My strategy is to use miles for any travel(esp. long haul travel) that I don't want to spend my own $$$ for.

I.e. : Travel to Hawaii with family...even at "discounted" rates of $700 a tix starts to add up fast for a family of 4. That's what the miles are for imho.

I just burned 450,000 miles yesterday for 5 business clas tix to Hong Kong. Pretty good value considered biz tix run anywhere from $3500-$6000.

The only concern was from my wife who wondered aloud how many tix to hawaii that would "cost her"

(Coach Tix were running @$800 to HKG but I could not imagine a better use of the miles for a 16 hour trip!)