This is my monthly recap where I look at what reward programs we were able to add miles or points to over the previous period. While we continue to be all about ways to earn really cheap or free airline miles and hotel reward points, we have shifted our “collecting” mindset into spending over the past months. What fun is earning all these rewards if you never spend them. With all the really great credit card rewards being offered for signing up for new cards, airlines have slowly been increasing their redemption rates and/or making it more difficult to spend those rewards. So we are trying to use some of our stash to help plan the next family vacation. To read proof how collecting miles/points can work for your family, read our post on how we are going to Hawaii (and Disneyland) for $30 in total cost for the flights.

[easychart type=”line” height=”300″ width=”350″ title=”Mile/Point Status (As of 11/30/11)” groupnames=”Delta,United,Continental,USAirways,American,Hilton,Intercontinental,SPG” valuenames=”Jan2011,Feb2011,Mar2011,Apr2011,May2011,June2011,July2011,Aug2011,Sept2011,Oct2011,Nov2011″ group1values=”69447,69447,70447,70947,70947,70947,71007,71097,71197,71287,71377″ group2values=”100043,100043,108043,108059,108059,109059,109059,109059,110115,58569,58569″ group3values=”67333,67333,67333,67333,67333,67433,68433,68433,68433,0,0″ group4values=”8018,8020,11759,13778,13778,13778,13899,13977,14090,28713,41516″ group5values=”0,300,600,600,600,4600,6500,9500,17000,19500,20000″ group6values=”11679,11679,21979,24479,24479,26297,26297,26297,26297,26547,26547″ group7values=”29271,29271,29271,29271,167571,169571,173571,173571,174071,174071,174071″ group8values=”0,0,0,0,0,0,16,34,294,294,360″]

The following is a brief summary of the things we have done in the past month to build up our accounts.

Delta SkyMiles– Audience Rewards trivia questions in all three of our accounts.

United Mileage Plus- No change.

Continental OnePass- All of our Continental accounts now are depleted because of using the miles towards our Hawaii trip. Over the past month, both my wife and I applied for the personal and business credit cards, which would have netted us 55,000 miles each. However, my wife’s business line got denied, and I am working on some stuff to get that rectified.

US Airways Dividend Miles– We racked up a decent amount of miles from the Grand Slam promotion with hardly any out-of-pocket expenses. We are still waiting on either of 2 transactions on Thanks Again for my wife’s account to get us a last hit and additional 5,000 miles. They show being credited on the Thanks Again site, but not in our account. We are trying to contact Thanks Again to determine when we should see our miles as they are important to get us the bonus miles.

American Airlines AAdvantage– We received one 500 mile bonus from an “appraiser” promotion from back in July. Our other son has yet to receive his win. Note, that it seems to be pretty routine that everyone is not receiving the full amount of miles from the promotion (about 500 less).

Hilton HHonors– No change.

Priority Club Rewards- No change.

Starwood Preferred Guest– All points earned through Audience Rewards program.

Note, we also have reward accounts with AirTran, Southwest, Frontier, Choice Hotels, Wyndham Rewards, and various other programs, but since we do not really use them, there is little advantage in including them in this list.

The point of showing these reports each month is to show you that every little bit of miles and point collecting can really add up to big rewards. It is never to late to sign-up and start collecting for your future travel needs. Thanks for reading! Save Money, Travel More.