Friends invited me to Barcelona for a Metallica concert.

We have already bought and booked everything ourselves. We are happy with how we saved on tickets: we fly with Aeroflot Bonus miles. I've been in the program for ten years now, so I don't skip the details.

Grigory Yaroshenko

counts miles

For nothing, the friend beams, only 30,000 miles and fees.

A check on the Aeroflot website confirms my doubts: this is the case when it is better to buy with money. I'll tell you why.

What kind of miles are there?

The Aeroflot Bonus loyalty program offers two ways to earn miles: fly Aeroflot flights and use the services of partners. Miles from flights are more significant: they immediately go into your bank account and affect your qualifications in the program.

These miles are called qualifying miles. To move from the basic level to the next one, silver, you need to accumulate 25,000 qualifying miles in a year or fly somewhere with Aeroflot 25 times.

If your work does not involve business trips and you can go on vacation a couple of times a year, it is more interesting to accumulate other miles - non-qualifying ones. They can be spent on an award ticket, but they do not count toward qualifications.

Do miles have a price?

Miles are free. This is a loyalty reward. On the other hand, you can use them to pay for tickets. Miles become a means of payment between the passenger and the airline, a surrogate currency. Like any currency, miles have a rate. It may or may not be very profitable.

When you sell currency, for example euros, after a trip to Spain, you carefully choose an exchanger. It is not profitable to change for 68 rubles if on the next street they accept for 70. It’s the same with miles: when you buy an award ticket, you sell miles to Aeroflot. To sell a mile for more, you need to know how to value it.

How to calculate the price of a mile

For my friends, each ticket cost 30,000 miles and 5,880 rubles in fees:

By choosing the usual payment method, you can fly to Barcelona on the same dates and in the same economy class for 14,465 rubles:

If you subtract the amount of fees from the total cost of the ticket, and then divide the result by the mileage rate, you get the mileage rate:

(14 465 − 5880) / 30 000 = 0,286

Friends sold 30,000 miles at 28.6 kopecks per mile. Is it expensive or not very expensive?

To understand, I’ll compare it with another flight. A ticket to Havana costs 46,816 RUR:

And here are the conditions for an award ticket in the same direction:

70,000 miles in exchange for 33,796 rubles. This option is better - now a mile costs 48 kopecks.

To make full use of the Aeroflot Bonus, you need to get into the habit of counting miles and their value. It will help you not only sell miles more expensively, but also accumulate them faster.

How to earn miles if you rarely fly

The easiest way to earn miles is by using the services of program partners. The list includes dozens of companies, from Sberbank to the Moskhoztorg store. There is only one principle: when you spend money, you get miles as a bonus.

For example, every 30 rubles left at any of the Novikov Group restaurants brings one mile to your account. And ordering food through the Delivery Club service costs the same mile for every 23 rubles. A condition applies to Internet services: you need to go to the partner’s website from the Aeroflot Bonus program page.

The easiest way to earn miles is by using a card from a partner bank. You pay for your usual expenses and receive miles in return. Partners change, and it is better to keep an eye on this. When a new bank appears in the program, its cards earn more miles than the cards of banks that are veterans of the program.

How mileage cards work

Typically, mileage cards have several statuses. The higher the status, the more miles it generates. A mid-tier card gives you more miles than a regular card, and a premium card gives you even more.

You can save on the cost of cards. Banks regularly hold promotions, you just need to ask. It’s like a discount: you won’t get it unless you ask. A platinum credit card brought me 60,000 Aeroflot miles last year. The grace period ended and I closed it without losses.

What to do if banks don’t offer interesting conditions, but you want to accumulate miles? First, remember that a mile has a price - let’s determine it around 38 kopecks based on the results of the two examples given. Then estimate the monthly expenses that you are willing to pay by card. Finally, compare how many miles the card will accumulate in a year.

How many miles will I accumulate in a year if I spend 140,000 rubles per month?

Basic

Maintenance per year

1000 R

Miles at 60 R

Miles per year

Average

Maintenance per year

3500 R

Miles at 60 R

Miles per year

Premium

Maintenance per year

8000 R

Miles at 60 R

Miles per year

The average card will earn 14,000 more miles than the base card. At our rate, this is 5,320 rubles, which covers the cost of annual card maintenance. It makes sense to take it. But the premium one falls short: you need to spend more or choose another card.

How long do miles last?

The validity period of miles depends on the terms of the loyalty program. For example, ALL Airlines miles last 5 years, and Aeroflot miles expire if you don’t fly for money at least once every 2 years.

In order not to lose the miles you have received, find out how long they will remain valid and what needs to be done to prevent them from expiring.

When and how to spend

The program is designed in such a way that the cost of a mile depends on the amount you spend on the flight. The higher the ticket price, the more expensive miles you can sell to Aeroflot. This was the case in the example above with Barcelona and Havana.

The highest price per mile will come from upgrading from Economy to Business. You will have to buy premium economy - this does not work with lower fares - and spend the same number of miles as you need for an award ticket. But the cost of a mile will be more than one ruble - you will be able to save a lot on a business class flight. But you need to understand that you are paying extra for comfort, and not for additional kilometers in the sky.

If you are not ready to spend money on premium economy, you need to catch special offers. Interesting options for a vacation or short trip can be found in the Light Award promotion, when the mileage cost of flights is reduced by a quarter. The promotion takes place several times a year and includes popular destinations. The airline's newsletter notifies you of the start of Light Award.

The cheapest miles are priced in the Aeroflot Bonus online store. There you can buy a suitcase, a tenth iPhone or a movie. Before you think about buying, remember our lessons in mileage arithmetic. Calculate where it is more profitable to buy.

Remember

1. You don't have to be an avid traveler to fly for miles.
2. Paying with miles means paying with money.
3. With a bank card, you can actually fly with miles once a year. When choosing a card, it is useful to count the miles and their value.
4. It is wise to plan your vacation with Light Award in mind.
5. Aeroflot Bonus is not the best place to buy a tenth iPhone.

Many airlines have a cumulative loyalty system, thanks to which you can get a very profitable bonus. This program may be of interest to those whose activities involve frequent flights due to business trips. Essentially, miles are the units by which an air carrier measures customer loyalty.

Such programs are very similar to the savings systems of many large supermarkets, where the client is awarded points (“miles”) for purchasing goods (tickets). In the future, they can be spent on other goods (exchanged for another ticket, or book a hotel, rent a car).

Bonus miles from low-cost airlines come in two types and status miles. The first are the category of bonuses that can be spent on purchasing a ticket or upgrading the class of service. These bonuses have an expiration date after which they expire. They are valid from 20 to 36 months, during which time they must be completely spent. Status miles can also be exchanged for various awards. They influence the status of their owner. The more such “miles” a client has in his account, the more important he becomes. Miles in this category expire after one year.

A little history of the program

This system of receiving profitable benefits originated in the company 15 years ago, in 1999, but Aeroflot is not a pioneer in this bonus program. For the first time, loyal customers of Transaero airlines had the opportunity to enjoy benefits from participating in it 4 years earlier.

In the last decade, there has been rapid development of the bonus program, new relevant opportunities have appeared in it, because of this it was possible to attract 500 thousand clients. The opportunity to participate in it was provided not only to Russian citizens, but also to foreigners who used the services of this airline.

Brief description of the bonus system

The essence of the program to support loyal customers is as follows: for each flight on the company’s comfortable aircraft, certain bonuses will be awarded. After purchasing an Aeroflot airline ticket, miles are credited to the participant's account. Their number depends on a number of the following factors: total flight distance, selected class of service, current program participant status.

Who can participate in this bonus system?

Registration in the Aeroflot Bonus system is a simple procedure; age and citizenship do not matter. Children under 12 years of age must declare their participation in a similar subprogram, Aeroflot Bonus Junior. Apart from the name, it has no special differences. Aeroflot's rules on how to spend miles and accumulate them change periodically. In order to have these bonuses, you need to declare your participation in the system.

Rules for participation in the program

Becoming an official Aeroflot Bonus member is very simple. There are 3 convenient methods, you can use any of them:

• submit the completed application form at the nearest Aeroflot representative office or at an authorized sales point;
• fill out an online application on the company’s official website;
• become the owner of any partner card of the program, for example, Sberbank issues miles for the Aeroflot company. How to spend them is described below.

Any of the listed methods requires the presentation of passport data of the future participant, his detailed contact and personal information. After registration, an individual number is issued in the system.

The client becomes a full-fledged participant in the bonus program when more than 2,000 miles are accumulated on the account. Upon reaching this level, a plastic official participant card with an individual number is issued, which also contains the full name. owner. The card is delivered by mail to the specified address. After accumulating the required number of award points, their owner will already know exactly how to spend the miles. Aeroflot Bonus is indeed a very profitable and convenient system.

Types of bonus miles

Now it is very important to understand the questions of how to spend Aeroflot miles and accumulate them, as well as what types there are.

This company has two main types of points:

• Qualification-type “miles” that are awarded directly for air travel. The client receives these bonuses not only for purchasing tickets for existing Aeroflot flights, but also for purchasing travel documents from partner companies. Each declared partner has its own restrictions and certain rules; every Aeroflot client needs to familiarize themselves with them. How to spend your miles wisely? This question worries every participant. With the help of qualifying bonuses, you can take a free flight by exchanging them for the desired ticket, or upgrade your class of service or status level in the program itself.
• Non-qualifying bonus miles, which are awarded for purchasing various goods and using services from partner companies. For this type of incentive, the conditions and procedure for their accrual are constantly changing. How can I spend my accumulated miles? Aeroflot offers only one way for this type of bonus - receiving various benefits during check-in and during the flight. In order to spend premium bonuses, you must first accumulate them over a certain point in time.

Saving methods

The main ways to earn the coveted “miles”:

• You must travel on the same airline or through its partners. This is the simplest method of saving, it is optimal for those who often move due to business trips or visit relatives. This method is also relevant for fans of a particular country for vacation. For such tourists, you can choose the most optimal bonus program, which allows you to significantly save money without changing your plans.
• Purchasing goods and services from the main partners of the program (payment for hotels, car rental, restaurant meals). It is much more profitable for them to rent a car or stay in a comfortable hotel from the list presented. Additional “miles” are assigned to the card for purchased services.
• Use of special bank cards. For the convenience of their clients, many large banking organizations offer profitable debit or credit cards that help them fly profitably. When making purchases, a certain percentage of the amount spent is credited to the client's personal mileage account. For example, for every dollar or euro spent, 1 “mile” is added to the account. These “miles” are bonus ones, they can be exchanged and spent, but they do not affect status upgrades.

Additional sources of accumulation

To reward their customers, many companies add additional “miles” to them in the following cases:

• upon initial entry into the program, welcome miles are awarded;
• Holiday miles are issued to reward loyal customers on their birthday;
• you can earn “miles” for activity on social networks - for writing reviews, participating in various competitions, games or quizzes from the airline;
• additional “miles” are issued for subscribing to the company’s newsletter;
• "miles" purchased on the airline's website or from other bonus card holders.

Many customers accumulate miles in hopes of receiving a specific benefit. Aeroflot also has a similar program to support its loyal customers. With the help of bonuses, it is possible to get real benefits for those who fly frequently. When accumulating bonuses, many people have a question about what they can spend Aeroflot miles on. Let's try to answer it.

Where to use bonuses?

These “miles” are awarded by Aeroflot for regular flights, their value depends on the distance the client has traveled by air, as well as on the class of service. Each participant in the bonus program is given a certain status, which also affects the amount of bonus miles. The terms of the program are subject to frequent changes; for a more accurate calculation of possible savings, Aeroflot offers a miles calculator.

You can spend bonuses at your own discretion. It is also possible to accumulate them when making purchases, when payments are made using a card from a partner bank. Many of the country's leading financial institutions have actively joined this program. Sberbank also offers a special “Airport Bonus”. Bonuses are awarded for opening a new card; every dollar spent adds one bonus mile to the card.

Everyone can take advantage of all the benefits of cooperation with Aeroflot. All bonus card holders also need to know how to spend “miles” from Sberbank. Bonus units are spent in the standard way: on a free flight with this airline or its official partners, on the next increase in client status, on hotel bookings or car rentals. Moreover, these conditions apply almost throughout the world. Now another direction has become popular. How to spend Aeroflot miles for the benefit of others? With their help, you can participate in a special charity program, helping those in need.

What are qualifying bonuses used for?

The qualifying miles accumulated on the account must be spent in one of the proposed ways, otherwise the client risks losing all the benefits from their use. What can you spend Aeroflot miles on:

• Become the owner of an award ticket on an existing flight of one of the partner companies that is part of the SkyTeam group. All commission fees are paid by the passenger himself.
• Upgrade your current service class if you wish. By purchasing an economy class discount ticket, you have the opportunity to use all the business class privileges when paying with bonus miles.
• Pay bills from partner companies.

This is the main thing that those who have an Aeroflot cumulative bonus card need to know. We have discussed in detail how to spend miles and what they are needed for.

Privileged statuses for program participants

The client receives full rights to participate in the program at the time of initial accumulation of 2,000 bonus miles. After fulfilling this condition, he is issued a basic participant card. There are 2 more privileged statuses - silver and gold. They are called SkyTeam Elite and SkyTeam Elite Plus.

To receive a SkyTeam Elite silver card, a client must accumulate 25 thousand miles in a calendar year, and to achieve gold status - 50 thousand miles. When a client reaches a new level, his card is automatically replaced with an individual card of the appropriate design and color. Such programs are beneficial to those customers who fly regularly throughout the year. For those who travel by plane occasionally, accumulating the required points will not be easy. When registering for membership in an airline program, it is important to know where to spend your bonuses. Aeroflot offers to use miles in different ways.

Possibility of buying and selling premium bonuses

Of course, in the literal sense, bonuses cannot be sold or purchased. But there are times when a client has accumulated the required number of “miles” to purchase a ticket, but for some reason he cannot sell them. In this case, you should negotiate with another person so that the ticket does not disappear. This way you can use your accumulated points. This is another option available to Aeroflot customers.

How to spend “miles” if the trip is cancelled? Look for someone to sell a ticket to. In this case, points do not expire, but appear in the form of a cash equivalent. But there is one more nuance: in order to avoid fraud, it is advisable to carry out all operations in special sales centers of the air carrier.

Procedure for donating award miles from Aeroflot

How to spend miles? You can give them to your loved ones and relatives. The whole procedure follows the scheme described above, only the owner does not receive any remuneration, and the ticket is issued free of charge. The ticket goes to the recipient. You will also need the personal passport information of the person to whom the award ticket is addressed. You also need to present the card and provide all the data of the donor. There is one limitation: the client can donate his accumulated points no more than 10 times a year. This is perhaps the most recent answer to the question of where to spend bonuses. Aeroflot gives out miles to its most active and loyal customers.

It's finished. Aeroflot allowed participants of its bonus program to transfer bonus miles to each other. Now, if you don't have enough miles, you can always take them from another member. Let's take a closer look at how this works.

How to transfer miles?

A section “Spend miles” - “Transfer miles” has appeared in your personal account. Here you need to specify the participant’s number, after which his name and the first letter of his last name will be displayed. From the drop-down list you can select the number of transferred miles - from 500 to 5000 in increments of 500 miles (i.e. 500, 1000, 1500, ..., 4500, 5000). Next, you need to choose how you want to pay for the transfer: miles or money.

That is, the translation is paid? What is the price?

There are two payment options. Either in miles (the commission will be 20% of the transfer amount) or in money: in this case it will be 600 rubles. Since the monetary “price” of a mile when exchanging for goods is no more than 30 kopecks, it is more profitable to pay with miles. True, there is a trick here: when paying with miles, a silver member can transfer a maximum of 10 thousand miles per year, gold 20 thousand, platinum - 30 thousand. The rest is for money.

Oh, can I legally sell miles now?

Well, that's it. As before, it is not allowed to use your miles for commercial purposes, including the sale/resale of miles to third parties. Aeroflot reserves the right to cancel accrued miles, block a participant’s account for any period, cancel an account, cancel the elite level of both the program participant and the recipient, without reimbursement of any expenses or amounts. And there are many known cases of mileage sellers getting caught up. For example, one of these flew to platinum, then decided to sell the gold card he received for 40 thousand rubles - and in the end, no miles, no status, nothing.

How will Aeroflot know that I have sold miles?

There are many ways. For example, specially trained people monitor private classifieds sites. We are aware of “test purchases”. Finally, this may come to light if something goes wrong for a passenger flying with your miles, he starts demanding compensation and accidentally lets slip that he paid someone. It is relatively safe to send close friends and relatives across miles. But would you seriously charge your mom for a mile ticket at sea?

Are there any restrictions on transferring miles?

Yes, and there are many of them. This is done so that it is impossible to accumulate accumulated miles in one account. The mile owner can transfer no more than 50 thousand miles per year. The recipient can also receive no more than 50 thousand miles from one or more other people’s accounts, but in no more than 10 transactions during the year. At the same time, in order to transfer miles, you need to have at least 3 months of experience in the program (this is done to combat fraud - there is a known method of registering a new account with the victim’s full name and substituting its number in the PNR of this victim). You also need to fly for money at least once within the last two years, that is, inactive miles cannot be withdrawn from your account by transfer.

Oh, 50 thousand! So, can you collect it for gold?

No you can not. Miles received by transfer are not qualifying, even if you initially earned them for the flight and did not receive them from the bank. So you can’t increase your status, there is such an opportunity. And thank God: Aeroflot already has too many status holders, there is no need to distribute statuses to everyone.

I fly a couple of times a year. Do I need miles?

I personally don't collect airline miles. It takes a long time, I’m too lazy to understand the rules, and I still have to pay extra fees for a ticket.

What are ALL Airlines miles?
This is a bonus from the bank that can be spent on air tickets. You can buy a ticket from any company or alliance on any website, including Travelbelka. Miles have a clear exchange rate: 1 mile = 1 ruble, and you can spend them within 5 years.

See for yourself. You regularly buy groceries at the store, go to the cinema, take a taxi, refuel your car, pay for clothes and household goods. If you pay with a Tinkoff ALL Airlines card, you will receive miles for all these purchases. This is how customers are encouraged to pay by card: this is profitable for the bank, because sellers pay it a commission.

How to earn miles
For every purchase over 100 ₽, 2% is returned to the card in miles. It is even more profitable to buy air tickets and book a hotel - you will get back from 3% to 10% in miles.

2%

Regular purchases in stores, cafes and the Internet

3%

Any air tickets purchased through any operator or website

How many miles were credited for a purchase is indicated in your personal account on the Tinkoff.ru website and in the Tinkoff mobile application. The number of miles will appear after the bank processes the transaction - usually 1-3 days after purchase.

If you spend RUB 70,000 on the card every month and travel once, you can accumulate approximately 21,300 miles in a year. This money is enough for a round-trip ticket to Europe for two.

At the same time, you can use the mileage programs of the airlines themselves - ALL Airlines miles do not cancel them, but supplement them.

How to spend miles

To spend miles, you must first pay for the ticket with a Tinkoff ALL Airlines card, and then return the money for it. This can be done in your personal account on the Tinkoff.ru website and in the Tinkoff mobile application, you will spend no more than 2 minutes.

The full amount of the ticket, including taxes and fuel surcharges, will be refunded to your account. Therefore, you won’t have to pay anything extra for a ticket.

There are restrictions: you can spend from 6,000 miles, you won’t be able to get back part of the money for the ticket, only the whole amount. Miles are written off in increments of 3000: 6000, 9000, 12,000 and so on. That is, you will need 9,000 miles to return the amount from 6,001 ₽ to 9,000 ₽. Just keep this in mind when choosing your flight ticket.

You can get a refund for your ticket within three months after purchase.

Advantages of the card
Can be used for a deposit. When you book a hotel or car, you will be asked to pay a security deposit. The money will be frozen in your account and you will not be able to use it. In such cases, provide your credit card information and the hotel will freeze the bank’s money, not your own. Since the money is not written off, you will not have to pay interest.

Insurance as a gift. Tinkoff ALL Airlines cardholders receive an insurance policy as a gift; it is valid worldwide and can be renewed every year. The maximum duration of the trip is 45 days, the sum insured is $50,000. The bank also included an additional option “Active recreation” in the insurance.

Contactless payment. The card supports Paypass technology, which allows you to instantly pay for purchases - just tap the card on the payment terminal. If the purchase is less than 1000 rubles, you do not need to enter the PIN code.

Convenient mobile application and personal account on Tinkoff.ru. Here you can track expenses and accrued bonuses, change your PIN code and limits, block and reissue cards. Tinkoff clients no longer need to take time off from work, go to the bank office and stand in queues.

24/7 support. It is convenient to communicate with bank support in the application - there is a chat tab for this. The staff answers questions promptly.

I have been using Tinkoff for 7 years. The bank's online chat once helped me out a lot on a trip to China. My SIM cards refused to work in roaming and I could not buy a plane ticket because any operation required confirmation via SMS. I wrote in support of Tinkoff Bank - and a day later I was able to temporarily link notifications to a Chinese SIM card.

5000 miles as a gift
There is a special bonus for Travelbelka readers: 5,000 miles as a gift. You can check whether this card really allows you to fly for free.

Fill out an application on the website - and in a couple of days a bank representative will bring the card to your home or office.

Special airline programs allow frequent flyers to earn bonus miles and exchange them for tickets, paying only the fees. It is not necessary to choose one and fly only with it; airlines have long united into three major alliances - Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam. Having flown on your own, you can spend your miles on dozens of partner airlines. As a bonus, you can receive not only tickets, but also, for example, the right to priority boarding or the opportunity to carry more luggage. But not everyone flies often enough to accumulate tens of thousands of miles per ticket. Co-branded bank cards issued in partnership with various airlines help solve this problem. The scheme is simple: pay for purchases with a card and receive miles. Depending on the level of plastic, the cost per mile will differ. The Village asked residents how they save and spend miles.

Three years ago I got a joint bank card from S7 airline and UniCredit bank. At that time, most of my friends used co-branded Aeroflot cards, many had accumulated 200 thousand miles, but there was one problem: they could not exchange miles for tickets, because they were quickly sold out. The trip had to be booked five to six months before departure. None of my friends were accumulating S7 miles back then, and I decided that such a problem would not arise. And so it turned out: in three years, I exchanged eight round-trip tickets for miles, including business class. For example, in 2014 I flew to Tivat and Munich, in 2015 to Portugal and Holland, and now I have booked tickets to Croatia.

To accumulate miles for these flights, I tried to pay for everything with a card, avoiding cash. I used to buy gadgets and equipment, plane tickets and hotels for friends: they gave me money in cash, and I paid for purchases with a card and accumulated miles.

However, my S7 card is about to expire, and at this point I think I’ll stop accumulating S7 miles. Why? It has become less profitable. In 2014, the bank reduced the number of miles awarded for transactions, and the airline increased the cost of flights in terms of miles. As a result, for example, a round trip flight to Italy has risen in miles from 15 to 25 thousand. In addition, taxes and fees for each flight must be paid in real money, and now this is 20-40% of the ticket price.

But I’m used to saving miles for travel, so now I’m considering offers from other banks. For example, VTB-24 has a good offer for travel lovers - “World Map”. For each transaction, 3.8% is credited to your mileage account. Compared to my current card, this is at least two more tickets per year with the same turnover on the card. The accumulated miles can be spent on a special portal Travel.vtb24.ru, and not only for air tickets from more than 800 airlines (and not just S7 or Aeroflot), but also for a hotel or car rental. OneTwoTrip and Tinkoff Bank have good travel card offers. Up to 10% is returned from your credit card to your bonus account for purchases on OneTwoTrip and 2% for other purchases paid with the card. The best part is that you can use the accumulated bonuses to pay 100% of the price of an air ticket or hotel reservation.

I have been using credit and debit mileage cards for a very long time. In fact, there are two main types of such cards. Some are tied to airlines and carrier alliances (SkyTeam, Oneworld, Star Alliance), others to special accumulation services (iGlobe.ru, AlfaMiles.com and many others). I tried different types of savings, but in the end I settled on airline cards. For me they are the most convenient and understandable. With savings services, at first glance, you can get more freedom, but in the end I constantly encountered various restrictions and problems when purchasing tickets. The terms and conditions for using airline cards, on the other hand, are completely transparent.

The principle of operation of any mile card is to credit a certain percentage of the purchase amount. It is always different, depending on the type of card, and it is important to take this into account. Now in most banks it is possible to receive a service package very inexpensively or even free of charge (for example, if you are a salary client), which already includes the issuance of a mile card. A few years ago, servicing such a card cost about 7–10 thousand rubles per year.

Now I am accumulating miles to an Aeroflot and Austrian Airlines bonus account. Aeroflot is now one of the largest airlines in Russia, and you can’t live without it, and Austrian Airlines is a partner of my bank, and it has good offers in Europe.

Over the course of a year, I manage to save up for a couple of flights to Europe or Asia for the whole family, as well as for several class upgrades (last year I took 50 flights). Airlines usually have miles sales every couple of months, where you can buy tickets to certain destinations 20-30% cheaper than usual, sometimes you can get very good deals.

I find it very convenient to use a miles credit card to earn miles. The interest-free period of 60 days is always enough, and it turns out that you practically do not incur additional costs. And with a credit mile card, you can always forget about the deposit for car rental for a month. You can pay it with a credit card, the deposit will be returned to your account, and additional miles will be accumulated.

Lifehacks

Choose a card with the maximum miles per purchase.

Take advantage of the interest-free period for credit cards.

Get used to paying for everything with a card. This makes it easier to control expenses and more pleasant to receive bonuses.

Now there are many offers for CashBack, which, coupled with mile cards, makes your travels even more enjoyable.

Try to earn miles through one or at most two programs. This will make it easier and faster for you to accumulate them.

Nowadays, many hotels give bonuses for direct bookings on the website, and many are additionally ready to give bonuses in miles. Take advantage of this opportunity.

There is a universal tactic - choose one of three airline alliances (Oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam) and accumulate miles by flying on airlines that are part of this alliance. Two of them are well represented in Russia - SkyTeam, represented by Aeroflot, and Oneworld, for which S7 Airlines is responsible. Accordingly, it is more profitable to choose one of them: each includes dozens of airlines, and you can earn and spend bonus miles on different flights, and your elite card will give access to the business lounge of almost each of these airlines.

I bet on S7 Airlines, recently this airline has added a lot of good things for customers - from the launch of cheap fares without baggage to really working customer support, including on social networks, where your issue will be resolved quickly enough. Plus, the S7 has cute green airplanes, and by flying them you can quickly earn elite status if you fly frequently. This is important because elite status immediately brings you 25-75% more miles per flight, which, in turn, allows you to save up for bonus tickets many times faster.

Another hack, without which the life of a mile collector is impossible, is a bank card. Many banks have joint co-branded bank cards with airlines, which allow you to receive a bonus mile for every 50–60 rubles spent on the card. It really helps to get several thousand miles a month consistently.

Plus, I write reviews for hotels and restaurants and also receive miles for this, collect them for purchases in online stores and actively participate in various airline promotions. As a result, on average, with such simple actions per month, you can accumulate a sufficient number of miles for a prize flight - 10–20 thousand bonus miles.

Where do I spend? Usually this is a couple of tickets a year for me and my girlfriend in business class on some kind of vacation. This helps a lot, because in the summer or on New Year’s holidays all tickets are usually expensive, but here the business actually comes out at the price of fuel surcharges, that is, for several thousand rubles (if you buy such tickets in advance).

So, there are three keys to success in accumulating and using airline bonus miles - fly a lot (and not just at low-cost fares), have a bank card with which you can earn miles for purchases, and remember to spend these miles at least a couple of times a year. Only then can you benefit from miles and save money!

I accumulate miles using a Sberbank card, which is linked to the Aeroflot Bonus. I pay her for almost everything, even if I buy one piece of gum at the store. This runs 700 miles a month, but it is also very convenient to pay for large purchases of friends and relatives (for example, trips through a travel agency) or a restaurant bill for the whole company. They give me cash and I pay with a card. Taking into account flights, 20-30 thousand miles accumulate quite quickly, that is, a round-trip ticket to neighboring Europe. At the same time, Sberbank is everywhere in Russia, and its card is very convenient to use.

There may be programs that are more profitable in terms of earning miles, but I don’t want to use a credit card or change banks because of them. True, recently, due to the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar (and perhaps due to the greed of Aeroflot), flying abroad with bonus miles has become quite pointless. Aeroflot's bonus tickets are not completely free; you still pay fees: a summer trip to Spain using miles can cost 18 thousand rubles. It’s easier to buy a non-bonus ticket from another company for the same money. But flying around Russia or the CIS is still profitable. The last time I flew for bonuses, I paid 3 thousand rubles for a ticket Moscow - Baku - Moscow.