Love to travel, hate to drive so...

Can anybody tell me the best way to fly cheap? 8 hours driving is my limit so we have to fly everywhere. We have a CC that earns miles but you have to spend $50,000 to get two domestic flights free and that takes a long time with us. We don't travel with our jobs so we don't earn FF miles. 2 vacations per year don't earn enough FF miles either especially if one is a driving vacation (which for us from DFW is only hot springs or branson). I have been investigating buying a points TS and using some points to fly but that seems too expensive when you add cost and MF.

You may need to look at using ff miles every 2 or 3 years and then do the cost averaging over the 2-3 year period. We fly to Kona, Hawaii at least once a year which is the only time we get flight miles. We use the HA cc to accumulate additional miles (we each have one). Using our ff miles eoy brings the cost average down to less than $300/pp per rt flight. That still gives a decent savings. Using points to fly, as you have found out, is not saving money.

We use our Alaska credit card and get enough miles accumulated to fly "free" every second year. For the intervening year, we use the $50 companion certificate - not free but better than full fare for both of us.

Which airline credit card do you use? Do you shop online? E.g., if you belong to AA, they have a shopping portal. If you go thru aadvantageeshopping.com when you shop, you get X miles per $1 spent, depending on the Merchant. Sometimes they offer bonus miles for spending a certain amount or using certain merchants. Do you charge everything you possibly can - bills, gas, groceries, Dr's, insurance, etc.?

Pat H said:

... Do you charge everything you possibly can - bills, gas, groceries, Dr's, insurance, etc.?

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I agree with Pat.
I hastle with family quite often. The worst of them earn well over $100,000 and spend it all, but use CCs which earn no ff or pay cash or write checks to pay bills.

They are constantly making stops at the ATMs to withdraw cash rather than using CC. And, any ATM will suffice. Paying a fee doesn't bother them.

They withdraw from an ATM and hand me cash to book flights on-line. I gain ff while they pay the ATM fee.

Pat H said:

Which airline credit card do you use? Do you shop online? E.g., if you belong to AA, they have a shopping portal. If you go thru aadvantageeshopping.com when you shop, you get X miles per $1 spent, depending on the Merchant. Sometimes they offer bonus miles for spending a certain amount or using certain merchants. Do you charge everything you possibly can - bills, gas, groceries, Dr's, insurance, etc.?

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. . . timeshare MFs? We charge every penny we possibly can on our RCI elite rewards cc.

We use a MC that gives points and you can use the points for shopping or flights. We just always use it for flights. As far as what we use the card for. EVERYTHING! Every possible bill goes to that card. All gas and groceries. Basically any purchase more than $5 goes on that card. Just paid an outrageous amount to have carpets and furniture cleaned. On the card. We pay it off at the end of each month but we use the heck out of it. Unfortunately, the house and car payments must be drafted from the checking account. They won't let them go through the card.