Originally Posted by
jareckik
For those of you who use your miles for International F and J tickets, how many miles do you normally accumulate in a year? Also what percentage of those miles come from something other than actual miles flown?
I will b flying about 4-5 Tran-Pacific r/t and some domestic flights back in the US next year. That seems like a lot to me but at that rate it will be years before I can afford to purchase an international F class ticket with only miles. Am I missing something or do I just not fly as much as I feel that I do.
I flew a bit more than that for a 10 year stretch up until mid 2008, and have dropped to (an accrual rate of) less than 50k per year since. However, around the same time my travel tailed off, I started to get more serious about credit cards and related schemes, and have never felt richer (in terms of miles and points).
Part of the problem with flying a lot of transpacs in Y (since you didn't mention a biz class travel policy, I'm making this assumption), is that you end up burning a lot of miles on upgrades (either directly or via trade) so the net result isn't so impressive.
Applying for credit cards, by contrast, can be done from the comfort of your own home (i.e. soar legs and jet lag don't enter the picture).