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George Clooney's character in the film "Up In the Air" portrayed just how obsessive frequent flyers can be about accumulating airline miles. Real life Ryan Bingham's are no less so, and they have an online destination where they can indulge their passion.

"FlyerTalk is probably where all the mileage-crazy people hang out. And, in terms of social media, everybody has a habit and if your habit is frequent flyer miles, you'll be over on FlyerTalk -- about 13 million posts by people trying to collect more miles," said FlyerTalk founder Randy Petersen.

These days, Petersen says it's easier than ever to accumulate miles.

"Used to be, we just flew to earn miles. Today, the average program probably got 200 different ways to earn miles and some of them are pretty darn easy," said Petersen.

For starters, frequent flyers should have an airline-branded credit card.

"You not only get a certain number of miles for every dollar you spend, but if you hit certain tiers, you get elite points and that basically sort of catapults you up into the ranks of the frequent flyers," said Greg Lindsay of Conde Naste Traveler.

Bonus miles also provide an easy way to pad your account.

"If you fly on a new route or fly from this city to that city, which might be in your plans, you might get bonus miles or bonus status qualifying miles, which helps you to reach the next level of tier in their program," said frequent flyer Dr. Robin Dyleski.

The key to snagging the lowest tier award is to take advantage of your airline's partners.

"There's these global alliances, so you may have points with Continental, but you can still redeem with Continental or United or U.S. Air or Lufthansa or Air Canada or 20 other different airlines," said frequent flyer Seth Miller.

And whatever you do, don't hoard your miles.

"They don't earn interest sitting in the bank," said Miller. "And the airlines, over time, are going to constantly be changing the redemption values and they don't go down. So, over time, you really are going to lose value on them."

The worst case scenario for a frequent flyer is losing those hard earned points all together.

"In the last two years we've seen eight different airlines go out of business. And I'm sorry to report, all the members of those programs lost all their miles," said Petersen.