Create Loyalty Accounts Ahead Of Time
After getting your financial life in order, one of the next steps to award travel is to create loyalty accounts ahead of time for different airlines and hotels. We highly recommend creating these free accounts before you actually need to use them. If you wait, then you run the risk of causing issues later on or missing out on that perfect award booking. We will go over all of that and share some other notable tips for creating loyalty accounts and making transfers into loyalty programs.
Transfer Partners Are the Best Use of Credit Card Points
Regular readers know adamantly recommend earning transferrable points currencies instead of airline miles or hotel points. Transferrable points currencies include (check out our ToP partner transfer tool):
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Amex Membership Rewards
- Citi ThankYou Points
- Capital One miles
- Bilt Rewards
- Wells Fargo Rewards
These points offer tons of flexibility and value because you can transfer them to dozens of airline and hotel partners to suit your different needs. In contrast, airline miles and hotel points generally cannot be transferred to other programs, so you're limited to redeeming those points with their own programs.
Make Sure There Is Award Space Before Transferring Your Points Over
Booking award flights with transferrable currencies takes a few steps. One of the first steps is finding award availability. This means making sure there is an actual seat available on the flight you want that can be booked with miles. Only once you confirm availability should you move points from your transferrable currency balance.
An Example
For example, say we want to book a one-way business class flight to Europe on Air France for 53,000 miles. We searched on Flying Blue's website (the loyalty program of Air France and KLM), and found availability. Great!
Now we're ready to transfer points from Chase, Amex, Citi, or Capital One to Flying Blue, who are all transfer partners. (To understand this better be sure to check out our ToP partner transfer tool.) If you don't have a Flying Blue account, you will now have to take the time to create that account. And once you do, you will likely run into an issue or two that can prevent you from booking that flight. These could be avoided if you had created your loyalty account ahead of time.
Common Issues With Brand New Loyalty Accounts
Newcomers to award travel sometimes face some issues when creating a new loyalty account to use for an award flight. Here are some of the things you may run into if you don't create your loyalty accounts ahead of time.
Delayed Transfer Times
The most common problem brand new accounts run into are delayed transfer times. Most transfers from Chase, Amex, Citi etc. to travel partners take place instantly. However, when transferring to a brand new loyalty account, those instant transfers instead take a few hours, or even a couple of days. During that time lost your award availability may disappear. The price can even change, depending on the program, while you are waiting for the points to hit your account.
New Loyalty Account Fraud Issue
Another common issue can be red flags set off by a lot of points showing up in a brand new loyalty account. This is particularly common with Flying Blue. Their systems can flag a new account for potential fraud because it has had tens of thousands of miles transferred within minutes of being created.
In such cases, Flying Blue will require you to visit an Air France or KLM desk in person at an airport to make the booking! Of course this isn't possible for most of us who live too far from a major airport. Even worse than that, award availability can certainly disappear by the time you even make it to the airport.
Linking Up Transfers Between Loyalty Programs
Lastly, creating loyalty accounts ahead of time can help with transferring points between different loyalty programs. For example, Iberia Plus allows members to transfer their Avios to and from their British Airways Executive Club accounts. The problem you could have with a new loyalty account is that Iberia Plus account must have been opened for at least 90 days to make these transfers. Similarly, Hilton Honors members can transfer and pool their points with other members, but newly created accounts often run into errors when doing it.
First Word Of Caution: Be Careful With “Test” Transfers
To avoid the transfer delays that we mentioned above, a lot of folks preparing to book their first redemption try to do a “test” transfer before transferring the full amount needed for the booking. This is understandable, as you've never done this before. It is common to want to make sure your points will actually show up with the airline or hotel program you're transferring to before risking all of those points.
With this in mind, a lot of people make an initial test transfer of 1,000 points. Once they see the points show up, they immediately go back and try to transfer the rest of the points. That's when the problem happens, and we've seen it all too often.
That second transfer often times will not go through instantly. Minutes, hours, or maybe even a day or so go by and the points haven't posted. Why? That's because banks, hotels and airlines have their systems set up to flag repeated transfers that happen in quick succession. Back to back transfers like these can be a sign of a problem, such as a cyberattack. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do when this happens and you'll just have to wait the transfer out.
If you really want to make a test transfer, do it a few days before you plan to actually use the points.
Second Word Of Caution: Make Sure Your Names Match
Another common issue we see with newcomers that try to transfer their miles and points it that their names don't match. This is an important rule to remember when creating new loyalty accounts ahead of time:
The name on the credit card account must match exactly the name with the loyalty account.
Middle initials or middle names, suffixes (Jr., III, etc.), and apostrophes are common differences that can prevent proper transfers from happening in a timely manner.
Ignore The Naysayers
Some folks will say “I don't have my middle name on one of my accounts and my transfers work fine!” Good for them. For every example like that, we see another dozen posts in our Facebook group where transfers don't go through until their accounts are changed to match exactly. Save yourself the headache and be consistent across accounts.
Which Programs Should You Create Loyalty Accounts With Ahead Of Time?
Not every single program out there is useful so we don't want you making hundreds of these loyalty accounts you will likely never use. Having said that, here is a non-exhaustive list of loyalty programs you should create accounts with ahead of time, if you haven't already. There are certainly other airlines out there that you might want to create an account with depending on your travel goals. This list should help most of those just starting to travel on points.
Airline Loyalty Programs
- Aer Lingus AerClub
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue
- Alaska Mileage Plan
- American Airlines AAdvantage
- avianca lifemiles
- British Airways Executive Club
- Cathay Pacific Asia Miles
- Delta SkyMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Finnair Plus
- Iberia Plus
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Qatar Privilege Club
- Singapore KrisFlyer
- Southwest Rapid Rewards
- United MileagePlus
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Hotel Loyalty Programs
Create Loyalty Accounts Ahead Of Time: ToP Thoughts
We have seen countless examples in our Facebook group of folks getting tripped up because they hadn't created a loyalty account ahead of time. Doing this takes very little effort and can save you from so much hassle. We highly recommend that when you next have some downtime, take a few minutes to create these loyalty accounts. That way, you can jump at the opportunity to book your next flight with your points!
Which programs do you think folks should create accounts for? Come share your thoughts in our Facebook group!
