Booking a paid flight with an airline you don’t usually fly? You don’t have to let the miles you’ll earn go to waste! You can often credit your miles to a partner airline that you DO intend to fly in the future.
But the number of miles you’ll earn on that partner can depend on your fare class. Say you’ve booked a paid flight on TAP Portugal. You likely know you can credit those miles to United Airlines. But you might also like to see the earning rate on Air Canada, Singapore Airlines, etc.
The website WheretoCredit.com helps you make that decision!
You Can Fly 1 Airline and Earn Miles With Another. And WheretoCredit.com Lets You Easily Compare the Earning Rate You Get With Alliance and Partner Airlines
Let’s take a look at how it works!
How to Credit Your Miles to Other Airlines
Link: Don’t Waste Miles Flown on Other Airlines – Credit Them to Your Favorite Frequent Flyer Program
If you book a paid flight with an airline you don’t usually fly, you’ll earn miles that aren’t very useful to you. You can’t book an award ticket with only a few thousand miles, so they could end sitting in your account until they expire.
Don’t Throw Away Perfectly Good Miles! There’s a Trick to Earning Useful Miles Even If You’re Flying an Airline You Likely Won’t Fly Again
You can credit them to an alliance or partner airline that fits in better with your travel plans!
Let’s say you’re booking a paid flight on Delta because they happen to have the cheapest price for your destination. But you don’t otherwise fly Delta and it can be difficult to redeem miles for Delta award flights.
As you’re making your flight reservation, you can select another Delta partner airline frequent flyer program you’d like to earn miles with for your trip.
Choose an Airline That Works Better for You and Enter Your Frequent Flyer Number to Earn Miles With Them Instead
For example, on your Delta flight you could earn miles with partner Alaska Airlines which has cheap domestic award flights and great partners. Or credit them to Flying Blue for good deals on awards to Europe.
But airlines don’t always earn miles on a partner or alliance airline at the same rate. So how do you find out what rate you’re getting?
Wheretocredit Can Help Decide Which Airline Miles to Earn
Link: Wheretocredit
Wheretocredit makes it easy to find out how many miles you can earn with alliance and partner airlines for your flight! This is an important factor in choosing where to credit your miles! But 1st you’ll need to find out what type of fare you’re booking.
How to Find Your Fare Class
You can usually find this information hidden in the details of your flight.
The Fare Code Is a Single Letter and You Can Use It to Determine How Many Miles You’ll Earn for Your Flight
Find Out Which Partner Airline Will Give You the Most Miles for Your Flight
Visit Wheretocredit, select the airline you’re flying and the fare class from the drop down menus.
Enter the Details of Your Flight
Then compare your options.
Which Would Airline Would You Choose?
Looking at the top picks from earlier, Alaska Airlines will give you the most miles for your flight. Or you may take a closer look at other airlines which offer 100% of miles flown like Virgin Atlantic.
Seeing all your options in 1 place is much more efficient that what you’d have to do without Wheretocredit, which is search for the Delta earning rate chart with each airline on different sites to make your decision. So this can save you a lot of time!
How Many Miles Does This Mean You’ll Earn?
The percentage you earn is usually based on the miles flown. You can visit Great Circle Mapper to find out how far you’re traveling. If you’ve never used this tool, be sure to read my post on how Great Circle Mapper works.
Seattle to Denver Is 1,024 Miles
So here’s how many miles you can earn for your Delta flight:
- Alaska Airlines – ~768 miles (1,024 miles flown x 75%)
- Flying Blue – ~512 miles (1,024 miles flown x 50%)
- Virgin Atlantic – ~1,024 miles
Factor this information into your decision along with which airline fits best with your travel goals.
Select the Partner Airline of Your Choice
Once you make your decision, go back to the booking page and make your selection to earn the miles.
Select the Partner Airline and Enter Your Frequent Flyer Number to Earn Partner Miles for Your Flight
There Are Drawbacks
Wheretocredit notes throughout the site, there’s NO guarantee they have to most up-to-date information.
You May Need to Double Check the Data You Find on Wheretocredit
But they provide direct links to each airline site, making it easy to quickly check for yourself. So you don’t have to search for through airline pages to find the information you need.
Also, I would like to see them add how many elite qualifying points you’ll earn per mile to the site. Because this is another important factor some folks consider when deciding which frequent flyer miles to earn.
That said, Wheretocredit is still a great tool that makes it easy to quickly choose which frequent flyer program to credit for your trip.
Bottom Line
Just because you’re taking a paid flight on an airline you don’t usually fly, doesn’t mean the miles you earn for your trip have to go to waste. You can credit your miles to an alliance or partner airline instead!
And Wheretocredit can help you decide which partner to choose, by letting you quickly compare how many miles you’ll earn.
But you may want to do a quick fact check of the information you find. While Wheretocredit tries to keep their data up to date, there’s no guarantee.
Without Wheretocredit you’d have to search for the earning information on each airline’s site to compare. So this tool is a big time saver!
Have you tried Wheretocredit? Let me know what you think!
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