helvetic

What do you all think about the dilemma of balancing earning status with one airline, vs. spending miles on free flights.

For example: I fly around 50-75k miles a year (last year, I barely re-qualified for UA *G with 56k PQMs). I highly value Gold status for the 50% CPU chance, and premier access benefits.

If I were to travel a significant amount on awards, I'd risk jeopardizing my status by not earning enough PQMs & PQDs. And yet, I'm accumulating miles & points with no good way to spend them (up to 300k or so now, half as CSP UR points). I'd love to earn some value from these points, but not at the expense of traveling with Gold status. (Also, this restricts me to UA awards to keep premier access on those trips, unless I travel in J or F.) What do people in this situation usually do?

WineCountryUA

I use miles mostly for family.
Typically I am on paid travel -- although I do occasional award travel/upgrades.

cmculp

I'm with WC-USA. I can't fly (much) on award travel and meet the PQM/PQD gates most years. This year, I'm at 140k/$15k, so the calculus may change.

I use my miles for upgrades, family travel and things like inter-island flights in HA. They are also helpful when I get mis-positioned on short notice and need a IAD-ORF or something like that. And the UC.

joseeantonior

Welp, you can also use your miles for gift cards. IIRC, 10k award miles will get you $100 on Amazon. Of course, you get $1 for 100 miles.

Kacee

This, plus vacation travel in *A premium cabin. Last year I did OZ F, LH F, TK J, and TG J and F.

I don't redeem for myself domestic.

PsiFighter37

I use miles almost exclusively for upgrades - either TCON or international. Given that there's a copay now on p.s., though, I'm beginning to think that I may be better off using them on int'l award tickets for my wife - we almost always travel together, so as long as I maintain Platinum, she can keep boarding with me in Group 1, and the $$ cost of the plane ticket goes down by half.

SunLover

RDM's can be purchase for ~2 cents per mile, so redeeming above that threshold begins to make sense. International premium travel on *A partners is IMO the best use of MP miles.

It is convenient to have some miles in your account for last minute/high cost domestic travel. I have experienced where the r/t price was $1,000 and the r/t mileage redemption was 25,000 miles. An easy choice.

Miles will ultimately be de-valued so piling them to the sky does not make a lot of sense.

Book revenue tickets (where it makes financial sense) to the point of earning the status you are looking for. Then do a stricter cost/benefit analysis consideration.


SunLover

JetAway

After you reach Million Miler status this is no longer a problem and you seriously start burning through your trove of miles.

ua1flyer

100.00 Amazon gift card for 10,000 miles. I believe it's at least 16,500.

goalie

^ The same for me (and my family is most appreciative and I get to stay in the will* )

*for now

Madone59

Same here. To me it's all about using miles for premium Intl. travel.

pbartp

I'm in a similar situation as OP and like Madone59 only redeem for international premium cabin travel (usually, but not exclusively *A). I was also fortunate enough to redeem some free travel to my sister and brother-in-law so they could visit my nephew in Costa Rica.

I enjoy the Gold benefits since I travel between 15-20 RTs per year.

teeceedee

I use miles for vacations and paid travel for work. Clear 1k fairly easily, so there's no balancing act.

The only heartburn I have is that my GPU's may expire because I use miles for international travel / vacations. That and a part of me wants to buy tickets for increased RDM earning and save miles for when I lose status in the future.

JBord

Same here. Just flew 7 family members to Hawaii. Not the best $/miles value, but they all said they wouldn't have been able to afford it on their own, and were grateful for a unique family vacation. There's way more personal value in that than I could get redeeming for myself.

GloballyServiced

I'm sure united is smiling reading about people like this.

Foregoing thousands in free trips in order to maintain gold status.