Hi All! I just joined FlyerTalk Today. I have a question on using miles versus paying for a ticket and earning miles.
I'm a Platinum AAdvantage member, and I'd like to get to platinum again this year (or even XP, if possible!); however I need to log lots of miles or segments. So far with 19 segments this year, I'm 7148 from Gold and 32178 from Platinum. I'm planning a trip to PUJ this summer, that is pricing out at:
- >$1000 for a flight on AA (~5200 elite qualifying miles),
- ~$750 on US Air (who knows what happens after the merger), or
- ~60,000 miles + $107 if I use AA (cheap, but no elite qualifying miles).
My question is whether there's a flyertalk rule of thumb for deciding when to use miles versus when to pay for an expensive ticket to get elite qualifying miles.
Thanks!