Determine How Many Miles You Will Earn for Your Flight

Airfare Booking Strategies, Earn Miles for Every Flight (In as Few Accounts as Possible)

When you take a flight, you can usually choose to earn frequent flyer miles with one of several different programs. Some of these programs may give you more miles than others, for the very same set of flights.

That is because each program applies a different “multiplier” to the distance flown.

For example, when you book an inexpensive coach fare, one program may give you 100% of the distance flown, another might give you 50%, and another might not give you any miles at all. Or if you book a business class fare, one program may give you 100% of the miles flown, while another might give you 200% or more.

In addition, a few programs award frequent flyer miles based on the actual cost of the tickets, rather than on the distance flown. Depending on the price you paid for your ticket, this can be beneficial or not.

Jump to

Determining your class of service
Comparing earning rates between programs
Earning based on the ticket price
Calculating the miles earned
Deciding which program to use

The mileage you’ll receive depends on your “class of service”, which is denoted by a single letter, such as “F”. For each “cabin” in the plane, such as economy or business, there are several different class of service buckets. So, different tickets, in the same cabin, can earn different amounts of miles for the same flight. Each airline uses its own lettering system, so you can’t assume that a fare class on one airline equates to a fare class with the same letter on another airline.
To figure out each program's mileage earning rates for your flight, you are going to need to find the letter that corresponds to your exact fare class. Many flight booking tools won’t show this information while you are making a reservation; although sometimes it is available if you look around or expand a “more details” section. But it should show up on your reservation confirmation and on the itinerary webpage. In rare cases, you may have to call the airline and ask.

If you want to be sure before you book, you can't find it on Google Flights. But if you search on any of the Expedia-family of sites, it is available if you click on the flight and then click on "Show details". In this example, the ticket is in class "N".

Comparing earning rates between programs

It is the airline that you are flying that determines your fare class, but it is the frequent flyer program you are using that determines how many miles you’ll earn for that class. Each airline publishes earning tables for the different fare classes of each of their partner airlines. But it would be very time consuming to find and use this information.
Fortunately, there is a convenient tool you can use instead, called Where to Credit. You simply enter the airline that you are flying and your class of service...

...and it will show you the mileage multipliers that you would receive from different frequent flyer programs.

In this example, you can see that you will either earn 0%, 25%, 50%, or 100% of the miles flown, depending on the frequent flyer program you choose. It also shows the number of miles you’d get, if you were an elite member of the corresponding frequent flyer program.

With some frequent flyer programs, you’ll earn a guaranteed minimum number of miles, even for short flights. If so, that is shown in the chart as well. For example, Alaska guarantees a minimum of 500 miles for a flight, even if the calculated number of miles is lower.

Earning based on the ticket price

When you buy tickets from American, Delta, United, and some of the largest foreign airlines, and choose to earn miles with that airline’s own frequent flyer program, you’ll usually earn miles based on the price of the ticket rather than the distance flown. For example, American Airlines will give you 5 points for every dollar you spend on their flights, rather than some percentage of the miles you travel.

Note this price-based earning only determines the number of “redeemable” miles you’ll earn. These are the miles you’ll use in the future for free tickets. For the miles that used to determine elite status, American and Delta will still calculate that miles based on actual distance flown. United only cares about how much you spend. These are the miles that are used to determine elite status. So, with these programs, you’ll earn a different number of “redeemable” and “tier” miles for every flight.

If you choose to earn your miles for American, Delta, and United flights with a different program, you’ll often earn miles based on a percentage of the distance flown rather than the cost. The same is true in the reverse. If you credit miles from a foreign flight to a US program, you'll earn based on the distance flown, not the cost.
By choosing how to buy an international ticket, you can often control what system is used. The big US airlines sell tickets on many of their partner's flights. If you buy the ticket from the US airline, they know what you paid, and they will calculate your miles based on the ticket prices. If you buy directly from the partner airline, your miles will be calculated as a percentage of mileage flown. So, if you are crediting a relatively expensive ticket to one of the big three US frequent flyer programs, you can buy it directly; and if you are crediting a less expensive ticket, you can buy it through the partner airline.
Note that there are special fares, such as those associated with travel packages, where American, Delta, and United all still base their earning rates on distance. If you want to avoid earning miles based on the ticket price, you can often create a package by adding a hotel or car rental on a website like Expedia and switch to a different earning system.

Calculating the miles earned

If you are just trying to decide which program to use, you usually don’t have to bother to calculate the exact number of miles you’ll earn. A program that offers a 100% earning rate will earn twice as many miles as one that earns 50%. That’s all you really need to know.

But sometimes you may want to calculate the actual number of miles you’ll earn. For example, you may need to compare an airline that pays a higher rate to one that guarantees a minimum number of miles, compare a revenue-based program to a mileage-based program, or determine whether you’ll earn enough miles to receive elite status after your flight.
To do this, you’ll need to determine the flight miles for your trip. This is sometimes included in your itinerary information. If not, you’ll need to look it up on the web. Where to Credit has a calculator that is convenient to access, but it requires you enter the 3-digit airport codes for your flights. We find it is easier to use the one on airmilescalculator.com instead. They support entering city names as well.

Deciding which program to use

It doesn’t always make sense to choose the program that earns the most miles for your flight.

You want to focus your mileage earning in a small number of accounts in order to accumulate enough miles for a free ticket and reduce the number of programs you need to manage. If there isn’t a significant difference in the number of miles earned, it is better to choose one of your core frequent flyer accounts, rather than spreading your miles across additional accounts. Or if you are aiming for a specific promotion, you might choose one of the less lucrative options.