Customer loyalty is vital to all kinds of businesses in all kinds of fields and the travel industry is no exception.  Incentivising past customers to keep coming back is, after all, much less expensive than attracting new ones.

Frequent flyer programmes came into existence nearly 30 years ago when American Airlines introduced their AAdvantage scheme to reward their customers for their loyalty.  Since then, it is estimated that more than 100 million individuals have chosen to participate in one or other of the airlines’ programmes.

Of course the most obvious way to collect air miles is by travelling.  Most programmes reward travellers with a certain number of points for each mile or kilometre flown with the participating airline or one of its partners, and then the points are exchanged for a variety of benefits including free air travel, travel upgrades, access to airport lounges and a whole range of other goods and services.  With each airline battling to attract and retain greater numbers of new customers, the benefits on offer vary from one to another, as do the rules for participation and the methods of calculation.

Although travelling might be the most obvious way to collect air miles, it is not, however, the only one.  Many airlines work in collaboration with major credit and debit card companies, allowing air miles to be accumulated with certain purchases made using the card.  In fact, in more recent years, more miles have been collected through this means than through flying.

Other popular ways to collect air miles are by staying at hotels which participate in an airline’s programme, or by booking car hire through a participating company.

Most frequent flyer programmes operate on a system which is time-dependent.  In some cases, points or air miles have to be redeemed before a specified expiration date, whilst in others they expire if the account is not used for an extended period of time, usually several years.

For anyone who travels frequently for either business or pleasure and regularly uses the same airline (such as those who have holiday homes abroad), signing up with a frequent flyer programme can offer lots of benefits.  If you haven’t done so yet, therefore, make some enquiries or check online to see how you can make travelling even better value for money.