Sign up for Free Flights (Continental Airlines OnePass)

Member Name: Tamarind

Product:	Continental Airlines OnePass
Date:	10/02/09 (180 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Travel for nothing

Disadvantages: Can take a while to earn enough miles

OnePass is Continental Airlines frequent flyer programme. Every time you fly with Continental you can earn OnePass miles that can be redeemed for reward travel on future flights.

The first thing you need to do is enrol on the scheme and this can be done on their website www.continental.com. Once you have done this you will be issued with a membership number and eventually through the post, you will receive a membership card. If memory serves me well, this took a few weeks to arrive. It is best to enrol before booking any flights as that way you can enter your membership number on screen whilst making your booking. Don't worry if you forget, as you can add it later on, or even show your card when you check-in at the airport and they will credit your account.

Okay, you've now enrolled, so what's the benefits I hear you ask? Every time you fly with Continental they will credit your account with the number of miles you fly. For example, you book a flight that is to a destination 3000 miles away, your account will be credited with 3000 miles or 6000 miles if it is a return flight. It used to be that you would receive 500 miles even if your destination was under that distance, however, that has changed recently and you only receive credit for the actual miles you travel. A bonus of booking flights on the Continental website is that you receive an additional 500 miles for booking direct. I usually can't find their flight prices cheaper anywhere else, so am happy to book it online. If you don't remember to quote your membership number until after you have travelled, this is not a problem as you can claim your miles retrospectively up to 6 months after your travel date.

You can also earn OnePass miles from their partners namely other airlines (including Virgin and Delta), hotels (Hilton, Hyatt, Marriot), car rental companies (all the usual big names like Alamo & Dollar) and online stores. This is a good way of helping you build up miles more quickly.
You are able to redeem your miles to more than 500 worldwide destinations.

If you travel frequently you may be able to become a OnePass Elite member. However, this is not based solely on the number of miles travelled but is also dependent on the type of fare paid. On qualifying fares you are also awarded points. There are three tiers of Elite membership -

Silver 25,000 Elite qualification miles or 30 points
Gold 50,000 Elite qualification miles or 60 points
Platinum 75,000 Elite qualification miles or 90 points

You would really need to be flying a lot to achieve any of these levels. It is even more difficult due to the fact that qualification is based on the calendar year of 1st January to 31st December. Therefore every year you are starting from scratch again. However, if you do manage to achieve Elite status you will be given preferential seating or even upgrades before ordinary members.

Having said all the above, it really doesn't take too long to build up miles and you only need 50,000 miles to earn a free economy return flight from the UK to the US. If you aren't patient enough to wait until you have earned a free flight, you can use some of your miles to upgrade your paid ticket to a better class of seat - always a good option on a long haul flight.

It costs nothing to join the OnePass programme so why not sign up and start earning some miles.

Summary: Worth signing up if you use Continental Airlines or their partners