Got miles but they're the wrong miles for the flights you need? 

Many of us have collected enough frequent-flier miles for a trip we have in mind, but they're with an airline that doesn't fly where we want or doesn't have seats available in the cabin we want. When that's the case, is there anything you can do, besides seeking help from Gary Leff?  As I learned this past weekend, there is indeed: Swap miles with a friend.

Heres what I mean: Some good friends of mine need to fly from New York to London in August for a wedding. They have a ton of United miles, but they also have an inflexible schedule, and they can't get what they need on United. The airline that has the flight schedule and seats they want? American. So I offered them my American miles in exchange for an equal number of their United miles. They were thrilled (as was I, since United miles work better for me). So yesterday I logged into my account on AA.com and booked my friends on the flights they need, in the cabin they want.  They gave me their United.com account number and password so that in future, when I want to book tickets using their United miles, I can do so.

But here's what's most interesting about this story: Of the 250K miles that I gave my friends (they're flying in first class roundtrip!), 225K of them I got without spending a dime. Here's how:

Today I'm at the PhoCusWright Travel Innovation Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, watching tech innovators demonstrate cool travel tools that they either launched recently or are unveiling today. If you've read my latest Perrin Report column—on "magic" travel sites that save you money, time, and headaches—then you know which time-tested online tools I consider to be tried and true. Today I'm learning about tools that I haven't had a chance to test yet, but that are worth having on our radar. UsingMiles, for instance. 

One of the biggest quandaries frequent fliers face is: When should I pay for an airline ticket, versus redeeming miles for it? UsingMiles.com, which calls itself "the world's first frequent flyer search engine," promises to solve this problem. It claims to pinpoint the value of a mile in each individual airline program and tell you when you're better off paying cash, redeeming miles, or using a combination of the two. "Our goal," says UsingMiles.com founder Austin Veith, "is to help travelers manage and utilize their frequent-flier miles like a true monetary asset, just like you would manage your investment portfolio."

Interesting, huh? If you decide to give the site a whirl, let me know what you think!

"In December 2008 I used my American AAdvantage miles to fly me and my wife from Dallas to New York City to Las Vegas and back home. Booking those three first-class flights via American Airlines' web site would have cost me 150,000 miles. Instead, I called the AAdvantage award desk and was informed that an extended layover is allowed to and from a destination. I could make my destination Las Vegas with a one-week layover in New York City en route. The journey, with a one-week stop in New York City and then a one-week stop in Las Vegas, cost only 100,0000 miles because it was treated as a roundtrip flight to Las Vegas. Thus I saved 50,000 miles by calling and booking the tickets over the phone. Technically, we could have stayed a week in another city after Las Vegas before returning to Dallas, for no additional miles. I have used this knowledge to book many multi-city trips since then for the same number of miles as one round-trip. The key takeaway: Speak to a mileage-program agent to find out the maximum number of segments and extended layovers you're allowed for a round-trip redemption."

Image: Haisam Hussein

Want a chance to win two business-class tickets to the destination of your dreams?  Then you'll want to enter our "Maximize Your Miles" Contest, brought to you by Condé Nast Traveler and Competitours.

Just share your best frequent-flier success story -- a true-life example of how you engineered a free ticket, upgrade, or other miles- or points-related victory against the odds. Tell us, in 200 words or less, what you got, how you got it, and the lesson that the rest of us can learn from it. The person with the best frequent-flier triumph and tip wins.

Competitours founder and mileage mastermind Steve Belkin will be donating the prize and co-judging the contest with me. Steve is a frequent-flier extraordinaire who, in the past 12 years, has collected more than 17 million miles and has successfully redeemed them for those hard-to-snag free international business-class tickets that so often elude the rest of us.  If you've read my article "How to Maximize Your Miles" in Condé Nast Traveler's April issue, you already know Steve, as he's one of the mileage mavens whose advice I quote.

The two business-class tickets that Steve is giving away in this contest will, in fact, be mileage-award tickets. He will magically turn 250,000 of his own frequent-flier miles into two business-class tickets to get you to the destination of your choice.

Click on "Continue reading 'Travel Giveaway...'" below for details about how to enter Condé Nast Traveler's contest.

Got no frequent-flier triumph or tip to share?  You're hardly alone.  But if you join one of Steve's Competitours trips that are happening in Europe from late May through late July, you'll have a chance of winning a different sort of prize. Competitours is a team travel competition where 17 teams compete for a prize pool of either $9,000 or 320,000 Starwood Preferred Guest points. All that's necessary to accomplish the fun and quirky daily Competitours challenges is the ability to be creative and resourceful. The trips are nine days long and follow a mystery European itinerary that hits both must-see cities and hidden-gem locales.

Click here for more information about Competitours.

Admit it. You wish you knew the answers to all those burning mileage-award questions that didn't get answered by Randy Petersen in our FlyerTalk Challenge.  So do I.  But there were more than 100 of them. Who could possibly have the time, the patience, the sheer mileage obsession, to step up and volunteer to answer them?

The Global Traveller, that's who. If you're a FlyerTalker, you know him by his FT handle, Kiwi Flyer, and by his FT blog, The Gate. If you're a loyal Perrin Post reader, you know him because of his frequent insightful comments here. He's been one of my favorite air warriors ever since he flew halfway around the world to meet me for lunch 2 1/2 years ago (see "I Was a Stop on His Mileage Run").  And, as if writing three blogs -- in addition to The Gate, he writes Musings of the Global Traveller and Real Cheap Air Fares -- didn't eat up enough of his time, he is now digging into your remaining miles-and-points quandaries!  Incredibly nice guy or masochist?  I don't know. All I know is Conde Nast Traveler readers are lucky to have him as their friend.

The first batch of questions he's answered involve elite frequent-flier status: how to work it, how never to lose it, when it's worth killing yourself to attain it and when it's not....

Mucho apologies to all you air warriors whom I've left hanging for an embarrassing--yikes!--six weeks. As you may recall, I was in the middle of publishing frequent-flier guru and FlyerTalk founder Randy Petersen's answers to the top ten winning questions in our FlyerTalk Challenge contest. These included:

• "Top Ten Tricks for Getting the Miles You Want with the Flights You Have"
• "How to Turn Your Hodge-Podge of Miles in Different Accounts into a Free Ticket"
• "Should You Stay Loyal to Your Loyalty Program or Call It Quits?"
• "Five Ways to Snag the Mileage Award Seats You Need" and
• "Are Your USAirways Miles Safe?"

I hope everyone's having a happy new year. Mine's been a busy one so far. Since 2010 started I've skiied in Vermont, been to a wedding in Boston, and planned trips to Montreal, Mumbai, and Hawaii all within the next month ... which partly explains my delay in getting back to our FlyerTalk Challenge questions and answers. Sorry about that!

Without further ado, here's the excellent question submitted by reader Kevin:

"I'm a teacher, so can only fly on weekends, major holidays, or at peak times in the summer. I manage to collect points on United, but usually can't find a way to USE those points. Do you have any ideas as to how a non-elite-level flyer can book a flight with points at peak times?"

Wouldn't we all like to know? Luckily, FlyerTalk founder Randy Petersen, the world's leading expert on frequent-flier programs, has the answers and has graciously shared them with us. Here are Randy's top tips for travelers who want to use their miles for free tickets:

Photo: alex-s / CC BY 2.0

What to do when you've got a bunch of frequent-flier mileage accounts, yet not enough miles in any one of them? That's the excellent question from Jennifer G., one of the winners of our FlyerTalk Challenge. She asks:

We have frequent-flyer miles for every airline, but the problem is that we never seem to have enough in each one for a free flight!  With Delta, every flight seems to be in the 'high' season...and every Costa Rica flight during the rainy season!

Frequent-flier guru and FlyerTalk founder Randy Petersen has answered Jennifer's question over at FlyerTalk. He's also laid out his top ten tips for combining miles from random mileage accounts in order to scrounge up enough for a free ticket. After the jump, the first five.

"With miles and points constantly being devalued, how do programs expect their members to stay loyal?  I run everything through my program credit cards, and I focus on one airline program and one hotel program to maximize my status and points. Do I start over when a program (ahem Hilton HHonors) changes its structure...again? Or do I ride out the storm and hope the program managers come to their senses?"

"We are planning a trip of a lifetime for our son's future graduation. He has been enthralled with Egypt since he was eight years old and is even considering studying to become an Egyptologist. I have carefully planned for years, and we will have enough frequent-flyer miles one year before we travel for four business-class tickets on United from Hawaii to Egypt. Here are my questions: How far in advance should I book? Is there a specific time of day I should call when frequent-flyer seats become available? What flights tend to have the most frequent-flyer seats available? Is one city better to fly to than another for seat availability? Should we split up and fly in twos? I have often found it very difficult to get frequent-flyer seats from Hawaii and would love to get your advice on the best way to secure four business-class frequent-flyer seats from Hawaii to Egypt."

Last week's FlyerTalk Challenge yielded ten top frequent-flyer-mile questions that we will be answering here on The Perrin Post over the next couple of weeks. And by "we," I actually mean Randy Petersen -- a.k.a. the world's leading expert on frequent-flyer programs -- and his merry band of mileage mavens over at Boarding Area.

First up, this question from reader Ann:

I have a lot of USAirways miles. The airline seems to be on shaky ground, economically speaking. Do I need to be in a rush to use my miles for fear of the airline going under, or do most defunct airlines usually get taken over by another airline and the miles get transferred to another program? Is this likely for USAirways?