How to Maximize the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard

The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®, offered by Barclays, has benefits that few other airline co-branded credit cards offer. If you're a frequent Frontier Airlines flyer or even an infrequent family traveler, this card can be worthwhile if you know how to get the most out of it. Here’s how you can maximize the benefits.

Ways to maximize the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®

Know your card’s perks

The Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® comes with a $89 annual fee and has a welcome bonus for new customers: Earn 50,000 bonus miles plus, $100 flight voucher after spending $500 on purchases and paying the annual fee in full, both within the first 90 days.

Cardmembers also get the following perks:

• 5 miles per dollar spent at flyfrontier.com, 3 miles per dollar spent at restaurants and 1 mile per dollar on all other purchases.

• A $100 flight voucher each year after spending $2,500 or more on purchases with your card.

• Access to Family Pooling and no award redemption fees.

• 1 elite qualifying mile for every dollar spent on the card.

Redeem your welcome bonus miles

The first thing to do to maximize the perks on the card is to use the bonus Frontier miles that you’ll earn by meeting the spending requirement. Check Frontier’s award chart and you’ll see that some one-way flights start as low as 10,000 miles, which means you can start planning your next trip soon.

Plus, with the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®, you won’t pay fees to redeem your miles — saving you up to $75.

» Learn more: Frontier Airlines reward optimization for beginners

Because Frontier has such cheap fares, it’s sometimes a better deal to pay cash than to pay with miles. NerdWallet values Frontier miles at around 1 cent apiece, so 10,000 Frontier miles would be worth around $70.

Earn your annual travel voucher

One of the best perks of the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® is the $100 annual travel voucher; you can earn one annually on your card anniversary if you spent $2,500 or more on the card in a year. The voucher will load in your Frontier account six to eight weeks after your anniversary date, and it expires 180 days from the date of issue. Your travel date can be further out — you just need to book the travel within the 180-day mark.

The travel voucher can be used only for airfare and taxes. It can’t be used to pay for Discount Den membership, fees for picking your seat or any baggage charges. You can use the voucher to pay for multiple people’s airfare so long as it’s all booked in one transaction.

Spend your way to elite status

Unlike other airlines, Frontier lets you earn elite status exclusively through credit card spending — no flying required. Every dollar you spend on the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® earns 1 elite qualifying mile.

If you spend $20,000 on the card, you earn 20,000 elite qualifying miles and Elite 20K status, which gets you perks like a free carry-on bag and seat selection. Spend $50,000 and you reach Frontier Elite 50K status, with more perks. Spend $100,000 on the card, and you will earn 100,000 elite qualifying miles and top-tier Frontier Elite 100K status.

» Learn more: Your guide to earning miles with Frontier Airlines

Pool your miles with 8 of your closest friends

Another unique feature of Frontier’s frequent flyer program is that they allow pooling of miles with a group of up to eight people. Although Frontier calls its program “Family Pooling,” the eight people can be anyone, including friends and co-workers. To unlock Family Pooling, the head of the pool must either have at least Frontier Elite 20K status or hold the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®.

Pooling your miles can be a great way to get value out of them before they might otherwise expire. Consider a family of four flying from Denver to Orlando once a year to go to Disney World. Since Frontier awards miles based on the flown distance, each member of the family would earn about 3,000 miles from the round-trip flight. With Family Pooling, that would be 12,000 redeemable miles — enough to redeem for a one-way domestic flight.

Keep your miles from expiring

Frontier has one of the strictest award expiration policies of any airline out there — Frontier miles expire after only six months of inactivity. If you’re an occasional traveler, it can be difficult to keep the miles you’ve earned from expiring.

One easy way to do that is to have the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard® and put at least one purchase on it every six months. Doing so will reset the clock, keeping your Frontier miles from expiring.

» Learn more: How to use flight credits on Frontier Airlines

The bottom line

To get the most out of the Frontier Airlines World Mastercard®, you need to use it wisely. First, earn the welcome bonus and the $100 annual flight voucher, then consider which other card perks, like Family Pooling and a fast track to elite status, could be most beneficial for you.

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