7 Easy Ways to Earn Frequent Flyer Miles Without Flying
Want to travel more? Did you know you can earn airline miles without leaving home? You can earn millions of frequent flyer miles without flying or getting on an airplane.
That's how I've been able to fly First Class on Lufthansa, First Class on Cathay Pacific, and in the First Class Apartment on Etihad.
Simply from earning airline miles the easy way - without flying. It's another easy and quick way to earn unlimited miles and points.
Knowing how to earn lots of miles without flying can help you take that dream vacation sooner. Here are 7 easy ways to earn frequent flyer miles without flying.
This post was originally published on January 1, 2017, and was updated on April 16, 2020.
7 Easy Ways to Earn Frequent Flyer Miles Without Flying
There are many ways to earn frequent flyer miles. Earning airline miles, like life, should be simple. That's why I've compiled this list of 7 easy ways to earn frequent flyer miles without flying.
Here are just a few things you can do to earn frequent flyer miles without traveling. Most of these things you might already be doing.
1. Credit Card Sign-up Bonuses
Let's start with the biggest bang for your buck: travel rewards credit card sign-up bonuses. You can earn frequent flyer miles without flying with credit card sign-up bonuses.
Airline credit card bonuses are the quickest way to earn the most airline miles. Card bonuses range from 25,000 to 100,000 miles for each credit card.
Yep, you could earn up to 100,000 frequent flyer miles from a single credit card. That's enough miles for several roundtrip tickets to Hawaii. We've used airline miles for years of free trips to Hawaii.
Hawaii not on your bucket list? How about Belize or the Caribbean? Fly free with the one sign-up bonus from an airline credit card!
Learn more, find and compare current offers on airline credit cards.
The airline miles are deposited into your account after you meet the minimum spending requirements which vary depending on the card. Here are 7 unusual ways to meet minimum spending requirements.
Pro-tip: The most important thing to remember. Pay off your balance each month. If you can't pay your balance in full, you should not apply for new credit cards.
Paying interests on your purchases costs more than the miles you'll earn. If you need a little breathing room, consider getting a balance transfer card.
Pro-tip: You don't have to get an airline card to earn frequent flyer miles. Points earned with bank cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card, Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card, and The Platinum Card® from American Express transfer to airlines.
You can even transfer points from business cards like the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card,Capital One Venture X Business, and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express.
These are all the Chase cards that earn points you can transfer to airline and hotel partners.
You can also convert hotel points from hotel rewards cards like Hilton Honors American Express Card, IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card , the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® Card, and The World of Hyatt Business Credit Card into frequent flyer miles.
2. Restaurants
Dining, ordering take out, or getting food delivery is a fast, relatively inexpensive way to earn frequent flyers miles without flying. It's one of my favorite ways to earn thousands of airline miles!
You can earn up to 5 miles per dollar spent when dining out. No coupons or codes are needed. It's as simple as swiping your credit card.
The beauty of this program is that it's totally easy.
Create a free dining account with the airline you want to earn miles for, link your credit card, and pay with the linked card. Simple as that.
No coupons, codes, or vouchers required. No weird having to explain yourself. It's all handled on the backend by computers. So no embarrassing bits. You'll always save face.
Some airlines are offering thousands of bonus miles:
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Dining
- American Airlines AAdvantage Dining
- Delta SkyMiles Dining
- JetBlue TrueBlue Dining
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining
- Spirit Airlines Free Spirit Dining
- United Airlines MileagePlus Dining
Be sure to read the complete guide to earning miles with airline dining programs including hacks to maximize the number of miles you earn.
Pro-tip: Split the bill into two charges. Paying each "bill" separately, even if using the same card, counts as two dines vs one dine.
3. Online Shopping
Have you been missing out on thousands of airline miles?
You might be if you haven't been using the airline shopping portals for your online shopping purchases.
Depending on your purchase, you can earn up to 30 miles for every dollar you spend. During special promotions like Mother's Day, Back to School, Cyber Monday, or the holidays, the airlines offer extra miles, often several thousands of miles.
Now if that's not enough to get your shopping on, I don't know what is.
Airline Shopping Portals:
- Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Shopping
- American Airlines AAdvantage eShopping
- Delta SkyMiles Shopping
- JetBlue TrueBlue Shopping
- Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping
- Spirit Airlines Free Spirit Online Mall
- United Airlines MileagePlus Shopping
Pro-tip: You might be tempted to use your United℠ Explorer Card, Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®, or Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®. But don't pay with your airline credit card when shopping through an airline shopping portal. If you return an item, you'll lose your miles!
Bank rewards cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card, Chase Freedom Unlimited®, Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card, Ink Business Cash® Credit Card also have a shopping portal where you can earn extra points.
4. Surveys
You can earn extra miles each month for completing online surveys.
It's not a lot of miles, maybe several hundred a month. But it could be worth it if you have free time. Especially if you're looking for another way to keep your airline miles from expiring. Or if you need a few miles for an award ticket without having to buy airline miles.
Online Survey Sites:
- Alaska Airlines The Opinion Terminal
- American Airlines through e-Rewards or Miles for Opinions
- JetBlue Points for Surveys
- Southwest through e-Rewards or Rewards for Opinions
- Spirit Miles for Thoughts
Pro-tip: Use separate email accounts for each frequent flyer account. This way you can earn miles for several airlines instead of just one.
5. Charitable Donations
Do something good for others and get a few miles in the process. Here are some of the ways you can earn airline miles by donating to charity.
- Up to 1 million miles per year for donations to the National Foundation for Cancer Research: American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and United Airlines
- Up to 600,000 American Airlines miles per year when you donate to Stand Up to Cancer
Pro-tip: Use your airline credit card to earn miles through Kiva. Kiva is a micro-lending platform that lets you fund small loans with your credit card. New to Kiva? Get $25 to lend when you use my invite code.
6. Reserve a Rental Car
You can earn frequent flyer miles without flying when you reserve a rental car.
Most airlines offer 500 miles for every rental car reservation:
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Delta
- Southwest
- United Airlines
Pro-tip: Sometimes you can combine this with $5 car rentals.
7. Pay Taxes
If you're stuck paying Uncle Sam instead of getting a tax return or pay estimated taxes, consider using your airline-branded credit card to pay your tax bill and earn miles.
You'll pay a fee of up to 1.99% when using a credit or debit card.
This is a great way to complete the minimum spending of new travel rewards cards.
Pro-tip: If your tax bill is small, it might not be worth paying the fee to pay by credit card. Unless you have to meet minimum spending on a new credit card.
Conclusion
Knowing how to earn frequent flyer miles without flying means traveling now instead of later.
Flying First Class instead of coach. Or being able to take lots of trips a year instead of once every couple of years.
These seven easy travel hacks help you earn thousands of miles so you can bring the whole family.
From credit card bonuses, going to restaurants, online shopping, completing surveys, donating to charity, reserving a rental car, and paying your taxes you can earn millions of frequent flyer miles a year.
Remember to check out the ultimate guide to earning Southwest points without flying.
What's your favorite easy way to earn frequent flyer miles without flying?
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The one I use the most is the airline credit card. I had used up all my FF miles, so I opened an account and now I'm back up there big time! I love it!
I only know one company that offer frequent flyer miles thorugh purchases. I didn't know these other other things are offered too, thanks.
Well, I had no idea there were so many ways to earn frequent flier miles. Most of these won't work for me, but perhaps a couple will. Thanks for the tips!
This is a great thing to know! I always assumed you had to fly to get the miles. I love this and will have to look into these options more, because I enjoy flying... but I do not do it often.
Thanks for the tips on how to earn miles! It's cool to be able to travel without having to spend too much on the air fare! These ideas are definitely worth trying! Thanks again!
I love signing up for things that have rewards perks! I recently started using Samsung Pay, and while I don't think they offer flyer miles, there are many opportunities to earn other rewards. Love them!
This is such great information! I didn't know there were so many different ways to earn flyer miles. I will definitely be looking into some of these options and hopefully start racking up some miles for a great family vacation!
Thank you so much for this information. I will admit that I've never given a second thought to frequent flyer miles. We rarely fly, so I just never thought that we'd have the opportunity to use those as a method to save. Guess now I know differently!
We have wrote many tips about this in our past blog. This is GOLD, we earn so many points outside of actual flying as well!
I have the Southwest Airline Chase card and have gotten so many free flights from it! It is amazing! I often forget to use it when dining though! I need to start doing that more this year! Thanks for the reminder!
Thank you so much for this. I love traveling, and I would love to earn those miles so I can travel more. And who doesn't want to travel for free, right?
Great tips! Definitely signing up for the airline cards is a good way to get cheap flights too. We got 40% off our flights this year because we were on the mailing list for the cyber monday deals!
This is good to know!
Oh wow! I've tried a few of these before but there were some I had never thought of. I love to travel so any excuse to rack up airline miles is a good one, especially if it involves shopping. 😉 Thank you for posting such great information!
We got a united credit card this year just to build up miles. We used it to pay for all of our bills and then paid it off right away. We got a ton over the year!
This is great information, I love eating at restaurants that give me a little extra for my buck and using a credit card the rewards me.
These are great tips, thank you! We plan to do some traveling this summer and these will help us out.
What a great post! We use a credit card to get miles every time we spend. They add up much faster than you realize!
Yeah, I agree. Here in the Philippines, a local carrier called Cebu Pacific has a rewards program through a rewards card. I use it whenever I gas up and shop. I have so much fly points now! Weee 😀
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This is a great list of tips that you've put together. I recently discovered how I could earn miles from my credit card. I picked one that would help me with the miles - their program was designed in such a way that it was attainable plus they give out a lot of travel freebies. I think getting the right credit card would be the easiest, well, at least here in my country. Other frequent flyer programs make me feel like they just want me to spend, lol.
Oh wow. Never knew so many ways to earn frequent flyer miles. I've always thought of it the old-fashioned way: to travel more is to accumulate more points. This is a real eye opener!!
I'I have never tried to get frequent flyer miles but I think it would be useful for my family. Thanks for these tips. I am going to make a note of them for future reference.
I had no idea that there were so many ways to earn travel miles! I have always wanted to travel more. Signing up for credit cards seems a little silly, unless you need it, but all of the others are good ideas!
I travel quite often so this was valuable for me. I can earn them by just doing some shopping or eating which is awesome.
We do plan to travel a lot more. I usually leave all the booking and stuff to my husband. I will definitely show him this link. Miles they credit cards.....
those are awesome options. i do use a few of those already, but will have to check out the others.
oh wow I had no idea you could even do these things so going to look into it and get some saved up for sure
These are great tips. I love collecting points as I love to travel. You have giving me more ways to earn points, I just to confirm my miles cards accepts these. I am looking forward to start actively collecting points. I sometimes forget to do so.
Wow! I had no idea you can do so!! I think my credit company offers such bonus, but I've never signed up for getting extra frequent flyer miles! Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely consider doing so!
I keep telling myself to get a credit card for this. I'm not sure what the best company is for me so I'll have to research!
will be bookmarking your page to gain flyer points. glad i came across this article. Im planning a trip for June
I knew you could gain miles by using a for example American Airlines credit card but I didn't know there were other ways besides this! I need to start earning some miles.
Wow I never knew about charitable donations! SO many cool ways to earn.
We dont fly very often but these are great tips.
FF miles is like free money! All these tips are perfect for a frequent travele like me 🙂
Thank you so much for this!! I've never been one to do a ton of traveling but I really want to change that this year! I'm thinking about signing up for a credit card that can transfer points to airline miles and will definitely be using this post as a guide to earn more miles!! Also planning on checking out a bunch of your other posts on this topic as well! ^^
Thanks for telling me cool stuff for my credit card!
A great list of tips for earning the miles. We all know how to do it by flying. But to be able to do it without flying would be really wonderful. Thanks for compiling
Great tips. Just wish it was easier to get miles even for Europeans.
I didn't know that surveys also earned points, I can do that. But I always use the online shopping to earn miles.
Lots of great tips! I love my credit card sign-up bonuses. My husband and each have the Chase Reserve and are looking forward to our free flight soon. I had no idea about earning miles through charitable donations!
Some really solid tips here. I use my frequent flier miles to go business class to Asia probably once every two years and thought I was pretty savvy, but I never thought of splitting a dining bill into two charges - though I'm not sure we even have dining portals in Canada. We don't have quite the same opportunities as you do in the States.
THANKS FOR THE SUGGESTIONS. IN HOLLAND WE DON'T REALLY WORK WITH FREQUENT FLYER PROGRAMS A LOT BUT IT'S DEFINITELY WORTH LOOKING INTO IT OBVIOUSLY!
These are great tips! Thanks for sharing the new ideas and advice. I had no idea you could earn points via survey participation.
I've been able to get a few flights thanks to sign up bonuses! I have the Chase Sapphire Preferred card and I have to keep remembering to use their shopping portal. If I'm going to shop anyways, I might as well get miles for it too right? lol
These are great tips! good thing you are very generouse enough to share everything with fellow travelers. Kuddos!
A good reminder of how to accumulate those miles. With so many people thinking travel is out of reach financially, your post inspires folks on how it is something many can afford. Everyone loves to shop and eat out, so that in itself, is really a no brainer. Thanks for the reminder on how many unique ways points can be earned.
Unfortunately in Canada we don't have as many sign-up bonus air miles when applying for a credit card but these are great suggestions to earn air miles in other ways. Good for you for earning enough to travel first class several times!
Great tips! I always shop online via the shopping portals that give you miles for your purchases. And they often have bonus periods where you earn 500 miles by shopping at so many online stores or spending a certain amount. You can really rack up miles doing things like that or paying for everything using your miles credit cards. I just make sure to pay it off every month.
We don't fly very often but thank you for these. They are very good tips.