NEW YORK (AP) — With the U.S. experiencing a significant hiring slowdown, it’s a daunting time to be looking for a job. Many workers are staying put instead of changing jobs to secure better pay. Artificial intelligence tools increasingly screen the resumes of applicants. Now may seem like an inappropriate time to request a raise.
But sticking around doesn’t mean wages and salaries have to stagnate. Career experts say it’s not wrong, even in a shaky economy, to ask to be paid what you’re worth. Raises aren’t even necessarily off the table at organizations that are downsizing, according to some experts.
“A lot of people think if their company has done layoffs, the likelihood of getting a raise is pretty low,” said Jamie Kohn, a senior director in the human resources practice at business research and advisory firm Gartner. “And that might be true, but the the other way to think about it is that this company has already decided to reinvest in you by keeping you on.”
When should you ask?
If you’ve taken on greater responsibilities at work and have received strong performance reviews, or if you’ve learned you’re paid substantially less than colleagues or competitors with similar levels of experience, then it may be the right time to ask for a pay adjustment.
“They know that you’re taking on more work, especially if you’ve had layoffs on your team,” Kohn continued. “At that point, it is very hard for them to lose an employee that you know they now are relying on much more.”
Another signal that it’s time to ask for an adjustment is if you’re working a second job to make ends meet or your current financial situation is causing angst that impacts job performance, said Rodney Williams, co-founder of SoLo Funds, a community finance platform.
“There’s nothing wrong with saying, ’Hey, I need to raise my financial position. I’m willing to do more,” Williams said. “I’m willing to show up earlier, I’m willing to leave later, I’m willing to help out, maybe, and do other things here.”
Some people view asking for more compensation as less risky than switching to a new job. “There is a sense of not wanting to be ‘last in, first out’ in a potential layoff situation,” said Kohn.
Know your worth
Before starting the compensation conversation, do some research on current salaries. You can find out what people with comparable experience are making in your industry by searching on websites such as Glassdoor, where people self-report salaries, or ZipRecruiter, which gathers pay data from job postings and other sources.
Three years ago, a lot of people asked for 20% pay increases because of price inflation and high employee turnover coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, Kohn said. Companies no longer are considering such big bumps.
“Right now, I think you could say that you are worth 10% more, but you’re unlikely to get a 10% pay increase if you ask for it,” she said.
Your success also depends on your recent performance reviews. “If you’ve been given additional responsibilities, if you are operating at a level that would be a promotion, those might be situations where asking for a higher amount might be worth it,” Kohn said.
Compare notes with colleagues
Many people view the topic as taboo, but telling coworkers what you make and asking if they earn more may prove instructive. Trusted coworkers with similar roles are potential sources. People who were recently hired or promoted may supply a sense of the market rate, Kohn said.
“You can say, ‘Hey, I’m trying to make sure I’m being paid equitably. Are you making over or under X dollars?’ That’s one of my favorite phrases to use, and it invites people into a healthy discussion,” Sam DeMase, a career expert with ZipRecruiter, said. “People are way more interested in talking about salary than you might think.”
You can also reach out to people who left the company, who may be more willing to compare paychecks than current colleagues, DeMase said.
Brag sheet
Keep track of your accomplishments and positive feedback on your work. Compile it into one document, which human resources professionals call a “brag sheet,” DeMase said. If you’re making your request in writing, list those accomplishments when you ask for a raise. If the request is made in a conversation, you can use the list as talking points.
Be sure to list any work or responsibilities that typically would not have been part of your job description. “Employers are wanting employees to do more with less, so we need to be documenting all of the ways in which we’re working outside of our job scope,” DeMase said.
Also take stock of the unique skills or traits you bring to the team.
“People tend to overestimate our employers’ alternatives,” said Oakbay Consulting CEO Emily Epstein, who teaches negotiation courses at Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley. “We assume they could just hire a long line of people, but it may be that we bring specialized expertise to our roles, something that would be hard to replace.”
Timing matters
Don’t seek a raise when your boss is hungry or at the end of a long day because the answer is more likely to be no, advises Epstein, whose company offers training on communication, conflict resolution and other business skills. If they’re well-rested and feeling great, you’re more likely to succeed, she said.
Getting a raise is probably easier in booming fields, such as cybersecurity, while it could be a tough time to request one if you work in an industry that is shedding positions, Epstein said.
By the same token, waiting for the perfect time presents the risk of missing out on a chance to advocate for yourself.
“You could wait your whole life for your boss to be well-rested or to have a lot of resources,” Epstein said. “So don’t wait forever.”
Responding to “no”
If your request is denied, having made it can help set the stage for a future negotiation.
Ask your manager what makes it difficult to say yes, Epstein suggested. “Is it the precedent you’d be establishing for this position that might be hard to live up to? Is it fairness to the other people in my position? Is it, right now the company’s struggling?” she said.
Ask when you might revisit the conversation and whether you can get that timeframe in writing, DeMase said.
Laura Kreller, an executive assistant at a university in Louisiana, recently earned a master’s degree and asked for her job description to change to reflect greater responsibilities and hopefully higher pay. Her boss was kind but turned her down, citing funding constraints. Kreller said she has no regrets.
“I was proud of myself for doing it,” she said. “It’s better to know where you stand.”
Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well
Deciding where to live later in life isn’t an easy task. Many seniors prefer to stay in their own homes but may need help managing medical issues or day-to-day tasks. Others might move in with their adult children or family members.
A CCRC is a community living facility where retirees can access a spectrum of care as they age—care levels typically include independent living, assisted living, nursing care, and memory care. Most CCRCs also offer a range of amenities and activities, such as on-site fitness centers and groups for different hobbies.
There’s evidence that people living in CCRCs enjoy better health outcomes, and higher levels of social and emotional well-being. It can also be an attractive option for couples as they can continue living near each other even if one person eventually needs a higher level of care.
Moving to a CCRC requires a substantial financial commitment, and it carries the sobering possibility that it might be the last time you get to choose where you live. Here are some key things to consider:
Fees and living arrangements
People entering a CCRC generally start in independent living, with their own living quarters.
In many cases, the cost of admission could be on par with buying a house in the same area. Based on data from US News & World Report, entrance fees average about $400,000 but can range from $100,000 to more than $1 million. The hefty price tag doesn’t mean you’re buying the property you live in; instead, the money helps cover part of the costs you may incur while living there and may be partially refundable to your estate after death.
Residents also pay monthly fees, which averaged about $4,200 for independent living as of the end of 2024. Monthly fees, which often increase about 4% per year to cover inflation, generally cover housing, meals, housekeeping, maintenance, transportation, and recreational activities. Depending on your contract, monthly fees may also cover certain healthcare costs.
Three types of CCRC contracts
Type A contracts are the costliest option. They have the steepest entrance fees and the highest starting monthly fees, which generally cover comprehensive long-term-care services and remain the same (except for annual inflation increases) even if you need a higher level of care.
Type B contracts have lower upfront costs than Type A contracts, and lower monthly fees when you first move in. They provide the same access to housing and residential services as Type A contracts, but not the same level of access to healthcare services. If a resident needs a higher level of care, the monthly fee grows to cover the higher cost. In exchange for lower monthly fees at move-in, people in these contracts take the risk that their costs could significantly increase.
Type C contracts generally have the lowest upfront costs and may not include any entrance fee. Instead, the monthly fee changes to reflect the market rate for the type of healthcare needed. Monthly fees start lower when a resident first enters independent living but can grow dramatically if they need higher-level care. As with Type B contracts, people in these contracts pay lower monthly fees when they move in but may end up paying significantly more.
Other factors to consider with contracts
The upfront payments included in Type A and Type B contracts are often partially refundable after you leave the facility or pass away. Though, there fundable portion of the fee varies.
For Type A and Type B contracts, part of the entrance fee may be eligible for a one-time tax deduction as a prepaid medical expense. A portion of the monthly fees may also be eligible for annual deductions if they’re considered a prepaid medical expense. (In both cases, deductions are only allowed if the costs are more than 7.5% of adjusted gross income.) Facilities typically provide residents with specifics on the portion of fees that may be deductible each year.
Finding the right fit
ACCRC can help seniors maintain a happy, healthy, and rewarding life. But it’s imperative to make sure the facility is not only a good fit for your needs, but financially strong before signing a contract.
Stacey Knoll thought the court summons she received was a scam. She didn’t remember getting any medical bills from Montrose Regional Health, a nonprofit hospital, after a 2020 emergency room visit.
So she was shocked when, three years after the trip to the hospital, her employer received court orders requiring it to start funneling a chunk of her paychecks to a debt collector for an unpaid $881 medical bill — which had grown to $1,155.26 from interest and court fees.
The timing was terrible. After leaving a bad marriage and staying in a shelter, she had just gotten full custody of her three children, steady housing in Montrose, Colorado, and a job at a gas station.
“And that’s when I got that garnishment from the court,” she said. “It was really scary. I’d never been on my own or raised kids on my own.”
KFF Health News reviewed 1,200 Colorado cases in which judges, over a two-year period from Feb. 1, 2022, through Feb. 1, 2024, gave permission to garnish wages over unpaid bills. At least 30% of the cases stemmed from medical care — even when patients’ bills should have been covered by Medicaid, the public insurance program for those with low incomes or disabilities. That 30% is likely an underestimate since medical debt is often hidden behind other types of debt, such as from credit cards or payday loans. But even that minimum would translate to roughly 14,000 cases a year in Colorado in which courts approved taking people’s wages because of unpaid medical bills.
Among the other findings:
Patients were pursued for medical bills ranging from under $30 to over $30,000, with most of the bills amounting to less than $2,400. As the cases rolled through the legal system, accumulating interest and court fees, the amount that patients owed often grew by 25%. In one case, it snowballed by more than 400%.
Cases trailed people for up to 14 years after they received medical care, with debt collectors reviving their cases even as they moved from job to job.
Medical providers of all stripes are behind these bills — big health care chains, small rural hospitals, physician groups, public ambulance services, and more. In several cases, hospitals won permission to take the pay of their own employees who had unpaid bills from treatment at the facilities.
Colorado has company. It is one of 45 states that allow wage garnishment for unpaid medical bills. Only Delaware, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Texas have banned wage garnishment for medical debt.
As KFF Health News has reported, medical debt is devastating for millions of people across the country. And now the problem is likely to grow more pressing nationwide. Millions of Americans are expected to lose health insurance in the coming years due to Medicaid changes in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending law and if Congress allows some Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. That means health crises for the newly uninsured could lead them, too, into a spiral of medical debt.
“If you can’t maintain your health, how are you going to work to pay back a debt?” said Adam Fox, deputy director of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a nonprofit aimed at lowering health costs. “And if you fundamentally can’t pay the bill, wage garnishment isn’t going to help you do that. It’s going to put you in more financial distress.”
Flying blind on medical debt
When someone fails to pay a bill, the creditor that provided the service — whether for a garage door repair, a car loan, or medical care — can take the debtor to court. Creditors can also pass the debt to a debt collector or debt buyer, who can do the same.
“At any given point, about 1% of working adults are being garnished for some reason,” said Anthony DeFusco, an economist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who studied paycheck data from ADP, a payroll processor that distributes paychecks to about a fifth of private sector U.S. workers. “That’s a big chunk of the population.”
But specific research into the practice of garnishing wages over medical debt is scant. Studies in North Carolina, Virginia, and New York have found that nonprofit hospitals commonly garnish wages from indebted patients, with some studies finding those patients tend to work in low-wage occupations.
Marty Makary, who led research on medical debt wage garnishment in Virginia at Johns Hopkins University before joining Trump’s cabinet as Food and Drug Administration commissioner, has called the practice “aggressive.” He co-authored a study that found 36% of Virginia hospitals, mostly nonprofit and mostly in urban areas, were using garnishment to collect unpaid debts in 2017, affecting thousands of patients.
The Colorado findings from KFF Health News show that hospitals are far from the only medical providers going after patients’ paychecks, though.
Researchers and advocates say that, in addition to a dearth of court case data, another phenomenon tends to obscure how often this happens. “People find debt shameful,” said Lester Bird, a senior manager at the Pew Charitable Trusts who specializes in courts. “A lot of this exists in the shadows.”
Without data on how often this tactic is employed, lawmakers are flying blind — even as a 2024 Associated Press-NORC poll showed about 4 in 5 U.S. adults believe it’s important for the federal government to provide medical debt relief.
‘Blood from a turnip’
Colorado was among the first of 15 states to scratch medical debt from credit reports. Debt buyers in the state aren’t allowed to foreclose on a patient’s home. If qualified patients opt to pay in monthly installments, those payments shouldn’t exceed 6% of their household income — and the remaining debt gets wiped after about three years of paying.
But if they don’t agree to a payment plan, Coloradans can have up to 20% of their disposable earnings garnished. The National Consumer Law Center gave the state a “D” grade for state protections of family finances.
Consumer advocates said they aren’t sure how well even those Colorado requirements are being followed. And people wrote letters to the courts saying wage garnishment would exacerbate their already dire financial situations.
“I have begun to fall behind on my electricity, my gas, my water my credit cards,” wrote a man in western Colorado in a letter to a judge that KFF Health News obtained in the court filings. Court records show he was working in construction and at a rent-to-own store, with about $8,000 in medical debt. He wrote to the judge that he was paying close to $1,000 a month. “The way things are going now I will lose everything.”
The people being sued in KFF Health News’ Colorado review worked in a wide array of jobs. They worked in school districts, ranching, mining, construction, local government, even health care. Several worked at stores such as Walmart and Family Dollar, or at gas stations, restaurants, or grocery stores.
“You’re really kicking people when they’re down,” said Lois Lupica, a former attorney working with the Denver-based Community Economic Defense Project and the Debt Collection Lab at Princeton. “They’re basically suing the you-can’t-get-blood-from-a-turnip population.”
In 2022, court records show, Valley View health system based in Glenwood Springs was allowed to garnish the wages of one of its patients over a $400 medical bill. The patient was working at a local organization that the health system supported as part of the community benefits it provides to keep its tax-exempt status. Nonprofit hospitals like Valley View are required to provide community benefits, which can also include charity care that covers patients’ bills.
Stacey Gavrell, the health system’s chief community relations officer, said it offers options such as interest-free payment plans and care at reduced or no cost to families with incomes up to 500% of the federal poverty level.
“As our rural region’s largest healthcare provider, it is imperative to the health and well-being of our community that Valley View remains a financially viable organization,” she said. “Most of our patients work with us to develop a payment plan or pursue financial assistance.”
The collection agency that took the employee to court, A-1 Collection Agency, advertises itself on its website as empathetic: “We understand times are tough and money is tight.”
Pilar Mank, who oversees operations at A-1’s parent company, Healthcare Management, said it accepts payment plans as small as $50 a month and that most of the hospitals it works with allow it to offer a discount if patients pay all at once.
“Suing a patient is the absolute last resort,” she said. “We try everything we can to work with the patient.”
If you can’t maintain your health, how are you going to work to pay back a debt?
Hospitals sometimes also garnish wages from their own employees for care they provided them. In one case, a hospital employee worked her way up from housekeeper to registrar to quality analyst. She even participated in public events representing her employer and appeared on the hospital’s website as a featured employee — while the court issued writs of garnishment until her $10,000 in medical bills from the hospital was paid off.
“Hospital care costs money to deliver,” said Colorado Hospital Association spokesperson Julie Lonborg about hospitals’ garnishing their own employees’ wages. “In some ways, I think it’s funny to be asked the question. I would understand if someone said, ‘Why aren’t you garnishing their wages?’”
Studies show that hospital debt collection efforts through wage garnishment bring in only about 0.2% of hospital revenues, said April Kuehnhoff, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, which advocates for people with low incomes.
“We also know that there are states that don’t allow this at all,” she said. “Hospitals are continuing to provide medical care to consumers.”
Smooth sailing for collectors —but not for patients
Health care providers appeared as the plaintiffs in only 2% of the medical debt cases. Instead, cases were filed almost entirely by third-party debt collectors and buyers, with BC Services and Professional Finance Company behind more than half of the cases, followed by A-1 Collection Agency and Wakefield & Associates.
Debt buyers make money by buying debt from providers who’ve given up on getting paid then collecting what they can of the money owed, plus interest. Debt collectors get paid a percentage of what they recover. Some companies do a bit of both.
BC Services declined to comment, and Wakefield & Associates did not respond to questions.
Charlie Shoop, president of Professional Finance Company, said his company initiates wage garnishment on less than 1% of all accounts placed with it for collection.
In many states, the path for filing a case against a debtor and garnishing their wages is relatively smooth — especially if the debtor doesn’t appear in court.
“It’s unbelievably easy,” said Dan Vedra, a lawyer in Colorado who often represents consumers in debt cases. “If you have a word processor and a spreadsheet, you can mass-produce thousands of lawsuits in a matter of hours or minutes.”
Within KFF Health News’ sample, nearly all the medical debt cases were default judgments, meaning the patient did not defend themselves in court or in writing. Missing a court date can happen for a variety of reasons, such as not receiving the notice in the mail, assuming it was a scam, knowingly ignoring it, or not having the time to take off from work.
Vedra and other debt law experts said a high rate of default judgments indicates a system that favors the pursuers over the pursued — and increases the chances someone will be harmed by an erroneous bill.
But in New Hampshire, creditors now have to keep going to court for each paycheck they want to garnish, because the state allows creditors to garnish only wages that have already been earned, said Maanasa Kona, an associate research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University.
“It might not look like much on paper,” she said. “It’s just not worth it if they have to keep going back to court.”
If you have a word processor and a spreadsheet, you can mass-produce thousands of lawsuits in a matter of hours or minutes.
Wrongly pursued for bills
The nation’s medical billing setup is already prone to errors due to its complexity, according to Barak Richman, a law professor at George Washington University and a senior scholar at Stanford Medicine who has studied medical debt collection practices in several states. “Bills are not only noncomprehensible, but often wrong,” Richman said.
Indeed, Colorado’s Health Care Policy & Financing Department, which runs Medicaid in the state, said it sent out nearly 11,000 letters in the past fiscal year to health providers and collectors that erroneously went after patients on Medicaid. Bills for Medicaid recipients are supposed to be sent to Medicaid, not the patients, who typically pay a nominal amount, if anything, for their care.
Shoop said his industry has pushed Colorado, without success, for access to a database that would allow them to confirm if patients had Medicaid coverage.
Colorado’s Medicaid program declined to comment.
Patricia DeHerrera in Rifle, Colorado, had to prove that she and her children had Medicaid when they received care at Grand River Health — but only after A-1 contacted her employer at the time, the gas station chain Kum & Go, with court-approved paperwork to take a portion of her paychecks.
She contacted the state, which sent letters to the hospital and the collector notifying them they were engaging in “illegal billing action” and telling the collector to stop. The companies did.
Theresa Wagenman, controller for Grand River Health, said if a patient can present a letter from a Medicaid caseworker saying they’re eligible, then their bills get removed from the collections pipeline. Wagenman also said patients get at least eight letters in the mail and several phone calls before Grand River gives the go-ahead for the collector to send them to court.
DeHerrera’s main advice to others in this situation: “Know your rights. Otherwise, they’re going to take advantage of you.”
Nicole Silva, who lives in the 900-person town of Sanford in south-central Colorado, said she and her family were all on Medicaid when her daughter was in a car crash. Still, court records show, her wages were garnished for a $2,181.60 ambulance ride, which grew to more than $3,000 from court fees and interest.
Nicole Silva, a preschool teacher who lives in Sanford, Colorado, had her wages garnished for an ambulance bill from when her daughter, Karla, needed urgent medical care. According to a KFF Health News analysis, Colorado courts allow debt collectors to garnish people’ s wages for unpaid medical bills in roughly 14,000 cases a year. Left to right: Nicole Silva,… (Matthew Eric Lit/KFF Health News/TNS)
She tried to prove the bill was wrong, contacting her county’s social services office, but Silva said it wasn’t helpful and she wasn’t able to reach the right person at a state office. The state Medicaid program confirmed to KFF Health News that her daughter was covered at the time of the wreck.
Fighting the bill felt like too much for Silva and her husband to handle while parenting a growing number of kids, one of them severely disabled, and working — she as a preschool teacher and he as a rancher.
Not receiving the roughly $500 a month that she said came out of her pay was enough to affect their ability to pay other bills. “It was deciding to buy groceries or pay the electric bill,” Silva said.
When their electricity got shut off, she said, they had to scramble to borrow money from colleagues and friends to get it turned back on — with an extra fee.
She said the saga makes her hesitant to call an ambulance in the future.
Fox, of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, said consumers often think they cannot do anything to stop their wages from being garnished, but they can contest it in court, for example by pointing out they should have qualified for discounted — or charity — care if the hospital that provided the treatment is a nonprofit.
DeFusco, the economist, believes filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy is an underused option for debtors. It halts garnishment in its tracks, though not always permanently, and it comes with other consequences. But he understands it’s a Catch-22: It’s a complex process and typically necessitates hiring a lawyer.
“To get rid of your debt, you need money,” he said. “And the whole reason you’re in this situation is because you don’t have money.”
Methodology
We wanted to know how often Coloradans get their wages garnished due to medical debt. Courts don’t compile this information, and researchers and advocates haven’t tracked it systematically.
So we created our own database. We requested a list of all civil cases across the state in which judges gave permission for a person’s earnings to be garnished — known as writs of garnishment in court lingo — from Feb. 1, 2022, through Feb. 1, 2024. The Colorado Supreme Court Library provided a list from all courts except for Denver County Court, which provided its own records. The combined list comprised nearly 90,000 unique court cases. We split up the cases by county population — small (fewer than 10,000 people), medium (10,000 to 100,000 people), and large (more than 100,000 people) — then generated a random sample of 400 cases from each group to ensure we evaluated medical debt across counties of all sizes.
To identify medical debt cases, we looked at the original creditors named in court records, primarily the complaints or affidavits of indebtedness. Often, this information was available through a state website. When it wasn’t available online, we asked county courthouses to send us supporting documents. We counted dentists as medical providers. We excluded 14 cases in which the debt wasn’t exclusively medical.
We looked only at cases in which courts approved money to be garnished from someone’s paycheck, as opposed to from other sources such as their bank accounts. We did not review garnishment cases involving child support, taxes, or federal student loans.
KFF Health News intern Henry Larweh, data editor Holly K. Hacker, Mountain States editor Matt Volz, and web editor Lydia Zuraw contributed to this report.
A debt collector took Nicole Silva, a preschool teacher and mom in Sanford, Colorado, to court over an unpaid medical bill. It turns out she didn’ t owe money: The bill should have gone to Medicaid, her insurer. Still, her wages were garnished to pay it off. (Matthew Eric Lit/KFF Health News/TNS)
Whether you travel often or would like to travel more, earning frequent flyer miles or points with an airline and its participating partners can help you get free flights. You can also enjoy perks such as airport lounge access, free checked bags and priority boarding.
You can typically collect frequent flyer miles through an airline loyalty program, but there are other easy ways to boost your stash of miles, such as through eligible credit card spending.
If you’ve never used a frequent flyer program before, you may wonder how they work and whether they can really benefit you. In this guide, we cover what you need to know about earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles and how travel credit cards can help you earn free flights.
How to earn frequent flyer miles
You can earn airline miles or points in many ways, such as by booking flights or spending money with a credit card through online shopping portals that allow you to earn airline miles on your purchases.
Earn miles through flights
To earn miles when you buy plane tickets, you’ll need to sign up for an airline’s loyalty program. Because most major airlines are part of a larger alliance, joining one frequent flyer program allows you to book award flights with a dozen or more airlines.
For example, United Airlines belongs to the Star Alliance, an airline network comprising over 20-plus airlines, including Air Canada, Air China and Lufthansa. When you become a member of United’s loyalty program, United MileagePlus, you’ll be able to earn rewards that can be used for Star Alliance airline partner flights booked through United.
Another airline network is SkyTeam, which includes Delta Air Lines, Air France and Aeromexico, among others. There’s also the Oneworld alliance, which counts American Airlines, British Airways and Qantas among its list of participating airlines.
After you complete enrollment for the loyalty program you want to join, you’ll get an email confirming your account with your new frequent flyer number. You’ll need to enter this number when you book flights to earn miles on those flights. Otherwise, you could miss out on earning rewards (though some programs allow you to add your number after booking).
You can often earn elite status if you join a program and meet specific requirements. For example, with the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, you can reach:
MVP status after flying 20,000 miles in one year.
MVP Gold status after flying 40,000 miles.
MVP Gold 75K status after flying 75,000 miles.
MVP Gold 100K status after flying 100,000 miles.
Once you have elite status, you unlock access to valuable perks that can make travel more enjoyable. Depending on your status level, you could earn waived baggage fees, early boarding, lounge access, priority upgrades and free seat selection. The higher the tier, the better the rewards.
Earn miles with an eligible credit card
Travel credit cards — including credit cards that earn travel rewards, airline credit cards and hotel credit cards — allow you to earn miles or points through eligible credit card spending.
Many general travel credit cards allow you to earn flexible travel rewards, meaning you can typically redeem travel rewards with numerous airline and hotel partners. However, airline and hotel credit cards only allow you to earn and redeem rewards with a specific airline or hotel brand.
Additionally, the type of spending that qualifies for earning miles or points and the number of miles or points you’ll earn vary by the card issuer and card you choose, as different cards have different rewards programs and rates.
Most cards give you at least 1X miles or points for every dollar you spend on them, allowing you to rack up rewards every time you make a purchase. With a tiered rewards card, you may also earn a higher rate for purchases in specific categories.
Another perk of travel rewards credit cards is that they often come with a welcome bonus for new cardholders, which you can use to jump start your stockpile of miles or points. In most cases, you’ll have to spend a specific dollar amount on a card within a set amount of time to earn a bonus. You may also qualify for elite status simply by holding the airline or hotel’s co-branded card.
Chase Sapphire Preferred vs. Delta SkyMiles Gold welcome bonus
The Chase Sapphire Preferred currently offers a welcome bonus of 75,000 points after you spend $5,000 within the first three months of account opening, which is worth $750 when redeemed for travel through Chase Travel℠ but can be worth up to $2,000 with the right transfer partner, according to Bankrate’s valuations.
For comparison, the Delta SkyMiles Gold card offers 50,000 bonus miles after you spend $2,000 in the first six months from account opening, which is worth around $960 with the right transfer partner, based on Bankrate’s valuations.
Getting approved for a top travel rewards credit card can be more complicated than signing up for an airline loyalty program. You’ll generally need a good to excellent credit score and a low debt-to-income ratio to qualify for the best travel cards. If you’re new to travel cards, you may want to look at the best travel cards for beginners first to make the card-choosing process easier.
Earn by buying, transferring or pooling miles
Although the primary ways to earn airline miles or points are by joining a loyalty program or regularly spending money on a travel rewards card, you have other options for racking up rewards.
Many loyalty programs allow you to buy miles or points if you don’t have enough in your account to book your desired vacation. The process is usually easy and can be done through the rewards program portal.
Remember, though, that buying miles is often not worth it, as they tend to cost more than their redemption value. But if you’re just shy of having enough miles to book your flight, buying more may be cheaper than purchasing the ticket with cash. You may also want to buy points if they go on sale, and you can get a good deal.
Need to add points or miles to your frequent flyer account?
If you need a few more points or miles to book a flight, you’ll often have the option to transfer rewards. If you have an eligible general travel card, you can easily transfer your rewards to any of your credit card issuer’s partner airlines. Most transfers are instant, while others can take a few days to process. Transfers aren’t reversible, so be careful when entering the number of points or miles you want to move.
Lastly, some loyalty programs allow you to pool your points or miles with family and friends who are members of the same program. For example, the Frontier Miles program offers a family pooling feature that allows you to share miles with up to eight friends and family members.
Earn through shopping portals and dining programs
Many major airline loyalty programs — including Southwest Rapid Rewards and Delta SkyMiles — have shopping portals you can use to earn miles on purchases you’re already planning to make. To do this, you’ll typically head to the rewards program’s shopping portal first. Then, check out available retailers or promotions or search for items you want to buy. Clicking through the portal will track your activity so that when you complete your purchase, you’ll receive credit in the form of extra miles or points added to your rewards account.
The best part? You don’t need to hold a co-branded airline card to take advantage of these offers. For example, fans of American Airlines can join the AAdvantage program for free and use their frequent flyer number to create an account with its online eShopping portal. Plus, paying for eShopping purchases with a card that earns American AAdvantage miles lets you double-dip on rewards, getting you to that award flight more quickly.
Similar to online shopping portals, dining programs also earn you rewards for eating at select restaurants. You’ll have to enroll in these programs separately (as you do with a shopping portal). Once you have an account, you’ll have to use your linked debit or credit cards to pay for your meal at an eligible restaurant.
How to redeem frequent flyer miles
Building a portfolio of frequent flyer miles can feel exciting, but don’t forget the real purpose of doing so — redeeming your miles for travel. Having a plan for redeeming your rewards isn’t just an essential part of maximizing your effort. Airline and hotel loyalty programs regularly devalue their points and miles, so holding them long-term puts you at risk of losing value over time.
The rewards programs associated with general travel credit cards typically provide more flexible redemption options than airline frequent flyer programs. With a general travel credit card, you can often redeem rewards for all types of travel purchases, along with cash back, gift cards, merchandise, event tickets and more. You may also be able to transfer your points or miles to a travel partner, increasing the potential value of your redemptions.
Frequent flyer programs, however, are limited to travel redemptions only, such as booking airfare. Similarly, points and miles earned with co-branded travel credit cards may be limited to redemption with the card’s specific airline or hotel partner’s booking portal. Always check your desired program for the specific options available to you to ensure the redemption options align with what you’re looking for.
Redeem through an airline program
Log in to your airline loyalty program account.
Search for your desired flight. You can choose to see how much flights cost in either dollars or miles (or points).
Choose miles or points as your form of payment when checking out.
Note that if you’re looking to redeem miles for a flight within an airline alliance, you might need to call the airline for assistance with the booking.
Redeem through a credit card program
Log in to your credit card account.
Locate the rewards portal. From there, you should be able to redeem your rewards for travel bookings, gift cards, charitable donations and more. To redeem for travel, you can redeem your rewards through your issuer’s travel portal or transfer your rewards to one of your issuer’s travel partners. Typically, your rewards go further when you transfer your points or miles to a high-value rewards program.
Select the redemption option you’re interested in and follow the prompts.
Before using your points or miles, ensure you’re getting the best deal, especially if you’re booking travel. Because airlines calculate the rewards value of their flights differently, sometimes you can save thousands of points or miles just by booking your ticket through a partner airline. Start by checking out one of the many tools available to redeem rewards for flights.
The bottom line
You can earn airline miles or points on the purchases you’re already making by signing up for a travel rewards card or joining your preferred airline loyalty program.
Frequently asked questions about frequent flyer miles
What’s the fastest way to get airline miles? It greatly depends on the frequent flyer program you’re a part of. However, usually one of the fastest ways is to have a credit card that earns miles on everyday purchases, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, so you can rack up miles without much effort.If you have a co-branded card, then flying often with that airline and making eligible purchases may be your best bet.If you have neither, then stick to flying with the airline you prefer, and make sure to enter your frequent flyer number when making purchases to accumulate every mile you can.
How do I join a frequent flyer program for free? Most frequent flyer programs are free to join. The process to sign up has only a few steps:Head to the frequent flyer website you would like to join, such as the American AAdvantage program.Click on the “Join for free” button or a similar button that says “Sign up.”Follow the prompts to sign up for an account. You will likely need to enter your personal information, such as name, address and contact information.
How many miles are needed for a free flight? Different frequent flyer programs require different amounts of miles to earn a free flight. For example, Delta SkyMiles offers award deals for flights. Currently, a round-trip flight in the U.S. can go for as low as 5,000 miles, plus a small fee. Comparatively, United Airlines offers domestic round-trip flights starting at around around 7,0000 miles.
Key takeaways
Join your preferred airline’s loyalty program for free to earn and redeem points and miles for your next flight.
With a general travel rewards credit card or co-branded airline credit card, you can earn points and miles through eligible credit card spending.
For more ways to earn points and miles, consider buying, transferring or pooling rewards or using airline shopping and dining portals.
Whether you travel often or would like to travel more, earning frequent flyer miles or points with an airline and its participating partners can help you get free flights. (DREAMSTIME/TNS)
Although our nation is not in a financial storm, experts are struggling to formulate an economic forecast. In fact, they can’t even come up with a consensus on where the economy stands today. There are just too many crosscurrents creating a variety conflicting views.
Have tariffs led to higher inflation? Which way are interest rates headed? Is the economy growing as fast as the numbers indicate?
Something we do know is that our national debt surpassed $37 trillion earlier this month. That means we now spend more on loan interest than we do on both national defense and Medicare.
The bottom line is that all the uncertainty adds up to more questions than answers. But despite all that, the American consumer appears to keep rolling along, albeit with a bit more caution.
Take a certain large restaurant conglomerate, for example. The traffic at their upscale steak house has slowed a bit, but their mid-scale steak house chain is maintaining heavy traffic. That seems to be an indication that consumers are trading down somewhat.
And it’s in the same vein as grocery store brand sales increasing while national brand sales are falling. In other words, consumers are being more selective with their spending.
From an investor’s perspective, it may be tempting to reach for some of the exotic and flashy investments that are dominating the financial headlines. But I seriously question if now is the time to be chasing returns.
Regular readers know that I’m a big believer in diversification, which means having a variety of quality positions in a variety of asset classes. It may not be the flashiest or most glamorous approach, but historically, it has stood the test of time. I’m aware that what happened in the investment world in the past is not guaranteed to repeat. Nonetheless, long-term diversification has proven to be an effective strategy.*
There have recently been some subtle changes in the investment world. One is significant. Private equity has been given the green light to be among the investment choices for retirement programs. Private equity tends to be higher risk and can be illiquid. I’m speculating that the firms that administer these retirement programs are scrambling to upgrade their investment choices to include a menu of private equity offerings. As a financial advisor, I’m a bit concerned about the decision to make riskier investments more readily available to almost everyone.
SA few years ago, an investment firm advertised that, if you wanted to invest like the wealthy, they were your firm. They offered choices beyond traditional stocks, bonds, mutual funds and ETFs. Unfortunately, many of those who thought they were investing like the wealthy have lost significant money.
Ken Morris. (Provided)
Such losses could mean working beyond their intended retirement date for many investors. What’s just another day in the market for the ultra-wealthy is often a catastrophic loss for everyday investors. And in many instances these significant losses came about when investors were swinging for the fences. But they played the game without a scouting report, commonly known as research.
With economic forecasts and projections all over the map and private equity firms now trying hard to get a slice of the retirement pot, it’s time for investors to be levelheaded. Be wary of overreaching by taking on unnecessary risk.
*A diversified portfolio does not assure a gain or prevent a loss in a declining market. There is no guarantee that any investment strategy will be successful or will achieve their stated investment objective.
Securities offered through Kestra Investment Services, LLC (Kestra IS), member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisory services offered through Kestra Advisory Services, LLC (Kestra AS), an affiliate of Kestra IS. Society for Lifetime Planning is not affiliated with Kestra IS or Kestra AS. https://kestrafinancial.com/disclosures
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect those held by Kestra Investment Services, LLC or Kestra Advisory Services, LLC. This is for general information only and is not intended to provide specific investment advice or recommendations for any individual. It is suggested that you consult your financial professional, attorney, or tax advisor with regard to your individual situation. Comments concerning the past performance are not intended to be forward looking and should not be viewed as an indication of future results.
A trader's handheld device shows his sell orders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, March 9, 2020. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 1,500 points, or 6%, following similar drops in Europe after a fight among major crude-producing countries jolted investors already on edge about the widening fallout from the outbreak of the new coronavirus. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
New tariffs imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration are starting to raise prices on some consumer goods, and many Michigan households are struggling as a result.
The youth-led effort, funded through the city’s Grow Detroit’s Young Talent program, helps to educate Detroit youth about financial wellness and money management. Participating mentors receive extensive training on how to lead workshops and encourage participants to take control of their personal finance.
Mutakabbir joined The Metro on Monday to talk about the program and how her background in finance shaped her mission to educate others.
Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.
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