Another view from an Alaskan...

We are two MVPG that generally fly 40-45K a year on paid AS tickets, solely personal travel. We've been MVPG for 12 years now so the miles add up since we only use them for unplanned trips and don't have much extra time to travel on award tickets after we've qualified for our status each year. I don't think our combined mileage balance has been over 300K for at least 5 years and many times 500K or over. We did burn 190K on a Europe turn last summer and we are looking forward to using miles for international J or F when possible in the future.

However, we do keep a big balance to cover emergency or unplanned travel back to family in the midwest and two years ago we spent over 300K flying back and forth for family emergencies that would have cost us at least 10K without the miles. So I guess my point is some of us hoard for a safety net, not just to save up for awesome intl flights. I do miss saver availability out of ANC though....been pretty slim in the past 6-9 months.