Originally Posted by
pinniped
At the risk of striking a piece of bait that is following a very slow-moving boat, I'll say the only time one needs to "waste" to collect miles is logging into their airline's website to buy the ticket.
In fact, the act of *not* collecting miles would probably *cost* me time, because my KTN is stored in my FF accounts. If I do not log in, I'm not getting Precheck.
If you're referring to time spent on mileage runs or suboptimal routing to try to earn more miles, you might have a point but your post doesn't make it very well.
220k for 3 J tickets sounds like a pretty nice award (on most of the routes where United has a J cabin, anyway). Lounge crowds have nothing to do with collecting miles.
Actually, I find this true for family members. Without status you collect amazingly few miles on tickets, and with partners sometimes 25% of miles flown (making even a TPAC nothing). And then you have to ensure that your miles don't expire, before you accumulate enough or find an opportunity to spend.
And for partner airlines sometimes you have to chase the miles, re-submit or whatever.
It is annoying and does take time.
And as for lounges, yes, flying premium out of the US internationally gives you lounge access, but usually the US lounges aren't much to speak of.