Clark Howard's Tips

July 1, 2008

Frequent flyer miles are supposed to be all about loyalty. You get free exotic trips all around the globe for flying one particular airline, right?

Wrong. The airlines have duped us and things are getting even worse. One example of this is those fake award charts. They advertise that you can go somewhere for X amount of miles, but you have to use double the miles if you want to go where you really want to go! And that's if you can find the seats.

Clark used to value frequent flyer miles at around a penny per mile, but now that's down to less than half a cent per mile.

To add insult to injury, airlines are now feeing you to death when you use your miles. There's usually a fee to book the miles and then a fuel surcharge on top of that. For example, Christa recently redeemed some of her husband's frequent flyer miles and wound up paying $75 per ticket in junk fees alone.

So Clark's advice is to burn through your miles now as he's doing. In the future, fly the airline with the best deal or the one that's the most convenient for you. Don't waste any effort chasing frequent flyer miles, which are like fool's gold.

Consumer advice courtesy of