Originally Posted by
Xinran
Tumbleweed666 - I've gone round in circles trying to work out whether it would be best to buy miles or pay for flights. I haven't come to a clear conclusion. My husband's and my miles will be virtually wiped out after this redemption, and if we pay for the children's flights, yes, they would have 20k, but at this time, I can foresee they may well be lost. Being in the UK doesn't make it as easy to earn miles without trying.
I'm also in the UK, I earn a lot of my miles on an MBNA Amex card. 1.5 miles per £. I also buy them, when there is a sale on
(BTW did you know there is a 30% off sale for UK members from 24-27 May?Thanks to Phil in previous thread for that) . If you fly BA here you can credit your BA flights to American as well.
But I use my miles on business class flights, where you get best "bang for buck. I also personally would never use miles to fly to the East coast, for the following reason.
Miles to fly to Florida =40k
Miles to fly to SFO=40k
Miles to fly to Hawaii =40k.
eg its the same. However, it most certainly isnt the same cost !
Therefore, if you ever think you might go to the west coast or further afield, it makes no sense to redeem miles to the east coast. When we went to Disney some years ago, I paid. Then, a few years later we went to Hawaii, business, partially with the miles earned on the Disney trip. Had I spent the miles on Disney, I'd have been paying (guessing) 1.5-2x the cost of an Orlando flight to get to Hawaii and 5-10x for business class.
There are many ways to keep an account refreshed, you only need 1 mile every 18 months. More difficult with kids I agree you have to be creative for example a few months back there was a deal, watch an ad, answer a couple of questions, get 150 miles. More importantly that refreshed Mrs Tumbleweeds account for another 18 months.