Hang in there. You'll be spending before you know it

I had 800,000 miles on line with UA before they went into bankruptcy. You never saw so many happy relatives as I burned those miles off and moved the bulk of my flying to AA.

One reason I don't keep my balance that high now is devaluation. UA, for instance, just raised award levels for all classes of tickets to Australia. Although we haven't seen any recent increases from AA, they do reserve the right to change things down the line, just as UA recently did. I'd hate to have a million or miles in account the day the award levels go up.

Last year I did separate award tickets to Australia and New Zealand, and in 2007 I'm already ticketed to Hong Kong and Australia, just to keep my balances in a more reasonable range. I burned off 80,000 miles tonight ticketing my sister and her husband to Ireland. I'm happy with the number of miles currently in my account.