In Australia, there are many ways to earn points with Qantas Frequent Flyer and Virgin Australia Velocity. But if you need to top up your frequent flyer points with an overseas frequent flyer program, there may be fewer possibilities.
Perhaps you’re just a few points away from that redemption you’ve been saving for. Maybe you need to earn some points to keep your frequent flyer account active and prevent your points from expiring. Or perhaps you’ve just opened a new account and need to get some points into it – for example, British Airways requires you to have at least 1 Avios already in your account before you’re allowed to buy Avios.
The good news is that there’s a really easy way to top up your points with almost any frequent flyer program.
Earning points with Agoda PointsMAX
Agoda, a hotel booking platform, partners with 43 frequent flyer programs from all over the world. When booking a hotel room through Agoda PointsMAX, you can choose to credit the points earned from your stay to any of these 43 loyalty programs!
Agoda’s partners include Velocity Frequent Flyer, American Airlines AAdvantage, Etihad Guest, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, Asia Miles, British Airways Executive Club and Flying Blue. There are also some more obscure frequent flyer program partners, such as Garuda Miles, Asiana Club, Philippine Airlines Mabuhay Miles and Iberia Plus. You can see the full list on the Agoda PointsMAX website.
Depending on the type of booking, you may earn only a small amount of points. However, you generally get an option to pay a bit more and earn a higher amount of points – which could be handy if you need to reach a specific target.
In general, the points will credit to your frequent flyer account 6-8 weeks after you’ve completed your hotel stay. So, if you have imminently-expiring miles, make sure you plan in advance.
Before booking a hotel room, I often log into my Award Wallet account and check which of my overseas frequent flyer accounts haven’t had any activity lately. I’ll then book through Agoda and credit the points to that program. By doing this periodically, I can prevent the miles in most of my overseas accounts from ever expiring! (This now also includes the Asia Miles and Etihad Guest programs, which both recently changed the way miles expire.)
If you’re not paying any more to book your hotel through Agoda PointsMAX, this can be a very handy strategy.
Other ways to top up points with many frequent flyer programs
Another way to earn points across a wide selection of frequent flyer programs is by booking hotels through Rocketmiles. The number of points on offer are quite generous, but the catch is that you’ll probably pay more for the hotel room. (Frequent flyer points aren’t free.)
Some airlines sell frequent flyer points directly to the public. It can be lucrative to buy large amounts of miles during special promotions, and then redeeming those miles for Business or First class award travel. However, buying small quantities can be uneconomical as you’ll usually have to buy a minimum amount of points or miles. In addition, the discounts and bonus miles generally only apply to larger purchases.
Another strategy could be to buy Marriott Bonvoy points, and then transfer those to any of the 41 frequent flyer programs that partner with Marriott Bonvoy. The transfer rate from Marriott to most airlines is 3:1, but you’ll receive 25% bonus points for every 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points transferred to an airline.
Many other hotel loyalty programs also give you the option to transfer points to a selection of airlines.
Finally, if you’ve earned points with a flexible credit card rewards program, you may have the option to transfer your credit card points to multiple different airlines.
