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While many AwardWallet readers are naturally inclined to redeem points and miles for their travels, booking paid flights are often still required. Unless you collect miles in a single program, you could wind up with small balances spread across several frequent flyer programs. By understanding airline partnerships and how the type of ticket purchased will credit, your revenue flight will earn you the right type of miles to meet your award travel goals.
The problem with having miles spread over multiple programs is that it’s hard to accumulate sufficient miles for even economy award tickets, let alone the more aspirational redemptions like flying in the world's best first class seats. While AwardWallet can help keep track of your account balances, you generally can’t combine miles from different programs to pay for an award ticket (except if you're earning Avios).
By picking a limited number of airlines to credit to, you're not only maximizing your purchase to earn that next award — but you might even help yourself earn airline status faster.
So, how do you credit flying activity to certain programs — and why should you? Let's talk about it.
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When Should You Credit Airline Miles to Partner Frequent Flyer Programs?
Let’s say you fly American Airlines regularly. You're most likely an AAdvantage® member, and your frequent flyer account is added to your booking when you sign into American's website or app to complete your reservation. If this is the case, you're likely earning AA miles (and Loyalty Points) on your travels. But what happens when you travel overseas and fly another route that American doesn't service?
For example, suppose you catch a revenue flight on British Airways traveling between London, England, and Nice, France. British Airways offers a frequent flyer program called Executive Club. You could sign up for an account and credit your flight to British Airways, earning Avios. But you would be left with a small, unusable balance stuck in a program you can’t transfer points out of (outside of other Avios-earning airlines), and those Avios will expire after 36 months whether there is account activity or not. That's a small problem.
Credit your flights to a program you can make a redemption through
In this case, crediting those miles back to your more-used AAdvantage account makes more sense — the flying you'll do will to the balance you already have. You can do this because American Airlines and British Airways belong to the same Oneworld alliance. Like alliance membership, or sometimes extensive partnerships between carriers, generally means you can take flights with one alliance airline and credit to another.
Additionally, there are a whole bunch of other partners of British Airways that you could credit to, including Alaska Airlines. While the right program to credit this example flight depends on your situation, you'll want to take away the fact that keeping your flying within partners of your preferred airlines can help you earn miles you'll use toward award travel even faster.
You can focus all your mileage-earning capacity on a handful of programs that provide top value. The trick is to select frequent flyer programs that offer excellent redemption value and are transfer partners of one or more flexible points programs. Doing so allows you to top off your account using points that are easier to accumulate.
Related: How Many Miles Do You Need for a Free Flight?
How Do You Credit Miles to a Partner Frequent Flyer Program?
For almost any paid flight, you have several ways to credit miles to partner frequent flyer programs. If you’re booking directly through the airline, you can typically add your frequent flyer number during the booking process when you enter the passenger details portion of the reservation.
If for some reason, the system doesn’t accept your number, or there isn’t an option to add your frequent flyer number to the booking, you can call the ticketing airline after the ticket is confirmed and have the frequent flyer number added to the reservation manually.
You can also add the number at the airport when you pass through check-in or at the gate, and if all else fails, you can try to claim the miles retrospectively after you’ve completed the flight.
When Does It Make Sense to Credit Miles to Partner Programs?
Perhaps the most challenging part of the equation is working out where to credit your miles. How many miles you receive in the partner program depends on the fare bucket of the ticket you’ve purchased, typically shown in the “Flight Details” section of your confirmation email as “Booking Class” and a single letter, as shown in the picture below. Depending on your airline, this can sometimes be difficult to find.
Our favorite resource when deciding where to credit miles is WhereToCredit.com. This website will give you a bird's eye view of the miles you'll earn on a given airline in a given fare class across several programs to which you could potentially credit your flight.
To use the free WhereToCredit service, select your airline and booking class and hit “Show Me.” The results will display the miles you’ll receive when crediting to different partner programs.
The percentage of miles you receive differs between fare buckets, and some discount fares won’t receive any miles at all on partners. To get the most accurate results, you’ll need to know the booking class of the fare — so be sure to have this handy before you start researching. Below is a breakdown of how you could earn on British Airways “J” class (business class) tickets:
Based on this table, on of the programs most worth crediting the British Airways “J” class fare to is Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. The fare appears to earn 350% redeemable miles (RDM) based on distance flown — or even more if you have Mileage Plan elite status. Conversely, SriLankan Airlines FlySmiLes, Royal Jordanian Royal Club, and several others might be worth passing on.
Verify what you see in WhereToCredit with your airline of choice
No matter what, it's worth confirming what you see in the WhereToCredit table matches what you see on your airline of choice's website. For example, the American Airlines earnings in the “J” class fare breakdown are inaccurate. American awards miles for British Airways flights based on how much you spend, not how far you fly.
Ultimately, if it comes down to picking a revenue-based program and a distance-based program for which to credit your flight, you'll need to consider your ticket's price to ensure you earn the best rewards.
At the very least, WhereToCredit can give you a good idea of which programs will give you the most (and least) rewards, and you can use the information you gather to do a bit more research before making an official decision on where to credit.
Other considerations on where to credit flights
Something to consider before you decide where to credit is whether the program you credit to partners with flexible rewards programs. Transferable points provide ultimate versatility and allow you to top off accounts when aiming for a specific redemption. If the program you credit towards has more than one big transfer partner, it will be easier to top off your balance than if you need to earn the miles within that frequent flyer program’s ecosystem.
Another circumstance that warrants crediting miles to partner programs is whether you're chasing elite status. Crediting miles to your preferred frequent flyer program allows you to leverage flights on partner airlines to achieve elite status with your chosen airline.
In the example of the British Airways-Alaska Airlines flight, you'll also earn elite-qualifying miles on your “J” class fare, which helps you unlock Mileage Plan elite status.
Related: How To Consolidate Transferable Points for an Award Ticket
Final Thoughts
Crediting airline miles to the right frequent flyer partner significantly impacts the number of usable miles you bank. Like most things in award travel, it’s best to have a plan and know in advance to which airlines you want to credit miles. That way, you don't end up with a small stash of miles in an account you can't put to good use.
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