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I have a question about Continental’s One Pass miles. I have not been a frequent flier before this year so I have not learned anything about airline miles. If someone who is knowledgeable about airline miles could answer my questions I would really appreciate it.

In my situation, I fly from Kansas City to San Jose. When I check all of the possibilities I always like the Continental flight through Houston because my total travel time is only about 6 1/2 hours. There are much cheaper flights going through Newark or Atlanta but most of the other flights take from 10 to 14 hours. So I usually try to book Continental even though my flights have been costing about $650 round trip. Minimal travel time is very important to me. I currently have about 12,000 One Pass miles and I signed up to receive double miles on trips between now and December. I have two trips coming up this fall and winter to San Jose which would boost my miles.

Today I received an offer from Chase Bank for a Continental World Mastercard. I would get 25,000 bonus miles if I sign up for this card. It has an annual fee of $85 but it looks to me like I could potentially save a lot if I could get a free trip out of my miles. I logged into the Continental website and it looked like I could get a free trip from the US to San Jose, economy class, for 30,000 miles, although it said seats were limited on busy flights.

Here are two of my questions:

1. It looked like I would reach Silver Elite status when I accumulate 25,000 miles. If you redeem some of your miles for a free trip do you lose your Elite status? Or once you achieve Elite status do you keep it for a year or more?

2. I will easily get to 30,000 miles with this Mastercard. Is it this easy? Will I be able to book the flight I want from Kansas City to Houston to San Jose using 30,000 miles or will those flights be unavailable to me for some reason? It seems too good to be true to book a $650 dollar itinerary for the cost of a credit card. Do I not understand how this works?

Thanks for any advice that an experienced traveler can offer me.

Lost

I have 3 one pass "free" trips taken over the past few years. I fly from DFW-SJO and can usually book about 3 weeks out. You can go to the website and see available one pass flights

1. No. Miles that accumulate towards elite status ("EQM") are separate and distinct from miles that you can use towards points. Once you achieve silver elite status, you hold it for the rest of that calendar year and for the entire next year. For example, if you had achieved silver in May of 2009, you would have been silver for the remainder of 2009 and all of 2010, and actually until Feb of 2011. It works the same way for gold and platinum.

2. I have a chase card. I get double miles for my ticket purchases. I have found it pretty easy to get free flights to CR. Other places can be hit or miss, but there are tools to figure this out. If I were you, I would go to the CO One Pass section on Flyertalk.com. There are a lot of helpful folks there. In the meantime, the CO website is relatively easy to use and all of the onepass rules are posted.


And by the way, the promotion with CO right now is for double EQMs rather than double miles which are used for free travel and upgrades. However, the double EQMs, I believe, are more valuable, and will get you elite status much quicker.

Ciaociao

Thanks Hank and Ciaociao. I really needed some help and you have steered me in the right direction.

I appreciate it.

Lost

I've taken at least a dozen free international trips on Continental in the past four years. with their One Pass. About half of the miles uses came from travel and the remainder from their Chase credit card. Great program, and worth the annual credit card fee if you pay off your balances each month.

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I have like 36,000 one pass miles.

When I tried to use the miles recently for a CR trip, Continentel informed me that it was like 35,000 each way to CR. I asked if I could purchase one ticket with my miles and pay the other ticket in cash.

They said Noooooooo!

I think you need like 70,000 miles for A CR ticket from the states.

Not positive. however!

You can check onsite with Continetal using your one pass number. Prompt to: reservation using one pass miles for upcoming trip. You will get your answer. Or just call the 800 number.


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In addition to the Chase credit card, you can open a checking account with Chase and get a debit card for an additioinal 25K mile bonus (if you are registered for the OnePass Mileathon promotion (free to do), you'll earn an extra 2,500 for each card). The checking account w/ debit card has a $25 or a $65 annual fee.

It's 70K miles for an EasyPass ticket.

It's 35K miles for a SaverPass ticket.

The SaverPass tickets have a lot more blackout dates than the EP tix. With the EP ticket you can pretty much choose any flight you want.

You can do a search on continental.com and it'll show you which flights have SaverPass availability.

The agents push the 70K mile tickets because they want you to use as many miles as possible.

And btw, a RT ticket to CR costs less than a single one-way ticket there most of the time.

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The continental chase card is a good program for frequent travelers. If you are counting on the 25k bonus miles to book your upcoming trips you may be disappointed. They say you get the bonus miles after making your first purchase..but it took more than 2 months to get my bonus miles.

A few things to keep in mind. Those "bonus miles" you get from credit cards are not Elite Qualifying Miles (EQM) so they don't count towards your silver elite status. They're usable to redeem for a flight, but you don't get miles for a free flight either, so if you want elite status you have to pay (though the double EQM offer going on really helps).

No, EQM miles do not "go away" and they also count towards the "million mile club" which basically gives you elite status for life, regardless of how often you travel after you reach that point. As such, your Elite status only changes after each calendar year if you ddi not qualify in the previous calendar year.

If you can be flexible, saver pass flights are a great value. Just shop the dates, click, fly and enjoy CR.

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Anouther way to rack up Continental miles is to open a Chase online checking account for 21000 miles bonus. You can do that once a year. I have reached the point where I never buy a ticket unless there is really a bargian as I have more miles though bonuses than I can burn mostly on American but have done a couple of free trips to SE asia through Continental the last two years.rbc100

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"open a Chase online checking account for 21000 miles bonus. You can do that once a year"

could you explain that a little more. As I read this I could open up a CK acct, close the acct- then reopen a new a year out form the date I did the first one? and repeat? every year? and as long as progrma was in force I get the miles? do I have to write any cks? I write maybe 3 ck's a year right now

Wondering because I when I went back to a bank I had not used for years, all they did was reactive a ck acct I had years before – that’ what they told me what they really did is any one guess ( that was a CU if that makes a difference)

You guys talk about well the miles work, but I have NW miles that when I attempt to use they never have any flights, despite picking every date they say they have a seat, at the end they tell me Sorry no seats. Once I selected every single day they told me that had seats for, after they sent me a flyer telling they had seats and after going thru all the steps, no seats. The only time I ever got the chance to use the miles, they want more miles then I had and a amount of extra money in a amount greater then just buying the ticket straight out. Just my experience

I have read on flyertalk you can do the cecking accounts once a year and successfull done so the last two years. Keep in mind you can also use miles on partner airlines. For expample I have used both Continental and Delta miles to book SE Asia flights on Korean which has a better schedule for me at the lower rates. rbc100

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