Northwest Airlines Earning and Using Miles

Earning Miles on Northwest

Unlike its partner Continental, Northwest has maintained the 500-mile minimum for short flights. Their SkyTeam membership means you can accrue miles with Aeroflot, AeroMexico, Air France, Alitalia, China Southern, Continental, Czech Airlines, Delta, KLM, and Korean Air, with associate member airlines including Air Europa, Copa Airlines and Kenya Airways. They also have non-alliance partnerships with Cebu Pacific, Garuda Indonesia, Japan Airlines, Malaysia, Kingfisher, Air Tahiti Nui, American Eagle, China Airlines, Gulfstream International, Jet Airways, Malev Hungarian Airlines, Midwest, Alaska, Big Sky and Hawaiian (a strong list, considering their SkyTeam membership)

In addition to the usual array of partnerships (including a 50% bonus for business class), Northwest frequently offers bonus mileage opportunities for using a combination of their partners to accrue miles.

Using Miles on Northwest

Northwest has a pretty similar reward chart to Continental, requiring roughly the same number of miles and offering the same two-tiered system of low-mileage capacity controlled awards and higher-mileage no-capacity-controlled options. One pleasant aspect to using Northwest miles is that they have long offered partner availability on their website, so you can check whether most partners have flights available right on NWA.com (a handful of partners, such as China Southern, are not available online).

Another occasionally useful Northwest promotion is their frequent Cash-and-Miles option, where you can pay for a flight using miles and cash (generally about $500 plus 20,000 miles for an Asian award, less for domestic and European awards). There are certainly plenty of times when the co-pay is actually more than simply buying a ticket, but it’s worth checking to see if it’s available when you want to fly.

Northwest also recently introduced a set of awards called PerkChoice where you can use miles for half of the ticket (half of the number of miles required for a round trip ticket) and purchase the other half of the ticket. You’ll even earn miles and be eligible for upgrades for the purchased portion.

Northwest Airlines Secret: Use your Northwest miles to book Delta and Continental tickets when the flight is less than 3 weeks away. Northwest does not charge a fee for these tickets, while the other airlines do.

Northwest has a generous fee schedule for frequent flyer tickets, with no fee for booking an award (though they currently have a fuel surcharge of up to $100, though that has been advertised as temporary), no fee for booking within 21 days, and only a $50 change fee. They do charge a $25 fee to make a reservation on the phone, though most of their partners can book reserved through the website.

Northwest Airlines Secret: Continental has the nicest business class service to Hawaii in the sky, with plush seats and full meal service. If you are using Continental, Delta or Northwest miles to go to Hawaii, definitely consider redeeming those miles on Continental – your trip will be much more comfortable. If the Continental flight is not available, consider the Minneapolis-Honolulu flight on Northwest if it’s being flown on an A330 – you’ll also fly in comfort.

Learn More About Northwest Airlines Worldperks

Northwest Airlines Worldperks Overview
Northwest Airlines Hubs and Routes
Northwest Airlines Earning and Using Miles
Northwest Airlines Worldperks Elite Status
Northwest Airlines Worldperks Elite Status Matching