Smart Travel: Be creative with frequent-flier miles

Leisure and business travelers alike sometimes accumulate a lot of frequent-flier airline miles. Although these awards are easy to come by, they can be difficult to spend wisely.

They will not get you much value if used to buy car rentals, hotel rooms, magazine subscriptions or airline club memberships.

If you can't get an award seat, or a seat upgrade with your miles on one trip, our recommendation is to wait to use your miles until you can.

Miles don't expire as quickly as in previous years. Many major airlines allow a three-year shelf life, even if you haven't flown recently. However, each airline has its own time rules.

You can make your miles go farther by studying each airline's program. One way to study these rules is on airline Web sites or by requesting a printed brochure directly from the airline. Another source is www.webflyer.com, which is the Web site of Inside Flyer Magazine.

For the best chance of getting on a flight, be flexible with your departure and return dates and request off-peak travel dates.

You should know that Thursdays and Saturdays are likely to yield more frequent-flier award seats than Fridays and Sundays so flying on one midweek day and one weekend day is good strategy for a round-trip award seat.

Award seats come in different levels. If you offer 20,000 miles for an off-peak reward seat and it is unavailable, for 5,000 miles more you might get a standard award seat. If it is still unavailable, try for an EasyPass Reward for a total of 50,000 miles (on Continental's program) where you are free of capacity control and restricted travel dates. The question is, of course, is a domestic coach seat worth this many miles?

It's also a good plan to book with an airline's reservation agent rather than trying it online. You can be a little pushy with a live agent to get your desired seat and there is no way to do that online. And if the agent you reach doesn't seem to have time for you, you might try hanging up and calling again. The next agent may be more accommodating. Also, an airline will often offer more reward seats to new destinations to help fliers get acquainted with the new route.

Business-class and first-class tickets are among the most desirable awards but are expensive in terms of frequent-flying miles. You may be better off buying an upgradable coach ticket and using as little as 10,000 miles for a round-trip upgrade if they are available.

Finally, think seasonal. Demand for tickets to Europe are in less demand in December than in June.

Using your frequent-flier miles can yield big rewards if you can stay flexible, know the rules and allow a little time for planning.

(Linda and Dr. Don Overend are principals in The Travel Group. The Travel Group was formed by a merger of Ozark World Travel, Consulting Travel and Thomas Travel and is a full-service agency located in the Plaza Towers.)