The best strategies for getting that next free airline ticket with the help of your airline rewards or frequent flyer credit card boil down to seeking out all the incentives that have been created for specific airlines and their partners, including those provided by your airline rewards credit card issuer. Airline credit cards basically come in two flavors – either a card is issued in partnership with a specific airline such as the Southwest Airlines Signature Visa and the Citi AAdvantage MasterCard or is a generic miles card where the miles earned can be used on any airline such as the Chase Travel Rewards Card.

Airline-specific rewards credit cards tend to offer special incentives in conjunction with their hotel and rental car partners where you can earn significantly more miles if you put those purchases on your credit card. Packaged vacation deals are another area where cardmembers can rack up significant miles and get past that average 25,000 mile threshold to earn a free ticket.

Generic airline & frequent flyer credit cards offer the advantage of being able to use the miles accumulated on any airline. This works by the bank actually taking the cash value of your miles (approximately 1 – 2 cents per mile) and purchasing a discount ticket on any airline you choose. Once you reach a mileage redemption threshold, say 20,000 miles, and wish to book a flight the bank will convert your earnings into cash value and buy the ticket through a travel booking agency. The availability of discounted fares on the dates you wish to travel may be limited but at least you can choose any airline.

The quickest route to free travel is to fly as often as possible and charge the tickets on your airline rewards credit card since this can potentially generate tens of thousands of miles in a year. Business travelers are able to leverage this activity at no personal cost and tend to be the recipients of the most free travel awards (assuming they want to get back on an airplane after all that work-related travel). Leisure travelers can also take advantage of everyday spending opportunities such as charging groceries, gasoline and setting up automatic recurring payments on their card to add up their miles.