I am fortunate in that I earn a lot of miles very quickly--usually more that I would probably ever use in a lifetime if I used them wisely. Therefore, we just use them extravagantly for whatever suits our fancies.

Yes I love to travel where and when I want, but my favorite way is to use them for gifts. Getting two 1st class tickets to their honey moon destination can brighten the lives (and pocketbooks) of newlyweds considerably. They also make great graduation presents for the college bound and, of course, our children (my favorite charities) assume that the mileage fund is a bottomless pit.

Naturally, we use them for some fairly practical purposes--upgrading those nice inexpensive advance fares on the PIP express. Also to purchase those ghastly expensive last-minute-purchase-no-Saturday-night-stay fares to Chicago that can easily exceed the ten cents per mile mark.

The price for our tickets to and around Europe this Spring would have been $28,000.00 had we paid cash. It doesn't really matter how many cents per mile that was. The real point is that I probably wouldn't have spent $28,000.00 at the drop of a hat to go play.

And no, tummyg, I don't think we would ever want to deduct gift tickets from our income tax. The IRS would be more than happy to turn that coin over in a heart beat.



[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 08-26-1999).]