Earning miles

I'm probably wasting my time but I'm new to using miles. In fact I've never flown on an airplane before either. I've been racking my brain on ways to get a lot of money fast and obviously that's impossible. It's a catch 22. I have to wait to earn enough money to get there but by the time I get enough I will have to earn more. I've been thinking about using airline miles but apparently that's not always mile to mile which I find stupid. Instead of being confusing, make it the actual amount of miles but have people earn less. If not, don't call it miles call it points. It is overwhelming me. I have some miles from a survey site but they're not enough even if it was miles to miles. Which airlines go miles to miles? Also how do I earn more? I have tried something called e-miles. That barely gives you anything and a few of the offers didn't credit. Also I know another problem is you can't always combine with different frequent flyer programs so it'd have to be the same airline.

I have googled how to earn miles and all I can come up with is using a credit card (I already have student loans that are due so I don't need that). Here's my dilemma. It's not just about getting cabin fever. My hotel credits will expire in 29 days. Sure I can go somewhere else cheap but that will be money I will regret. I was planning on going to Florida because I know you can drive there but here's the thing. It seems like swimming with dolphins is only a seasonal thing at least in SeaWorld. I don't know about anywhere else and I can't seem to get much information about other places. I guess Hawaii is a ridiculous dream especially for this year but I was led to believe in September that I could go there. Mom and I went to a seminar where you could get free travel and we called before it expired but they couldn't book it before the expiration date. They said there was nothing they could do.