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 average roughly 250K BIS miles a year, all business travel, about even mix, segment wise, of domestic and international. With elite bonuses that gets me up to 500K. Usually around another 50-60K from CO MC and other sundry bonus miles.
I use my miles for big RTW trips every year at this time. For example this year, I spent last week in Europe visiting friends, then flew on to Langkawi, Malaysia, where I am right now, staying at the Datai resort (which is stunning, by the way!). Then back home via TPE and LAX.
I also try to be fairly generous with my miles, getting friends into F or C/J, which they otherwise wouldn't be able to do.
I am a big believer in burning my miles, and try to use them as fast as I earn them. I have over 2MM lifetime on CO, but right now have less than 500K in my account. My philosophy is, why wait around for the airlines to devalue this currency even more? As I get closer to retirement, perhaps I will try to hoard more, so I can travel more frequently, but for right now I just like to use them.