MeanwhileBackAtFAI

I recently had a less than ideal critical user journey booking award travel in J with very flexible dates (+/- 10 days at either end) for an FAI-DUB round trip.

Ended up with
FAI-SEA-DEN-LHR-DUB, on BA from DEN onwards
DUB-BOS-IND-SEA-FAI, on DL to SEA

Took a long time to get that done and any attempts at West Coast to/from LHR/AMS/CDG non-stop were futile.

So I paid 160k miles and about $700 in fees. Arguably I saved 2k, for a value per mile of 1.25 cents and I incurred a bunch of opportunity cost due to routing/layovers.

I can't help to wonder whether I am doing it wrong. What are you using your miles for most often?

Chugach

How far in advance were you booking?

Generally speaking, it can be tough to find availability on the more desirable flights during peak seasons, so if you are booking travel now for summer then I'd say you did fine. I'd also add in there that if your travel is in summer, that's also peak time for travel in and out of AK, which doesn't help.

As for the opportunity cost, to each their own. If you saved 2k, that's better than a sharp poke in the eye.

I went to Ireland back in June 2006 and routed ANC-SEA-JFK-SNN outbound and SNN-ATL-ANC inbound, on DL. That was a paid ticket that cost less than a grand in Y, as I recall.

Kufat

I have almost 400k miles, and I'm planning on doing the whole ~330 days out booking for a Pacific trip in J. That said, my only redemption so far has been a NYC>SEA trip on 4 hours notice, which cost me 12.5k miles and would've been almost $500 for a similar routing* had I paid cash.

*Couldn't book the exact trip on one ticket for cash because of the limit on AA/AS code sharing.

MeanwhileBackAtFAI

It was a 6-wk advance booking for May outbound and Aug inbound. The in/out of AK wasn't the issue, it really was the lack of availability on the TATL legs.

It's not really about "value per mile redeemed in cents" for me. To me the value of award tickets is in long-haul international business class. To that end I don't feel like I get enough value out of the above mentioned DUB-BOS J vs a LHR-SEA J but beggars can't be choosers and those were the seats available.

I realize that these are #firstworldproblems .

I am also not complaining about saving 2k, depending on how you look at it the savings could even be as much as 4.5k if considering lowest duration routes.

Really just curious whether most readers do save up for that magical Emirates First experience or constantly withdraw via the 12.5k option as the previous poster mentioned.

SanDiego1K

I booked two F LAX-DXB-JNB on Emirates at the old redemption level.

I booked two C LAX-EZE on LAN.

wwongo

I know I keep hearing that premium international tickets are the best use of miles but it has not really worked out for me. In part because I just can’t plan that far in advance and I can’t be very flexible with dates, so there has not been availability when I need it. Add to that planning a trip to Scotland with my 80 year old mother who lives in the DC area but won’t go to a New York or London airport to get there.

I have done nearly all domestic travel the past few years and although I am going to Europe on three separate trips this year, I just ended up paying for the tickets which have been pretty reasonable this year. I bought one trip in economy and two in premium economy and I am fine with that level. I don’t value business class enough to pay actual money for it, so I don’t consider miles spent on business class as really worth more than I would pay for it. This is obviously a big YMMV.

So the question was how am I using them. One way is the often maligned “miles and money” now that they are upgradable, there is really no down side and 10,000 miles cuts about $107 off my fare. Since this is money that would have actually come out of my pocket, I set that as the baseline that the miles need to be worth for me to use. Some trips don’t meet that baseline. I found that on my trip to Iceland over Memorial Day weekend, for instance, that using miles and paying the fees, did not meet that threshold over paying cash, so I bought the tickets.

Another way I use miles is for family members to fly out to Seattle to visit me. The 12500 coach or 25000 first saver rates can be a good value. I also sometimes use miles for a family member traveling with me and then pay for my ticket so I can get the elite qualifying miles.

mroseman13

I typically use points to fly domestic trips, only when saver space is available and the cost to purchase is >$400 - so i get about $0.015 per point.

flyupfrnt

I burned 180K last week for 3X RT V fare's SEA-BNA for this seasons upcoming Seahawks Game in Nashville. Killed me to spend that many Miles for domestic but $1020 each was more unbearable.

Eastbay1K

I have spent a few million miles in premium cushy seats to far far away places. I've also spent a relatively small handful of miles on domestic US travel, but much of that was prior to AS flying anywhere outside of the Western US and Mexico. Most recently, it was for a VX transcon in F.

fishywang

I burned my miles for SFO-JFK-ANU-MIA-SFO on AA J (SFO-JFK on F) for me and Mrs, and PEK-SJC roundtrip on HU J for my parents.

eponymous_coward

My last redemption, I burned 62.5k miles for HKG-LAX-SEA in AA F.

(I'm going to add an undecided additional leg in AS F on to either Mexico or Hawaii closer-in by using the free stopover in SEA- I have until January to do this.)

ucdtim17

I burned 150k miles on saver F transcons and a handful of other 5k west coast redemption for wife/kid. In the ballpark of 2 cpm so I'll take it

Madone59

+1. Emirates at the old rate was killer.

I'm looking forward to CX F before the redemption changes.

Finkface

I've burned 2 x CX F, 2 x AA F NRT-LAX (yeah, I know, but it was to get home from NRT after using all my UA miles to get there on NH), and for this fall, AF J to CDG and 2 x BA F NBO-LHR-SJC.

Aliquot

I have found that the best value for me is FAI-small lower 48 cities like TYS and SAF at 12,500 and US to Erope AA/AS 20,000 mile redemption. I have almost always been able to find awards at these levels within a day or two of my ideal dates. Getting somewhere slightly more comfortably in J or F is not worth the extra miles to me.