Many of you will be using your airline miles or points for your flights to Europe. International awards, especially in business or first class, are a fantastic use of those miles, returning great mile-per-dollar benefits. But wading into this world can be confusing and frustrating. The standard award charts are designed to make it as easy as possible to spend a lot of miles, but a little bit of extra work can go a long way.

Gary Leff at View from the Wing writes about a realization that simple advice can make all the difference,

The proudly informed me they had used miles for the ticket! … They told me they were in coach. And they told me how many miles it cost — 130,000 per person.

Full. Stop.

I popped back over to my office and found them an outbound flight in business class … and a return flight in first class … for the exact same miles they were spending for coach…

In the rest of the article, he goes on to outline a few key points for maximizing your ability to use frequent flyer miles.

• Do a bit of your own research
• Call the airline, don’t rely on the website
• Hang up and call back if you don’t get what you want
• Have a little bit of flexibility
• Don’t give up

Many of the articles on the site go into advice for serious full-time travelers and road warriors, but I find it’s still a great place to go to begin the first step, Do Your Own Research. Spend a few minutes looking through the articles on his Consolidated Advice Page and you could be well on your way to a free ticket to Europe this summer!