Does anyone know any creative ways to collect Frequent Flier miles? I have heard of the pudding guy who collected millions of miles. What other ways have people found to collect miles without actually flying or charging $10k a month on a credit card?

You can get additional UA miles if you use your Safeway card! Unfortunately, then you've got to fly United!

Who's the pudding guy?

I don't remember the details on the pudding guy other than that he responded to some promotion by buying around $30,000 of pudding and other products in order to receive something like 4 million FF mile.

I believe the brand was Healthy Choice and included all products not just pudding. Each label was worth so many airmiles so he stuck with the pudding because it was the cheapest and you would get at least 4 labels in a package. He had his local grocery store manager order as many cases as he could and even called the local food bank and asked if they accepted food without the labels so in the end whatever city he was from the homeless were eating alot of pudding. I think Kellogs had or still has something similar going on but being Canadian we are never included so our cereal boxes don't have any info about it.

<BR>Mainly, you just have to stay on top of what partners your airline has teamed up with to promote their FF program. The airline's website usually will list these -- and they change often. Last year I signed a 1-year contract with Sprint and got 20,000 for joining and 5 for each $ spent on long distance. The year before I did the same thing with MCI, next year I'll be looking around for the best deal. I always buy tickets online for 1000 bonus miles, use an e-ticket and check in at the airport using the machines for 1000 (each way) and sometimes make connections in a designated city for promotional miles. <BR>There are times when food companies (Kellogg and Heathy Choice recently) will give you 500 miles for so many UPCs. I also use rental car agencies teamed with my airline to pick up more miles. These are a few things I do to rack up more miles -- 500 miles here, 500 miles, they really do add up. (Just Sprint alone was enough for a domestic roundtrip). <BR>

www.mileageworkshop.com <BR>will give you some ideas.

Does anyone know of ways to get miles on your children's frequent flyer cards without flying? Since they don't have charge cards, I find some difficulty in adding miles to their cards.

We got bumped on a recent American Airlines trip to Chicago--&gt; Buffalo--&gt; home (Orange Cty, CA), and only had to wait 2 hours, spent in the lounge w/ friends.... but each of the 4 of us got a $500 travel voucher (we're off to Hawaii soon!), and then we got a letter in the mail, as my husband politely but strongly indicated to the management there (NOT just the folks at the counter) what an inconvenience it was to us- and each of the 4 of us got 8,000 more frequent flyer miles! This puts us much closer to another free trip to Europe next summer! My husband's philosophy on getting bumped, or getting moved to first class is to always show up early, dress nicely, request to be put on the list, be friendly but firm, and to book flights when you know it will be busy. It's paid off big during the years!

The pudding guy is brilliant. I assume some or all of the cost of pudding donated to shelters would be tax deductible, but the FFB miles would not be taxable. It's like spinning straw into gold!

Go to http://www.flyertalk.com for a discussion of frequent flyer mile programs and innovative ways to collect miles. I think the pudding guy himself actually communicates on that Web site.

My flight from Chicago was 2 hours late due to ????who knows why?? but I got a very nice apologetic letter from American Airlines and they deposited 8,000 miles into my frequent flyer account...nice touch! This was more than 4 times the miles than the actual flight itself.

I have heard about airlines giving you business or first class seats if there are some available. I thought it might be an urban myth. Please let me know how to do it, I am just about to embark on a 26,000 mile world trip and do not relish the thought of being cramped for the 70 billion hours I will be in the air. If you have any other hints let me know. Brooke