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Preserve expiring frequent flyer miles with online shopping, and get bonus miles to boot
Sunday, July 13, 2008

In addition to making frequent flyer miles harder to spend, airlines are expiring miles, if there's no activity in your account, faster than ever.

But one easy and painless way to make sure there's activity in your account is to do some online shopping using the airlines' "shopping malls." Even if you spend just a few bucks, you'll keep your miles safe for at least another year. And in addition, you can add some serious miles to your account if you're a heavy online shopper.

For example, at time of writing, Northwest is offering four miles for every dollar spent with the Apple Store, one of their shopping partners. So if you buy a $2500 iMac computer, you get 10,000 miles. That's a huge bonus.

Generally, these online shopping partners offer at least one mile per dollar spent, but sometimes they award 10 miles or more. And if you use your airline affiliated credit card, you get an extra mile, but the credit card miles pale in comparison to the shopping miles you can earn.

Scores of well known retailers participate in these airline malls, including Brooks Brothers, Circuit City, The Container Store, Dell Computer, Drugstore.com, Sears, Target, and Walmart, to name but a few.

Keep in mind that although the airline shopping sites listed below work with many of the same retailers, American might be offering 4 miles with a particular retailer while Northwest could be offering just half that, so you've got to shop around while you're shopping around.

Links to airline shopping malls
http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/AirfareW ... fault.aspx

I put most of my big purchases on a Case Continental airlines card. That keeps my miles 'fresh' and adds to my stock of avaliable miles. Even with the annual fee, I stilll get most of my flights for the price of taxes.

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