When you get airline tickets for a trip, jot down the ticket number. You can then use this to get miles for the trip if it wasn’t booked with your Frequent Flier number.
On most production trips, I don’t book my travel. The producer or their assistant does. Usually I’ll give them my frequent flier numbers so I can get miles for the trips. But most of the time, my Frequent Flier account doesn’t get added to the itinerary. Sometimes while checking in at the airport, I can add my account number at the kiosk. But this doesn’t always happen. After this, the easiest way is to save the ticket numbers so you can enter them on the airline’s website after your travel is completed. You typically have 90 days to do this. I usually do it while organizing the receipts for the producer after I get back.
Using any of these 3 methods (book with FF account number, enter FF number at kiosk, or enter ticket number after travel is completed), I ensure that I get the miles for my travel. If you’re a freelancer, you have to be vigilant about this. If you travel a lot, it will add up fast and you can start getting upgrades and free trips.
Do this with Hotels and Car Rentals too. But that’s more for another post.