Sorry, I can't figure out how to categorize these without making my index to the left too large. But some of the easiest ways to accumulate miles are on this page. For example, all of your credit cards should be registered with an iDine® program, and some of the surveys are very easy ways to earn free miles. And be sure to read the very last entry on this page.

• How best to use the program
• Specific offers

Change in program for 2008: Each program has a link to a page that describes the changes, but in general you will earn

• 1 mile/$1 spent if you don't do any of the below.
• 3 miles/$1 spent if you elect to receive emails from the program. Everyone should do this.
• 5 miles/$1 spent if you elect to receive emails from the program and you have 12 or more qualified transactions in the calendar year. That's probably 12 dines before you earn the extra miles; that is, it is probably not retroactive, though this is far from clear. If you earned top status in 2007, you need only sign up for emails from the program to earn these miles throughout 2008.
• Be sure you have enough dines within one program to qualify for the maximum miles.
• Consider buying gift certificates at your favorite iDine® restaurant before the deadline in order to get 10 miles per $1 you will spend after the deadline.

Register up to five credit cards with one of the airlines' iDine® programs listed below. When you charge a meal to one of those cards at any of the 9,500 (and growing) restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, you receive up to 5 miles per dollar spent. You are already paying for this program through the price of the meal when you dine at any iDine® restaurant. So you should register the card you use to pay for meals with one of the programs below in order to get your money's worth from the restaurant.

Cautions:

• Restaurants on the iDine® program come and go very rapidly. Always check the list just before you go to the restaurant. Also, some restaurants are listed on only some of the airlines' iDine® programs. Always check the specific list of restaurants for the airline program for which you plan to earn iDine® miles.
• This FlyerTalk post cautions that an iDine® restaurant that accepts all credit cards may give iDine® miles for only some of them. Be sure you know which credit cards are listed on the iDine® posting of the restaurant.

SmarterTravel has a pretty good article on the iDine® program.

There is a forum on FlyerTalk dedicated to iDine®.

There are Android apps for finding iDine restaurants while you are traveling.

• From Google
• Home made by a Flyetalker

Some restaurants within chains of restaurants offer iDine® miles, while others within that same chain do not. Denny's and Lyons come to mind. This is possible because many chain restaurants are independently owned franchises and can offer whatever bonuses they like. Many of these restaurants issue gift certificates valid for all restaurants in the chain, even those which do not offer iDine® miles. Purchase of gift certificates on your registered credit card qualify for the iDine® miles. So do the obvious.

A special example of the above is a few TGI Fridays in New York City. Some are iDine® restaurants, but do not offer the usual Gold Points. This thread on FlyerTalk discusses how to get both.

Special note: iDine® sends out special offers for bonus miles, but only to those registered for a participating airline's program. Since I am not registered for all of the programs I list, I do not receive all of the offers. So I depend on you to tell me about them. Please send me a copy and paste of any iDine® offers you receive that I have not already listed (or just forward it with a note - no attachments, please, for security reasons).

Many airline iDine® programs are offering special bonuses. A reader who posts as Cornroaster on FlyerTalk posted an excellent summary on how to "game" these bonuses. I copy the post below with a slight amount of editing to make it relevant to current offers. It might be worthwhile to follow the thread to see if others add ideas.

Now we get to the ways to "game" iDine®.

1. When you register a credit card with any of the iDine® programs, make sure you establish a password and profile with the program. This automatically takes you to "middke tier" status, resulting in 3 miles per dollar per dine instead of only 1 mile per dollar. BE AWARE THAT A CARD ISSUED WITH AN AIRLINE FREQUENT FLYER PROGRAM AFFILIATION IS NOT AUTOMATICALLY ENROLLED IN THE IDINE® PROGRAM FOR THE AIRLINE. You still have to register the card with the iDine® site.

2. You can only register a credit card with one dining program. However, there are a number of no-annual fee credit cards you can apply for (such as Gold Points, Hilton, and Priority Club among others) which also will give you points, so you can double dip if you want to keep miles/points active in several programs.

3. Right now, all iDine® (Rewards Network) require is 12 charges in a calendar year to qualify for elite status for 5 miles per dollar plus the 5 mile bonus. There are ways to get to the 12 charges more quickly. Many restaurants allow multiple charges during a month up to a total of $600.00. If you and your husband are going to have a drink before dinner, stop at the bar, order separately, and each of you pay for your drink separately utilizing your own charge card. Then, when you are seated for dinner, ask for separate checks if the restaurant will allow it. Thus, with dinner and drinks for the two of you, you can have four separate charges of the 12 needed to reach elite status.

4. Hunt for some cheap places to eat occasionally where you can accumulate small charges until you reach elite status. For example, there is a burger and custard stand near our home that currently is on iDine®. My wife and I go there for a burger and each order separately and pay with a charge. Then, we go back for an ice cream cone for dessert. At $5 for the burger, fries and soda and $2 for the cone, we rack up 4 qualifying charges for about $14. There is another place where we can get breakfast (again with separate checks) for about $5 each.

5. Talk friends into going out to dinner with you who aren't into miles and points. Quite often, you will be able to get them to let you pay with your credit card and they will give you cash for their portion of the bill. This is great if you pay your credit card bill in full each month and don't pay interest charges. This will also work very well towards accumulating the $150 per month needed for some of the bonuses. If you have an upscale restaurant in your area, you may be able to get close to (or exceed) the $150 total to qualify for the 1500 mile bonus with only one meal.

6. Remember, try to pay the small charges on programs that you don't have status on, and pay the big charges with the program where you have status to get the maximum number of miles.

7. Be careful to be sure the restaurant you are going to offers miles on the day you are going there. Some restaurants don't offer miles on Friday or Saturday, so if you are going there on one of those nights, stop in during the week before and buy a gift certificate, using your charge to pay for the certificate. This can change a non-qualifying Saturday meal into a qualifying purchase on Tuesday or Wednesday. Also, not all restaurants are registered with all iDine® programs, so be sure to check the listings for the program you want to credit the miles to.

8. If you are at the end of the month and don't have enough charged to qualify for a bonus, buy a gift certificate this month for the difference and use it next month. Also, if you are going for a bonus similar to one requiring eight qualifying dines of at least $25 each, you can convert one $120 charge into four gift certificate charges of $30 each. One meal that would not qualify for the bonus is suddenly converted into a meal that earns 1000 bonus miles.

9. Finally, keep an eye on the forums for bonuses.

Good luck, and build up those miles. My wife and I have gotten over 70,000 combined miles in the last 4 years on American, British Airways, Delta, Northwest and United.

Although many restaurants restrict you to one iDine® visit a month, if you register different credit cards with different airlines iDine® programs, you can use each credit card once in the same month at such restaurants and still get the miles for each visit. This has been verified several times by folks posting on the various forums discussing frequent flyer miles. No, iDine® won't let you register the same credit card with more than one airline. You can't double dip.

Be sure to create an online profile for each of your iDine® accounts. I and others have noticed that this allows you unlimited iDine® visits to restaurants that otherwise restrict you to one visit per month.

Be sure to enter the information for Your Birthday, Add Birthday, and Your Anniversary in your account information. After logging into your account, go to the MY ACCOUNT CENTER > My Preferences section. The American and United Airlines programs currently offer special birthday month bonuses.

Owners of restaurants interested in participating in the iDine® programs should click here.

The following programs are operated by Rewards Network (formerly iDine®)

Delta Airlines Skymiles Dining
Special offers.

• 2013 New Member Bonus
  1. Join SkyMiles Dining by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 dining at participating restaurants, bars and clubs over the next 30 days.
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining. (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete.)
  4. Earn 1,500 bonus miles.
• To understand the various levels of membership -VIP, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.
• Delta has a dining program in Japan, not affiliated with Rewards Network.

American Airlines AAdvantage Dining
Special offers:

• 2013 New member bonus:
  1. Join the AAdvantage DiningSM program and register for the New Member Bonus* by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 30 days
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete)
  4. Earn 1,000 miles
• Be sure to enter the information for Your Birthday, Add Birthday, and Your Anniversary in your account information. After logging into your account, go to the MY ACCOUNT CENTER > My Preferences section. The American Airlines program currently offers special birthday month bonuses.
• To understand the various levels of membership -VIP, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.

U.S. Airways Dividend Miles Dining
Special offers:

• Welcome Bonus:
  1. Join Divided Miles Dining for free and create an online profile by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 30 days
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete)
  4. Earn 1,000 bonus miles
• Register for a 25% - 100% U.S. Airways miles bonus for purchases dining and several other types of purchases April 22 – June 23, 2013.
• To understand the various levels of membership -VIP, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.

United Airlines Mileage Plus Dining by Rewards Network
Special offers:

• 2013 New member bonus:
  1. Join MileagePlus Dining for free and create an online profile by by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 30 days.
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining. (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete.)
  4. Earn 1,000 bonus award miles.
• Be sure to enter the information for Your Birthday, Add Birthday, and Your Anniversary in your account information. After logging into your account, go to the MY ACCOUNT CENTER > My Preferences section. The United Airlines program currently offers special birthday month bonuses.
• To understand the various levels of membership -VIP, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.

Alaska Airlines MileagePlan Dining & Hotels by Rewards Network.
Special offers:

• New Member Bonus
  1. Join Mileage Plan Dining for free and create a profile by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $30 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 30 days.
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining. (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete.)
  4. Receive 500 bonus miles.
• To understand the various levels of membership -VIP, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Dining by Rewards Network

• New Member Bonus:
  1. Join Rapid Rewards Dining.
  2. Spend $25 in a single dine at a program location within 60 days.
  3. Complete a review of your dining experience within 30 days of your dine.
  4. Earn 300 bonus points. (That's in addition to the 3 points per dollar you earn just for dining.)
• First Step Bonus
  • Once you have racked up 1,500 points from dining and completed your reviews, you will earn an additional 500 points. No registration required.
• Thank You Bonus
  • After you have earned the First Step Bonus, every time you earn 1,000 points and doing your reviews, you will earn an extra 300 points.
• Review Bonus
  1. Dine at program restaurants and pay with a registered credit card.
  2. Complete a review of your experience within 30 days.
  3. Earn 10 bonus points.
• No VIP or Elite status available. Sounds like Southwest Airlines to me.

Priority Club Rewards Dining by iDine®
A not very impressive number of points per $1 spent.
Bonus offers:

• 2013 New Member Bonus
  1. Join Priority Club Rewards Dining for free and create an online profile by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 45 days
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining (The review link will be emailed to you, and it only takes a minute to complete)
  4. Earn 2,013 bonus points
• To understand the various levels of membership -Elite, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the Membership Levels box. Attaining Elite status is highly recommended.

Hilton HHonors Dining
Bonus offers:

• 2013 New Member Bonus
  1. Join Hilton HHonors Dining for free and provide a valid email address by December 31, 2013.
  2. Spend $40 on a single dine at a participating restaurant, bar or club within 30 days
  3. Complete your review within 30 days of dining. (The review link will be emailed to you and takes only a minute to complete.)
  4. Earn 1,000 HHonors Bonus Points.
• To understand the various levels of membership -Elite, Online Member, and Member, from the home page click on HOW IT WORKS near the top of the page, then on Membership Chart in the What You'll Get box. Attaining VIP status is highly recommended.

The following programs are not operated by Rewards Network (formerly iDine®).

Virgin America Dining Rewards Program.

• 3 points/$1 spent.
• Do not be fooled by the misleading 10% cash back offer. That cash back is immediately converted to 30 points/$1 (you will never see the money), which is the same as 3 points/$1 spent.
  • Update: Post #3 on this flyertalk discussion says "After doing some digging around after registering, there's an option on the "settings" page on MOGL to either be paid in terms of cashback or Elevate points." Please tell me about your experience with this. Specific directions and screen shots would be most useful. Thanks. 10% sounds better than anything iDine is offering these days.
• I started this flyertalk thread on the program. On January 28, 2013 post #2 on this flyertalk thread said "At this point, MOGL only has restaurants in California, and even then only a few areas of California." Please add your comments to that thread.

Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles dining program

The e-rewards program offers mega credit for doing surveys. Credit earned can be used to buy miles on Delta, American, Alaska, Frontier, Air France/KLM, and Mexicana Airlines, and AirTran and U.S. Airways, and points for Hilton HHonors or Priority Club, or discounts from various merchants.

Usually the opportunity is offered to earn more pseudo-cash after you click on the email you receive. Always look near the bottom of the page you get and click on any "earn more" link you see.

Caution: Joining through an airline invitation will probably cause your redemption opportunities to be restricted to that airline. It is not clear to me if a similar restriction is place on enrollments via hotel invitation. But such an enrollment may increase redemption opportunity to once per quarter, rather than once per year. Read this Flyertalk discussion for the latest on this.

These pages describe how you can get an invitation:

• American Airlines (plus 250 miles for joining as of August 19, 2012).
• Delta Airlines.
• Alaska Airlines.
• Hilton HHonors.
• Frontier Airlines
• Check the website of your airline to see if it is offering an invitation. If it does, please tell me about it, including, if possible, the URL of the airline's page that makes the offer. Thanks.

E-rewards now has a European wesbite.

I have found customer service for this program to be particularly good. If surveys screw up part way through, or expected credit is not given, the problem is usually remedied within a day of polite complaint.

Special Caution: The redemption rules have changed. You now have 30 days after the end of your "Membership Year" to redeem all of your credit for that year. Your Membership Year depends on the quarter in which you initially joined. That date can be found near the top of your on-line account statement. Also, rewards have a restriction of one reward per so many months. For example, last I looked, the Hilton HHonors award could be chosen only once every 90 days, and the one of the miles awards only once per year. This implies that the best use of these awards requires waiting until you have enough credit in your account to get the largest size award for each category, so long as that waiting does not cause any of your credit to expire.

• U.S. Airways

Business Programs

• Business travel programs
• Business meetings
• Offering miles to customers
• Accepting credit cards
• Services for Webmasters
• Other programs for businesses

• American Airlines BusinessExtrAA
• Delta Airlines SkyBonus, and SmarterTravel's comments on the program.
• Continental Airlines RewardOne.
• United Airlines Perks Plus
• United Airlines MileagePlus Small Business Network.
  • Enrollment bonus: 1,000 bonus miles after transacting and earning 100 miles with the progran's network partners. Bonus ends 11:59PM CENTRAL on August 17, 2013.
  • Note that miles earned through this program are separate from your regular miles account and are separate from your PerksPlus account.
• Southwest Airlines SWABIZ.
• Alaska Airlines EasyBiz
• America West Airlines Corporate AWArds
• Air Tran a2b
• Hawaiian Airlines Preferred Affiliate Program
• Frontier Airlines Business Travel Program

• British Airways On Business
• Virgin Atlantic Flyingco
• Alitalia Alicorporate
• Lufthansa PartnerPlusBenefit. Best I can tell, this seems to be a program for businesses not in North America.
• Air France Voyageur Rewards. Click on Frequent flyer programs in the left menu and select Voyageur Rewards.
• SAS SAS Payback.
• Iberia Plus Empresa.
• Finnair Corporate Solutions. After you get to your country, click on the Corporate tab.
• Virgin Express Virgin Express for companies
• Hi Fly (Portugal) Corporate Flyer. Click on Collective Cards.
• Olympic Airlines The Icarus Corporate Flyer Program.
• Air Moldova Corporate Member.
• Air Malta KManager.

• Aeromexico Corporate Club Premier.
• Aerolineas Argentinas Corporate Plan.
• LAN LANCORPORATE.
• AeroSur (Bolivia) Club AeroSur Corporations.
• Aires (Colombia) Plan 15x1.
• Qantas QBizLink.com

• Hilton eAdvantage
• Starwood Preferred Business and Preferred Planner.
• Amtrak Guest Rewards for Business.

Low-Rate Zone Fares For incentive travel of 10 or more, we will guarantee economical fares from different geographical zones of departure to your destination. Domestic zone-fare discounts range from 40% to 70% off full, unrestricted Coach rates. Zone fares require no Saturday-night stay, so they're ideal for mid-week meetings. Zone fares are valid for travel originating in the United States or Canada for meetings in North America, Europe, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific.

I believe most airlines have similar programs. If you find one, please tell me about it. Thanks. I no one tells me about one, I will assume no one read and cared about this section, anyway.

Starwood Hotels' Preferred Planner program offers points for holding business meetings on their properties. Click on the Terms and Conditions link to get the details.

Hyatt Hotel's Meeting Dividends program offers points for holding business meetings on their properties. Click on the Terms and Conditions link to get the details.

Marriott Hotels Rewarding Events offer up to 15,000 miles on a large selection of airlines or up to 50,000 points for each group, event or meeting, plus 10 Elite nights toward your Silver, Gold or Platinum Elite status for each qualified group or event.

• American Airlines orderAAmiles.
• United Airlines Reward Miles.
• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Partner Miles.
• Delta Airlines SkyMiles Incentives.
• Frontier Airlines Company Miles.
• Air Canada AeroNotes.
• Lufthansa Several programs, I think. Ask.
• Priority Club Rewards Incentive Program
• AirIncentives. Sells miles from 6 U.S. Airlines. Caution: This program is run by Points.com, so it is probably very expensive.

• Vantage Card Services. This appears to be a really good place to start, as the website offers lots of information on accepting credit cards. Vantage says that benefits of its program include
  • Earn Vantage Points for accepting credit cards. Vantage Points are redeemable for great rewards from distinguished program partners like: American Airlines, Marriott, Hyatt, Staples, The Home Depot, Starbucks Coffee and more.
  • Direct bank Interchange pass through (no non qualified surcharges).
  • A true month-to-month agreement without any early termination penalties.
• Orion Payment Systems offers offers 2,500 U.S. Airways miles for signing up and processing, plus 40 miles/$1,000 processed. Orion processes Visa, Mastercard, and Disover card transactions only.
• United Bank Card. Offers a free terminal.
• Merchant Accounts Express
• Paynet Systems
• Accept the American Express Card. This offer is direct from American Express.

• NetworkSolutions offers 1,000 miles on American, Delta, or United Airlines, or US Airways for purchase of domain name registration, transfer, or renewal, orpurchase of an email address or web site space. It offers 10,000 miles for a Pro E-Commerce Web Site. It is not clear whether or not you may accept more than one offer for miles.

  NetworkSolutions offers up to 15,000 miles when you buy a Do-It-For-Me Web Site.

  Prices seem expensive to me. Also, you may want to consider this discussion on FlyerTalk before doing business with this company.

• Skyhound offers 1 Alaska Airlines mile per dollar spent on web design, database programming, or e-commerce services, or on web hosting services if you pre-pay with its annual plan.

American Express OPEN for small businesses offers up to 30,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up and using its wire service for foreign exchange currency.

• 15,000 points when you activate your FX International Payments account and an additional 15,000 points when you make 3 FX transactions within 90 days of account opening.
• 1 point per $30 in eligible FX transactions.
• OPEN Cardmembers enjoy no transaction fees on eligible international wire transfers for the first 6 months, then $10 per transaction.
• The exchange rate can be locked in up to a year in advance. Beware of that rate. This is where American Express can make a lot of money at your expense.
• If you do not have an American Express business card, ask if you need one before you can receive these points. Take a look at the card offers with mega bonus points on my Credit Cards > Annual Fee Cards page, in the American Express section near the bottom of the page.

TR Cutler, Inc., a public relations firm for the manufacturing sector, offers 25,000 American Airlines miles at the conclusion of each 90 day Manufacturing Media PR Blitz program.

Kinko's and FedEx: Earn 500 American Airlines miles for your first order of $100 or more using File, Print FedEx Kinko's, which seems to be a system designed for businesses for printing stuff in bulk. Details.

FedEx offers 1 Hawaiian Airlines mile/$1 spent plus some discounts for shipping with them.

FedEx offers 250 miles U.S. Airways miles for your first shipment, and 1 mile/$1 spent on eligible FedEx shipments. Also be sure to register for a 25% - 100% U.S. Airways miles bonus for FedEx and several other types of purchases April 22 – June 23, 2013.

FedEx offers: 500 miles Delta Airlines miles for your first and fourth shipments and 1 mile/$1 spent on eligible FedEx shipments.

FedEx offer: New FedEx customers will earn 2 Priority Club® points/$1 spent on select FedEx shipping services, and existing FedEx customers earn 1 Priority Club/$1 spent on select FedEx shipping services. All Priority Club® Rewards members will earn 500 Priority Club points the first time they use their account.

FedEx offers: 500 Hilton HHonors points for first shipment, 1-2 Hilton HHonors Bonus Points/dollar spent, and discounts of up to 26%.

Your free EgyptAir card will get you a 20% discount on both domestic and international shipments, presumably from Egypt. (But the ad does not give this restriction. I would love to hear from someone trying this in the U.S.) For details, go to the EgyptAir website and click on Our Partners in the left menu.

Miles for Conference Calls: Forget about flying to an expensive business meeting. Just do a conference call, and use your miles for an international vacation instead. I list miles opportunities for conference calls in my Telephone section.

Trusted Translations offers American Airlines miles for its services. You must sign up for its premier program and buy translation services from them. To earn the first time 1,000 bonus miles, the minimum value of the translations must be $500. Premier clients will earn 1 mile/5 words translated. Read the details of the offer.

The A|Club loyalty program offers points for stays. Points vary with the chain. Alas, they are not available for Motel 6. Points are convertible to miles at various ratios on Delta and Singapore Airlines, U.S. and British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, and Quntas. Partner offers are promised soon.

Accor offers miles for stays at some of the Motel 6, Sofitel, Pulman, Novotel, Mercure, Suitehotel, Adagio, Ibis, All Seasons, Etap, Forumle 1, Studio 6, and Accor Thalassa properties worldwide. Best I can tell, all you have to do is show your frequent flyer card number at check-in, but ask to be sure. Eligible rates and countries vary with the airline program. Generally 150 - 500 miles per stay are offered.

• Non-Asian Airlines: Huge list, including American and Delta Airlines.
• Asia Pacific Airlines: Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Ansett, Thai Airways, and Air Calin.

Thayls and SNCF passengers are offered discounts on some stays at some Accor hotels.

• Thayls` discounts.
• SNCF discounts.

Alas, I have been unable to find miles offers for Accor's Motel 6 chain. However, clicking through the banner to the left gets all of them in your area of interest listed.

I have found Priority Club points to be expecially valuable for booking rooms in Europe.

Priority Club's PointBreaks page lists opportunities to book award nights for only 5,000 points per night. Usually these are incredible deals, especially in places where the dollar is weak, like Europe. Always check this page before booking an award night.

Points can be earned by staying at InterContinental Hotels Group properties at the rate of 10 points/US$1 (or local currency equivalent) spent on eligible charges, acquiring and using its credit card (see the nice bonus offer on the Free Cards page of my Credit Card section), and via bonus offers, many of which are listed on my Registrations and Other Bonuses page. For stays, there is the option of earning miles instead of points. The number of miles varies by airline and hotel property.

Gold Crown members have the option of earning 250 miles per stay instead of points. Since 10 points are worth 2 miles, and $1 spent gets you 10 points, mileagewise your stay would have to cost over $125 to justify choosing points over miles.

Gold Crown Club lists other opportunities to earn points, as well as special discounts on rooms, on its Special Offers page.

• Choice Privileges is the loyalty points program of Comfort Inn, Comfort Suites, Quality, Sleep Inn, Clarion and MainStay Suites hotel in the U.S., Canada, Caribbean and Mexico, and Econo Lodge and Rodeway Inn hotels throughout Canada. You may also earn points for acquiring and using its free credit card, which you may read about on my Free Cards page of my Credit Card section.

  Points expire on December 31, two years after the year in which they were deposited into your account.

  Points are convertible to miles on many airlines, or for free stays. Caution: A stay is required before you can transfer points to miles.
  Note:

  • If you seek Amtrak points, don't transfer Choice Privileges points directly into Amtrak, the conversion there is 32,000 Choice points yield 5,000 Amtrak points. Instead, transfer 25,000 Choice points into 5,000 Continental, then into 5,000 Amtrak.

  When staying at a Choice property, you may earn either 250 miles per stay (not per day), or 10 points/$1 spent. Since points convert at 1,000 miles for 5,000 points, the points are a better deal if you plan to accumulate 10,000 of them (remember that they expire), and if your stay will cost over $125.

  Note that you can earn mega-points by acquiring and using once Choice's free credit card. You may read about the card on the Free Cards page of my Credit Card section.

   

Loyalty Traveler describes how using the Starwood Preferred Guest Airline Direct Deposit program may be better for you than using Starpoints-to-miles transfers.

Note that it is possible that your Starpoints will expire. Be sure to use them or convert them to miles before this happens. From the terms and conditions of the program:

3.2. You will be considered an "Active Member" so long as (a) your Membership has not been cancelled (by you or us), and (b) you have had an Eligible Stay at a Participating Property within the previous 12 months, or (c) you have earned Starpoints by using a Starwood Preferred Guest Credit Card during the previous 12 months. Starpoints resulting from transfers or earnings from Program affiliates do not count toward active status. Owners are not subject to the Eligible Stay requirement and will continue to be considered an Active Member as long as they own their Vacation Ownership interest and maintain their Starwood Vacation Ownership account in good standing.

3.3. If you do not remain an Active Member, we will close your Membership account and all Starpoints in the account shall be forfeited without notice.

You must enroll in the program before you can acquire points. Look on my Registrations and Other Bonus page to see if there is an enrollment bonus.

Points can be earned by staying at Marriott Hotels, acquiring and using its credit card (see the nice bonus offer on the Free Cards page of my Credit Card section), and via bonus offers, many of which are listed on my Registrations and Other Bonuses page.

An account may be closed at Marriott's discretion if no points or miles are accrued during a 24-month period. All points in the account will be forfeited at that time.

The free Hilton HHonors program can be most useful to seekers of miles, even if you do not ever intend to stay at a Hilton property. There are several reasons for this:

First, if miles in an airline frequent flyer mile program are about to expire, you may transfer them to the Hilton program. Conversion rate is one mile gets you one Hilton HHonors point. Then you can use your Hilton points to buy miles on many airlines, or to buy Amtrak points which are convertible to miles on Continental (max 25,000 per year). You can read about the Amtrak program below. Conversion rate is 10,000 Hilton HHonors points gets you 1,500 or 1,000 or 850 miles (depending on the airline) or 1,500 Amtrak points. Yes, you lose a bunch of miles in the exchange, but this is better than losing all of them through expiration.

Second, there are lots of ways to earn Hilton HHonors points by staying at its hotels, and by other means that can be quite lucrative. For example, you can get an easy minimum of 20,000 points by applying for both of the free, no annual fee Hilton credit cards, described in the Credit Card section of this web site. That's at least 3,000 or 2,000 miles . I regularly obtain points from my use of the e-rewards program I describe on my Miles for Clicking page of this web site. MyPoints is described on my Click for Miles, Money, and Good Causes page of this web site. Check out this extensive list of ways to earn more Hilton HHonors points other than by staying in Hilton Hotels.

I list this program on this web site because the points convert to miles, and they are held by a business that seems to be more financially stable that most of the airlines. But those who actually stay at Hilton properties say the points are more value when used to buy stays in Hilton's high priced rooms. Some of the Hilton resorts seem to be especially favored.

I list special Hilton HHonors point offers on my Registrations and Other Bonuses - Miles and Points Programs page.

Special cautions:

• If you don't earn points on your HHonors account in any 12 consecutive months, your points could be lost. See items 12 and 13 of the General section of the Terms and Conditions page. However, it is easy to earn point via the e-rewards or MyPoints programs described on my Miles for Clicking page.
• The list of airlines, especially U.S. Airlines, from which you can obtain miles via Hilton changes frequently. Airlines come and go.

• Earn 20 Gold Points per dollar/euro at Regent Hotels & Resorts, Radisson Hotels & Resorts, Radisson SAS Hotels & Resorts, and Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts.
• Earn 15 Gold Points per dollar/euro at Country Inns & Suites By Carlson or Park Inn.
• Receive 500 bonus points when you book your stay online at goldpointsplus.com or any of its hotel brand Web sites.

Be sure to check my Registration and Other Bonuses page for bonuses for this program.

You may instead receive 250 miles on the above airlines, or 600 Southwest Airlines points per stay. You must choose points or miles when you check in, so do the math.

Read the terms and conditions. Note that

• Members who do not have any stay activity within a 12-month consecutive period will be removed from the program and all accrued points will be forfeited.
• Points earned will be issued as of the date of check-in and will expire 24 months from the check-in date.

• If you choose points, earn 5 Gold Passport points/eligible $1 spent at Hyatt. Platinum members earn a 15% point bonus and Diamond members a 30% point bonus. Points may also be earned by doing business with Hyatt's partners: Stays at AmeriSuites, Hawthorn Suites, and Summerfield Suites earn either 3 points/$1 spent or 300 miles per stay. Car rentals from Avis and Sixt Rent-A-Car earn 300 bonus points for each qualifying rental.
• If you choose miles, Earn 500 miles per stay at your chose of a large number of airlines when you present your frequent flyer account number at check-in. Note that this is per stay, not per night.

You may combine your Gold Passport points with any Gold Passport member to redeem an award. Apparently there is no charge or loss of points for doing this.

A member's Hyatt Gold Passport membership may be discontinued at Hyatt Gold Passport's discretion if a member does not record Hyatt Gold Passport points or Airline miles activity during any consecutive 12-month period. All Hyatt Gold Passport points in the account will be forfeited at that time.

Be sure to read about special offers for this program in the Points to Miles Programs section of my Registration and Other Bonuses page.

Wyndham offers a credit card that earns points up front and for purchases. You may read about this in my Credit Cards > Free Cards section.

Be sure to read about special offers for this program in the Points to Miles Programs section of my Registration and Other Bonuses page.

Be sure to read about special offers for this program in the Points to Miles Programs section of my Registration and Other Bonuses page.

Be sure to read about special offers for this program in the Points to Miles Programs section of my Registration and Other Bonuses page.

This post on FlyerTalk tells you how to get 500 points for receiving your statements online. Since I am not a member of the RediCard program, I cannot verify this offer or tell you when it expires.

Red Roof Inns are Accor Hotels properties, as are Motel 6's and other inexpensive lodgings worldwide. If find a similar program for other Accor properties, where the points convert to airline miles, please tell me about it. A Motel 6 points program would be really nice.

Greenpoints is entering the services market. They have introduced a dining program, offers from Verizon, and a program for aviators. I expect that list to grow.

S&H greenpoints offers a free Visa Credit card with a 10,000 point up front bonus, which you can read about in my Credit Card page of this web site.

S&H greenpoints allows you to give points to another Greenpoints member, apparently for free (Hint: I am a Greenpoints member...), and to donate points to selected charities.

S&H reserves the right to terminate any membership if that member has been inactive for a period of 24 consecutive months. A member shall be considered "Inactive" for such time as the member has not engaged in either any greenpoint earning or spending transaction. Upon termination of an inactive account, the accrued greenpoints will be cancelled.

Effective May 1st, 2008 the option to redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for airline miles, hotel points and experiential rewards will only be available to:

1. Members with current Amtrak Guest Rewards Select or Select Plus status, or
2. Cardholders of the Amtrak Guest Rewards® MasterCard® issued by Chase Bank with an Amtrak travel spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year.

Caution: From the terms and conditions of the program:

"Points earned under the Program will not expire as long as the Program continues and the Member purchases travel on Amtrak within a 3-year period and provides sufficient documentation of such travel to Amtrak within at least 30 days of the Member’s travel. Sufficient documentation includes the original ticket stub, the Member’s name, signature, and Membership Number."

Amtrak Guest Rewards is a useful points program for those who travel on Amtrak.

• Points are transferable to and from Continental Airlines at a 1:1 ratio, but only if you meet certain qualifications. To transfer from Continental to Amtrak, call Contintental's OnePass Service Center at 800-307-5000.
• Points are transferable to the Choice Privileges and Hilton HHonors rewards programs, but again only if you meet certain qualifications (see above). 5,000 Amtrak points get you 15,000 Choce Privileges points or 10,000 Hilton HHonors points. Then 5,000 Choice Privileges points get you 1,000 miles with Air Canada, Alaska, American, Continental, Delta, Mexicana, Northwest, or United Airlines, or US Airways. This results in a 5:3 transfer of points to miles to these airlines. Or You can redeem 5,000 Choice Privileges points for 2.0 Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards credits. This means 13,333 Amtrak points are worth 1 round trip on Southwest, which is a super deal. Alas, you qualify to redeem for Southwest Rapid Rewards credits only if you previously had a hotel stay since 1/1/06 or if you have used your Choice Privileges Visa card.
  • Note: I fully expect that these exchange ratios will change. I do not intend to make special effort to keep up with them, though I will post changes you tell me about. Always check current conditions before counting on any of this to work as I describe.
  • Caution: The Amtrak to Choice Privileges offer is constantly changing. Read this Webflyer article.
• Points must be transferred in chunks of 5,000, with a maxiumum of 25,000 points per calendar year, 50,000 if you have Select or Select Plus status.
• Points can be used to obtain Amtrak tickets and other goodies for various vendors, including other hotel chains but again the non-Amtrak tickets awards are available only if you meet certain qualifications (see above).

• Traveling on one of Amtrak's trains.
• Obtaining and using it's free credit card - one point per dollar spent, plus a good up front bonus usually. You may read about it in my Credit Card section on the Free Cards page.
• Staying in hotels.
• Buying stuff.

There's a standard 500 points bonus for signing up for Amtrak Guest Rewards if you take an Amtrak trip within 90 days of signup.

Amtrak lists it special deal for members of its Guest Rewards program here.

Caution: Amtrak is currently running a huge deficit, and is always asking Congress for more money, which it may not provide. Bankruptcy is possible, in which case you may loose any points in your account. I strongly suggest you convert points to miles or otherwise use them whenever you can.

• Los Angeles, California, Department of Water and Power
• PGE (Northern California): Pay bill over the phone with CC for $1.45. A deal with sweltering summers and high bills.
• DTE in Michigan.

This seems to be a growing company. Please tell me about additions or changes to the Energy Plus offers. Thanks.

The company says you will save up to 15% on your electricity bill. It offers an all wind power option.

For comparison, the Energy Plus home page lists cash back and education offers.

I have given up keeping up on the details of each offer. This flyertalk discussion seems to keep up with them. I provide the links to the ones I know about. Read them carefully.

• United Airlines offer.
  • Special offers for NY, NJ, TX, or IL: 20,000 miles, plus 5,000 more if you have United's credit card.
• American Airlines offer.
  • Special Offer - 12,500 American Airlines miles. This one is for PA residents, but try modifying the URL for your state (MD, NY, NJ, etc).
  • Special offer - Con Edison in NY only - 15,000 miles.
  • Special offer - 10,000 miles.
• U.S. Airways offer.
• Delta Airlines offer.
  • Special offer: 20,000 miles for residents of NY or CT.
• Southwest Airlines offer.
• Marriott Rewards offer.
• Priority Club offer.
• Hilton HHonors offer.
• Wyndham Rewards offer.
• Amtrak offer.
• In addtion to ther offers above the Energy Plus Airlines Miles/Points page lists JetBlue, and its Hotel/Rail Rewards page lists Starwood.
• For comparison, Energy Plus offers 2% cash back plus $25 for busineses and residences. It offers $50 plus 3% to your 529 College Savings Plan via Upromise.
• Energy Plus lists its offers on its home page. Click on the category in the Rewards section that interests you. The bonus offers I list above may not be mentioned here.

"The rate they quote for us in Connecticut is 10.55c per KWh. That is much less than the rate CL&P charge, but not the least expensive. The best rate, which I currently use, offers 10.25c per KWh. I reckon changing to Energy Plus would 'cost' me about $2 per month. For that I would get the 3,000 bonus miles obviously but also get about 170 miles per month. So even on an ongoing basis after the bonus, I am still getting about 170 miles for $2, which is fine, as I use my miles for International travel. You may think this is marginal though.

There are a number of negative blogs about this company from early 2008, but more recent comments appear to be better. The earlier comments state that 'they could never get a representative to answer a call'. I had no trouble and spoke with someone within 30 seconds of calling.

Also, do not be pressured into registering by telephone if you have problems doing this through the web. You only get 2,000 bonus miles if you do this through an agent.

FlyerTalk has an excellent (very favorable) discussion on this program. Note the comment that you can buy Gexa's energy cheaper by not opting for the Continental Airlines program, but that you can still earn miles by paying with your credit card.

On April 27, 2006, a reader wrote

I did confirm that Auto bill pay for Gexa Energy residential accounts allow payment by Amex, Visa, and Mastercard with no fee. If you do not choose Auto bill pay and pay by phone or online, your credit card options (with $4.95 fee) are Visa, Mastercard, and Discover (No Amex). You cannot pay by mail with a credit card.

I just checked and Commercial accounts still allow credit card phone payments (Amex, MasterCard, and Visa) with no $4.95 fee. I tried to pay my residential bill using this method and they would not let me.

For more info, look at www.gexaenergy.com and choose either Commercial or Residential and then Bill Pay Options.

• 15,000 miles for enrolling
• 500 AAdvantage miles every month for 24 months while on this plan I leave it to you to read the details. Enter Promo Code XT3081.

• 5,000 miles for enrolling.
• 1 mile/$1 spent. Current members may also get this bonus
• I leave it to you to read the Details.

• 1 mile/$1 you spend on your Bounce Energy bill as long as you pay your Bounce Energy bill on time.
• Sign up for the American AAdvantage 12 or American AAdvantage 24 plan to earn an additional 1,000 miles once you pay your 1st 3 bills on-time.

Here are my favorite blogs. I read them daily.

• Gary Leff's View from the Wing is a blog (weblog) listing almost daily short comments on flying and travel, often mentioning miles offers. Gary often passes on to me extremely useful comments on miles accumulation. His emphasis is on business travel and high class hotels, but he covers most everything about miles and good travel deals. I recommend subsribing to its email list.
• Million Mile Secrets is an excellent blog, but it occasionally goes too far and gives recommendations that are unethical and/or will get you in trouble. Read it carefully, and wait for readers to comment on a post before using the info. I recommend subsribing to its email list.
• MommyPoints is a well written blog from the point of view of, well, a Mommy.
• The Points Guy is a blog frequently offering excellent ideas for acquiring miles and points. But caution: His Credit Cards list often does not mention the best offers. The blog is the author's primary business.
• Blog from Rewards Canada - a must read for Canadians.

SmarterTravel's Mile Finder database has a really useful site to help you get all the miles you deserve when you travel. Use the pulldown menus to search on your airline, or on a large list of frequent flyer partners to see who offers miles for what you are doing.

SmarterTravel offers several very worthwhile weekly e-mail newsletters, including Mile Alert for miles deals, and Deal Alert, a super newsletter that lets you know about airline deals from your home airport and other useful travel deals and discounts. This latter newsletter has saved me lots of money.

Randy Peterson runs the informative Web Flyer web site which offers information some of which is not published in his newsletter. He has probably been an expert on frequent flyer miles longer than most anyone else. Check out his Frequently Asked Questions section. It is quite useful, though it can be quite a bit out of date. (He doesn't mention the Hilton credit cards when appropriate, for example. So don't believe him when he says something doesn't exist.) Also visit his NotiFlyer page. It occasionally lists offers before I post them on my web site.

Tim Winship has an informative site dedicated to frequent flyers called FrequentFlier.com. It, also, can be quite out of date in some of its sections, like the credit card section.

Rewards Canada is a useful site for Canadians who are frequent flyers. The webmaster posts regularly on The FrequentFlier Forum as superdawg. Rewards Canada has free newsletter very useful to Canadians. It also features a Frequent Flyer Bonuses page, a compilation of bonus offers for airline and hotel programs from around the world. This page links to a nice bonus by route feature.

• Tim Winship writes the biweekly newsletter "The FrequentFlier Crier." Click here to subscribe.
• Randy Peterson writes "MilesLink". Click here to subscribe (free).
• SmarterTravel offers several very worthwhile weekly e-mail newsletters, including Mile Alert and Deal Alert, mentioned above.
• Frequent Flyer Bonuses does a good job of finding the most miles when you actually fly. It has a weekly newsletter.
• Rewards Canada has a free newsletter very useful to Canadians.

An intelligent ongoing discussion of frequent flyer miles issues can be found at the FrequentFlier Forum. It is a usually polite, often humorous, and usually on topic community of over 2,000 dedicated seekers of free miles. I read it daily, and post to it occasionally. You may lurk or participate.

Milepoint is another discussion board on miles. It looks promising. I read the General Discussion section daily, but find the other sections too numerous for one man to follow. Please tell me if you find anything of interest there. Thanks.

Canadians will be interested in the Rewards Canada Frequent Flyer Forum.

Australians will be interested in The Australian Frequent Flyer Bulletin Board.

Also see my list of charities which allow you to simply click on a link for free to cause sponsors to donate money to them. It is found on my Click for Miles, Money, and Good Causes page.

• American Airlines. Earn miles for making donations. On March 29, 2013, the charities included National Foundation for Cancer Research, United Service Organizations, Inc (USO), U.S. Fund For UNICEF, and Komen.
  • Special offer: Through June 30, 2013, AAdvantage members can earn a one-time award of 250 AAdvantage miles for a minimum donation of $50, or 500 AAdvantage miles for a donation of $100 or more to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief.
  • Support breast cancer research: Now through May 31, you will earn 15 AAdvantage miles for every dollar you donate (instead of the usual 10) to Susan G. Komen® through American’s Miles for the Cure program. (Via AAdvantageGeek)
• You can donate your American Airlines miles to various charities. On March 29, 2013, those charities were Operation Hero Miles and Miles For Kids.
• American Airlines and Cystic Fibrosis Foundation: American Airlines will award you 10 AAdvantage bonus miles for each dollar you donate through the American Airlines Miles for CF program, which supports the mission of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Minimum $25 donation required to receive AAdvantage miles. Offer valid March 1 - 31, 2013. It was still online April 1, 2013. Ask. Please tell me if this offer is extended or disappears. Thanks.
• United Airlines. Donate miles to various charities. On March 29, 2013, the list of charities was very large.
• Delta Airlines. Donate miles to several charities via Delta's SkyWish program.
  • The first 5,000 people to donate to the American Cancer Society by May 31, 2013, via Delta's Day of Hope offer will receive bonus miles for the dontation:
    • 500 bonus miles for a $100 donation
    • 1,000 bonus miles for a $250 donation
    • 2,500 bonus miles for a $500 donation
    • 5,000 bonus miles for a $1,000 donation
• U.S. Airways. Donate miles to several charities.
  • US Airways will match 1,000 miles for every 5,000 miles donated to the featured nonprofit, up to 25,000 miles. Each partner will be highlighted for one week:
    • Fisher House Foundation will be matched from May 13 through May 19, 2013.
    • Mercy Medical Airlift will be matched from Aug. 19 through Aug. 23, 2013.
    • Make-A-Wish America will be matched from Oct. 21 through Oct. 27, 2013.
• Hawaiian Airlines.
  • Donate miles to various charities. At the end of the year, Hawaiian Airlines will match up to half a million miles to each participating charity. On March 29, 2013, the charities were American Cancer Society Hawaii Pacific, Inc., American Red Cross, Big Brothers Big Sisters Hawaii, Blood Bank of Hawaii, Friends of Hokule'a and Hawai'iloa, HUGS (Help, Understanding, and Group Support), Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project, National Kidney Foundation of Hawaii, Read Aloud America, Shriners Hospital for Children of Honolulu, and Special Olympics Hawaii.
  • This may be way out of date, but worth a shot if you are going to donate anyway: With a minimum pledge of $60, earn 10 HawaiianMiles for each dollar pledged to Hawaiian Public Radio. Include your 9-digit HawaiianMiles account number and offer thank you gift code S09CD301 on your pledge form to insure proper credit. Thank you gift details can be found by clicking on link in "Click here to view a list of thank you gifts" on the page you get from my link.
• Lufthansa. Donate miles to various charities .
• Cathay Pacific. Donate miles to various charities.
• Hilton Hotels
  • Hilton Hotels allows you donate points to provide dollar contributions to various charities. Every 10,000 points equals a US$25 contribution.
  • The Global Soap Project collects discarded soap from hotels and reprocesses it into new bars that are given to vulnerable populations throughout the world. Partnering with organizations that have existing operations in these communities, the Global Soap Project ensures the soap is distributed to those in need, with the goal of improving health through personal hygiene. Hand washing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrhea and pneumonia, which together are responsible for more than 3.5 million child deaths each year. A lack of soap can be a barrier to hand washing at schools, community health clinics and refugee camps in developing countries, which rarely have soap or appropriate hand washing facilities. Your donation of 2,000 Hilton points sends 33 bars of soap to refugees, orphans, birth attendants, teachers, students and vulnerable populations around the world. (Thanks to Noob Traveler for this information.)
• S&H greenpoints allows you donate points to United Way, Food For All, and American Forests' Global ReLeaf program as of March 20, 2013.
• American Express allows you to donate Membership Rewards points to the American Red Cross.
• Amazon.com:
  • Cash back to Tamalpais High School from Amazon.com. I retired as a math teacher from Tamalpais High school more years ago than I care to admit. Apparently the school has a rather amazing deal wherein it receives 10% of the amount you purchase (all purchases and not just the books!). As a former math teacher, I do hope there is not a decimal point error there. But if you have no better way to shop at Amazon, this method is well worth doing. Tam High is a very good school.
    • Click here to see the offer and shop at Amazon.
    • I hope this is only one of many educational opportunities for support of schools by Amazon. Please check the website of your school and school district, and tell me of any similar offers you find. Please include a link to the offer, so I can list it here. Thanks.
  • Sierra Club. Cash back to Sierra Club from Amazon.com. Various chapters of the Sierra Club have can earn a bit of money if you shop Amazon.com through their links, at no extra cost to you:
    • San Francisco Bay Chaper Sierra Club: Info. Link.
    • New Hampshire Sierra Club, Info. Link.
    • Forth Worth Sierra Club. Info. Link.
    • Dallas Sierra Club. Info. Link.
    • Please send me info and direct links to Amazon.com from other Sierra Club chapters. Thanks.
  • Greyhound Adoption Kennel. Scroll down to the banner about a third of the way down the page, or do a word search on "Amazon". It shows with my IE browser, but not with my Firefox.
  • Please tell me of any similar offers you find from good causes. Please include a link to the offer, so I can list it here. Thanks.

• On which you can use your miles for award flights, and
• On which you may credit your flight miles.

There is a Flyertalk discussion on this program. Bottom line seems to be that it is worthwhile if you like games; else not.

This is not an easy way to earn miles. But it is a really good program for those of us who travel and want to share information with others. (Yes, I have a few journals there - search on author "pgary".) It is a great resource for travel information.

I know nothing about this company, but its services appear to be quite extensive. They have some sort of low price guarantee.

Points.com offers miles from various airlines or points for various programs for upgrading membership to Gold for $49.95. (The membership and upgrade is otherwise mostly useless.) Start here, then log in, then click on "Choose a different Signup Bonus" under "Subscribe for a year" to see all of the bonuses offered. If you haven't yet joined Points.com, search on this page for "Points.com" to find all bonus offers for joining that I know about. There is no expiration date mentioned for the offer. Be sure it is still there before making the purchase. And please tell me about any offers of 5,000 or more miles. Thanks. Caution: Your credit card will be charged annually for this upgrade unless you cancel. So put it on your calendar.