GrayAnderson

It depends on the company:
-My Virgin America points, I'm probably going to burn on a cross-redemption on Virgin Atlantic in the next year or so.
-My Hyatt points, I'm hoarding...but only for a conversion to an airline. The card's main utility to me is getting some points while (A) having a chip and (B) not getting stuck with foreign transaction fees while in Canada. My best friend has a government ID, so the vast majority of the time cashing in points is borderline *ahem* pointless when we travel together. Once I hit one of the 50k levels in my account (not sure if I'll pull the trigger at 50k or 100k), I'll dump to another program.
-My Amtrak points, I'm semi-hoarding. AGR has been rather devaluation-averse so I'm inclined to hoard; basically, I pay cash for the reservations I need to chase status and I use points for other legs that are a good value (mostly to/from Florida). This is mostly netting me about 30-40k/yr in net points additions to my account.

glennaa11

I guess it depends what you mean by hoarding. I have a cache of miles/points but use a good sized chunk every year for one big trip. No use letting them accumulate too much. I used all of my UA miles before the devaluation. In the good old days when Aeroplan would let you go to Asia for 120K in F I used to book with them but spent them down when they did their devaluation. At the moment I have a big stash of US miles that I am figuring to use most of on a trip to Asia next fall as soon as the window is open. Which should be soon. Better to use them now than wait for them to also deval when the merger of FF plans finishes.

Asiatraveler15

Hoarding?

Most of you on here seem smarter than me, but why put $10,000 in the bank and get negative 20% interest?
I guess there are good reasons.

The cost of award travel seems going up, not down.

GrayAnderson

I can't speak to the miles-based programs, but at least on the basis of both Amtrak and VX it does seem that spend-based loyalty programs are slightly less prone to catastrophic devaluation than are distance-based ones. This seems to go double if there is a direct link between the cost of a reward trip if you had paid cash and the point/mile cost (i.e. miles/points having something resembling a fixed ratio to the "actual" cost of the ticket, room, etc.).

Cphil1

With all this talk of deval across the board,

what do you guys think of BA Exec (Avios)? So far it definitely suits my purpose for YUL-MIA family trips (or even quick trips). I mean who can argue with lower airfare taxes and miles per trip?

One idea shared by most FT members is that distance based programs will suffer first. And with all this scare a few weeks ago with the Iberia (once again Avios) deval talk, should I be worried?

Phil

dlerner

The problem here is that some have miles to last them for years even if all their travel is on premium awards. It is not a currency that's readily or legally redeemable for cash, so I am not clear what alternative you see?

Certainly spreading cheer among friends and relatives can help with burn.

freyguy50

we have enough to take the trip we want.

VegasGambler

I'm not sure about this. Southwest severely devalued their revenue-based point system a couple of years ago.

Honestly, VX pts are worth too much. Right now they are worth 2.2c each on domestic flights. If you are gold you get 10pts per dollar. Put it on your VX credit card and it's 13 pts per dollar. Buy 4, get 1 free, and have some pts left over -- that is pretty good. Add that to their frequent generous promos (like FTE) and fare sales (50% off F) and I'm not sure that it's sustainable.

Right now they are offering a superior product to any of their competition (VX F beats the pants off of any other domestic F product, and it's not close) at lower prices with a more valuable rewards program and frequent good promotions and sales. That can't last forever, and, honestly, devaluing the rewards program will probably lose them fewer customers than raising prices. I'm enjoying it while it lasts but I won't be shocked when it ends.

Personally, I think that they should spend more time advertising just how good their F product is. When most domestic carriers feel that an 18.5 inch wide seat and 38 inch pitch constitutes "first class", they have 21 inch wide seats with 55 inches of pitch. They are putting 3 people in the space that other airlines would cram 5.

yuel

I am still hoarding my miles, seams like they are more valuable since its harder to accrue them without getting credit cards, and so all my travel will be going to AA until they change their program.
It also seams so much easier now to use my skymiles, used to be hard to find low or reasonable awards to BKK, now its easier then ever to find 80K or 140K rt.

redtop43

I've mostly hoarded mine, and I'm glad I did.

My biggest stash is on DL, and it seems to me like they have actually gotten easier to use in the "new" Skypesos program.

I also now have a semi-annual trip where I get reimbursed by a third party who doesn't look all that hard at the receipts. So I can buy a ticket, keep the receipt, cancel it during the 24-hour period, and book my trip with miles. A little shady I know.

For me though, the biggest thing is to be able to look at my significant other of the moment and say "Wanna go to Paris/Rome/Sydney/Rio in Biz/First class?" I scored some interesting brownie points last year. My girlfriend was going with her immediate family to visit extended family in India. I found her a biz class low-miles ticket (140K) and booked it. The next day she found that her mother had already booked the tickets for the whole family, and I was able to cancel the award ticket with no penalty. So I got the "What A Great Boyfriend" award without even having to give up the miles.

sfoflyer12

I've rarely seen the value of points go up, and often seen them go down.

So I burn them.

I've gotten amazing trips out of them with my girlfriend. International three class first really stick out though we've mostly ended up going business - first is a bit too fancy for us actually.

I really value ease of use and flexibility as well, historically some awards were very flexible. We were traveling with friends.

Interestingly, I've often burned my miles a year or so before a big devaluation. So then it's fun to go look at how much that first trip would cost if we tried to book it again, usually a lot more, thanks to FT we've been able to book a lot of good value trips over the year.

My pet peeve is poor award availability or poor award discovery. So with some work changes I'm actually somewhat hanging up the miles game... it's kind of liberating to just pay cash and fly exactly on the flight and route you want, though three class first is a no go

ricski64

Over the past 3 1/2 - 4 years on my quest to obtain gold with BA and Marriott I accumulated 100's of thousand points in both programs and now that the Canadian dollar has hit below 75 cents US and exchange to the pound is basically double I can still travel without a major hit to the pocketbook. But once that's done I think our travel will slow down significantly.

gabenga

That´s the way I do too.

cova

Likewise I am continuing and will continue to fly AA until (and if) they change their program. So I am using AA miles for reward trips, since I think redemption levels will go up.

But hoarding UA miles, since they were devalued with the higher levels, particularly for partners, since it will be harder to earn UA miles with revenue based earnings.

I doubt UA will up the reward levels (since they are uncompetitive now). If anything UA has sort of lowered the rewards by now allowing a short partner flight at the UA level in business (previously was only allowed with partner coach).

kraggin

I end up hoarding airline miles, not by intention but just because I don't like flying. A lot of them are eventually given to friends to use, the rest I burn for bus/first on the occasional trip that's too far to road trip to.

Hotel points on the other hand get burned as fast as I can earn them.