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As a person who is traveling semi-frequently now, I use Kayak and Orbitz to find cheap plane tickets and fly with different airlines every time. But in the long run, would it be more cost-effective to stick to one airline and accumulate miles to use on future flights? Which is the overall cheaper route?
If you travel alot only, yes perhaps. But look at the airline frequent flyer programs carefully. It's not only the free travel, but the upgrades and other perks. I'm a business traveler and stay loyal to Delta for the benifits, but the company pays for my airfare.
But more importantly those cheap airline sites are a waste of time as they simply publicize the carrier rates and quite possible add on a service charge that makes it more expensive that the carriers airfare rate. People that know better only rely on the search engines for these sites (actually there are better search engines out there), are flexible with routes and times, find the cheapest option, then simply go to the applicable carriers site and book directly to get the best airfare.
What you need to do is stick to one, or possibly two, of the airline alliance programs, and get point cards for one of the airlines in that program. One World, Star Alliance or Skyteam are the three main alliances. That means you can collect points, and do something with them some day.
It gets a bit complicated, depending on where you're flying, which is why you might need to alliance memberships. We for instance, are Canadian, so fly Air Canada quite a lot, which is part of Star Alliance. So we have our points card with Air Canada but can collect on any of their partners. But we also fly with British Air, Cathay, American, so we also have AAdvantage cards so we can collect those points.
Other than points or status, there is no reason for airline loyalty. Unless you just like them, of course.
What you need to do is stick to one, or possibly two, of the airline alliance programs, and get point cards for one of the airlines in that program. One World, Star Alliance or Skyteam are the three main alliances. That means you can collect points, and do something with them some day.
It gets a bit complicated, depending on where you're flying, which is why you might need to alliance memberships. We for instance, are Canadian, so fly Air Canada quite a lot, which is part of Star Alliance. So we have our points card with Air Canada but can collect on any of their partners. But we also fly with British Air, Cathay, American, so we also have AAdvantage cards so we can collect those points.
Other than points or status, there is no reason for airline loyalty. Unless you just like them, of course.
I usually fly United, but until recently it has been with family and I just now created a MileagePlus account. I tried Delta and American and wasn't too impressed, but I hear good things about Frontier and SW.
Stay loyal to one, maybe two. I flew first class to Europe last summer for the cost of coach tickets due to free (no miles required) upgrades from my carrier of choice, and will be using frequent flyer miles to Australia first class in a few years--those tickets would cost me $12000 each out of pocket!
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