kong based),Finnair (Finland),Iberia (Spanish),Japan Airlines, LAN(Chile),Malev (Hungarian), Qantas(Australian) and Royal Jordanian.

Wheww that was alot but now we got the basics covered.

So now if your a member of Delta Sky Miles program (that the name for their Frequent Flyer Program) anytime you fly on any of its partners you will be able to earn miles. Lets take an example. You are on a flight from New York to Los Angeles on Delta and the next you are flying from Los Angeles to Tokyo on Northwest. You will be able to earn the (roughly) 2,500 Miles on the new york flight with delta and at the same time earn ( again total guess as to the distance) 6000 miles on your Northwest flight to Tokyo. Got it?

Skyteam is made up of AeroFlot (Russian airline),Aeromexio (Mexican), Air France (obviously French), KLM (Dutch), Alitalia (Italian),China Southern (Chinese) Czech Airlines (Czech of course) Delta (USA), Korean Air (Korean), NWA and Continental (USA)