Reaping the rewards of your frequent flyer program

My sister used to work for a multinational company, and her job entails traveling all over Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. She made sure she’s a member of the frequent flyer programs of all the airlines she flew with and she was able to redeem the miles she earned. She also have credit cards that has a tie-up with airline frequent flyer programs.

I followed her example, and I am now a member of Philippine Airline’s Mabuhay Miles program, Singapore Airline’s Krisflyer and Qantas’ Frequent Flyer. Since my work doesn’t pay for my travels, I earn considerably lesser miles than she ever did. However, I still manage to get a sizable amount of miles thanks to my Manila-Melbourne flights.

I have enough for a round trip ticket via Philippine Airlines to one of the places in my Philippine destination list. The miles won’t be expiring until 2010, so I still have ample time to earn more. However, I’m pretty impatient (not to mention broke and itching to travel) and I am thinking of redeeming the miles this year.

So the question is, do I use it to travel to one of my 2008 destinations or wait until I have enough for an international trip? If I’m going to use it for an international flight (within Asia), I would need to earn twice the amount of miles I have right now. What to do, what to do?

 
How does this work anyway? I know I have a form to submit to redeem my miles, but how many weeks prior to my intended departure date do I redeem to ensure that I get to travel on the date I wanted? Answers to any (or all!) of my questions are much appreciated 🙂