Tchiowa

Turn my hotel points into United points. Burn UA with upgrades mostly. Although right now my boss is paying for travel so the points are mounting up. Close to 600k. But I'll burn them with a couple of international business class trips next year.

gggg707

Although the saver in me loves to hoard miles and points, I have been forcing myself to burn them. What's the point of all this work if I'm not enjoying them? Although obviously, I obsess over whether I'm getting good value for the miles and will pay cash if the redemption isn't worth it....

StartinSanDiego

I feel like I need a 12 step program...

I just burned 300K UR points and about another 150K+ AA points, and about 200K hotel points on 12 (twelve!!!) flights from the West Coast to Europe throughout 2015, a total of 5 separate trips for myself and family. This is going to be an exciting year for my traveling family, but the trauma of having so many less points to travel at will is, well, hard to take!

A whole bunch of hotel rooms are already booked, but I need to earn up some more points to book more of them. We are augmenting the chain hotels with small, boutique hotels from Hotels.com. Much of the travel will be by motorcycle, so we can really get off the beaten path. I depleted the once flush UR/UA account to less than 600 points, <sob> but we are going to Europe 5 times in 9 months, so no complaints! Well, mostly in coach, so maybe a wee bit of a complaint...

I am happy that I beat any impending devaluations, because my mantra has been... this is too good to be sustainable.

uncommonsensical

I have no choice but to burn, as I don't really have " home" anymore. home is whichever hotel i am registered (unless I'm staying with family while visiting). no employer to pay for flights and hotels, so I am fairly engaged in point acquisition when in the US. I could never afford my lifestyle if I had to pay retail for tickets and hotels.

to my message title: i think a change is brewing. MS is being attacked from all sides and churning peaked with the AA executive gold rush. I think this golden age of MS is in the late innings. couple that with programs moving to revenue based, and I believe miles/ points will be harder to come by in the future- which could end up benefiting hoarders. I'm north of 5mm total now: 4mm in balances plus another million booked. an inflated # given 1.3mm HH and 350m IHG. sadly, in 6 months I'll be down to somewhere around 1mm I question whether I'll be able to get that back up to even 3mm again.

dogfan

since most airlines will devalue their miles sooner or later,
it is better to spend the miles as soon as you can

indelible

Got 110k SW miles and CP last year from the CC bonuses; tried to burn them all to take advantage of CP, which expires this year. Taking a trip to OAK 12/13-14 and then going to SJD on 12/25-29.

I'll have 22k left over at the end of the year.

I'll be working on burning my 360k AA miles between Europe and maybe the Caribbean over the next 2 years.

It'd be a lot easier for me to burn points if it was easier to get time off work.

bobby21

That's my problem now. Too many hard earned miles, devaluing fast, and no vacation time to spend or even recklessly burn them...

capacutec

I am undecided whether to burn or save. It will become more difficult next year to accumulate miles with the new DL and UA structuring. The model keeps changing, and I think UA and DL will begin to charge higher service fees to cash in miles. Oftentimes I can find airfares that are cheaper than burning tens of thousands of miles. UA has consistantly had my preference over the past 6 years, however, other options are out, especially if it will be much more difficult to achieve premier status.

factory81

This is my problem too. I find myself doing a few too many hotel promotions it seems, and getting nothing out of them really at the end. I just have.......more hotel points sitting around. But when you sit and do the math on what a "good trip" of Cat 6-7 marriotts or IC/CP/Indigo IHG hotels, or Westin/W/St. Regis/La Meridian SPG hotels will cost you - I realize I must continue to earn piles of points in hopes that I will get the opportunity (and we all will, at some point) - to burn them recklessly. Because all it takes is a 2 week vacation to burn through 200-300k hotel points (depending on the hotel chain). So I suppose with myself sitting on 129k IHG points, 150k SPG points, and 122k Marriott points (if I complete my latest megabonus 25k bonus); I have just enough points to really plan a 100% free high-end 2 week Euro-trip.

It seems hotels are easy to book on points. Meanwhile the art of air redemptions is just so annoying - you sometimes give up even trying to use miles. Like I just made EXP - so now I have SWU's to burn before they expire. And I can't use them on award tickets..............so the incentive to burn those AA miles now is gone (until I blow through all of my SWU's). Which makes me a hoarder of AA miles. I used to think it was cool to have 200k AA miles, then 300k, then 400k, and then I blow past 500k and it seems 600k will be easier than ever to hit....you just wonder when you will make it to a million.

The BNA Gentleman

I haven't used a single skymile yet since I started flying Delta a few years ago. I feel like Smaug!

pinniped

I'm not *quite* that bad, but I think my last Skymiles award was in 2006 or so.

My issue is that I hold no Skymiles status and don't even fly them enough to bother trying to figure out if there's somewhere within the alliance to get a status match. I fly DL or AF once or twice a year for work and credit the miles into a DL account. So I'm slowly accumulating...but my lack of status means that any kind of leisure-travel redemption probably needs to be in J/F.

So I'm hoping that the one-way awards in 2015 will maybe unlock a use for DL miles, preferably on a partner airline somewhere. I have about 40k now...figure that'll be good for a one-way J award somewhere. If I'm lucky, of course.

onobond

OK, I'm a hoarder, hoping to use after retirement. One F redemption on AA 3 years ago, one on SPG 2 years ago

uaflr

I'm burning my UA miles - 72,000 this year - 190k left for 2015.

I'm hoarding my AS miles - earned 110K this yr - spent O!!

Scotttyd

burn em - they are devaluing faster than I can use -
-used 240k Hilton points for 4 nights in Moorea - now they jacked up what is needed for that same stay
-I am saving up my IHG points (after my wedding I will get a glut of them) to use on a week stay in either the Cayman's or Jamaica.

jjmiller69

I've burned 370k DL miles this year. I've got another 200k to get rid of yet. It seems all miles are worth less the longer you hold them.