I've signed up for a frequent flyer program!

Yet I'm not a frequent flyer. I've never really thought about signing up for one of these because I rarely fly now that I'm closer to my family. I was always under the impression that you either needed to fly a lot, or get a specific credit card with an annual fee to make a frequent flyer program worth it. This is why I signed up for a Capital One card, I could use miles for almost anything, not just flying. Using this card will still be a huge benefit, a way to double, or more my miles. I'll post my reasons later.

My wife and I, though, do like to travel, and travel is expensive. Getting our honeymoon plane tickets from my dad's miles made me think again about one of these programs. I figured there must be something more to them. Oh how much I never knew.

Since American Airlines tends to go to places I like, has a good, wide ranging network, and since I've generally had good experiences with them, I looked at their program. Their website has so much information, and there are so many different ways to gain miles. You do need to use them every few years, but I do plan on traveling occasionally so this isn't a big deal.

We will not have a credit card that will add on to our American miles. This isn't a big deal at the moment. But there are so many other ways to get the miles. You can put your credit card into their Dining system, and when you use that card at certain restaurants, you will get a certain amount of miles per $1 spent (up to 10 miles per $1). Not a bad deal. And if you go through their eShopping site, you can get a ton of points for a lot of things. For example, I was at Barnes and Noble the other day to find a book (which they frustratingly did not have). If I buy it at BN.com, I can get 3 miles per $1 spent. They have a decent selection of stores, so I know we could easily gain a decent amount of miles going through that site. Check the site out here.

Hopefully this will give us some more options when we want to travel in the future.