I hardly ever use miles for travel, because I'm usually in one of two situations: either I can get an inexpensive ticket or someone else (a client; when it's my own company, we can plan for discount fares) is paying.

I use them for upgrades, especially trans-oceanic, where the price difference is absurd but the number of miles is not so bad. And I've used them once in a while for "whim" travel when cheap tickets were not available, as in attending a Wednesday evening party given by a friend on the opposite coast of North America (no Saturday night stay, ticket would have cost $2,000+; I used 25,000 miles).

More than anything else, though, I give them away. The most recent was a US round trip to a niece graduating from college. In terms of value, it was her biggest present from anyone except her parents. It was appreciated even more than a check for the price of a ticket would have been. I think, subconsiously, people think about all those hours we have to spend sealed into aluminum tubes to earn the 25,000 miles or whatever.

I can imagine wanting to use lots of miles to travel with a special someone, though my current situation doesn't lend itself to that. Still, I'd be tempted to use miles for her business/first class ticket, buy myself a cheap ticket so I'd earn miles, and use a few more miles to upgrade that!