Originally Posted by
lynda_insideflyer
Yes - interested in hearing from anyone who has earned over a million miles/points in any travel program in any (legal!) way.
Thanks!
I think this may not have thought out well.
First, most hotel points (Starwood the main exception) are valued at about a 5:1 to 10:1 ratio to airline miles. So 1 million hotel points is more like 200k airline miles or less. And if you're not asking about 200k airline miles, why ask about only 1 million hotel points???
Second, I know of no hotel program that shows you lifetime points, because they don't mean anything to the program. So while I may have earned a million lifetime points at one or two programs, I have no way of telling, because I wasn't keeping track (and neither were they).
Meanwhile, at airlines, if you aren't "hoarding" without burning, you can't tell your progress toward/past million miles from sources other than flying except at AA, because each airline only show you the lifetime miles that
it counts toward lifetime status or threshold award certificates.
And so if you aren't keeping track of lifetime "all sources" miles at the other airlines, how would you know??? (And since it doesn't matter at other airlines,
why would you keep track of it?)
So I can tell you that I got to 1MM at AA in about 4 years from when I joined the program, less than 1/5 of that from "base miles" on flying (since I just barefly requalify for Platinum each year), another 1/4 or so in bonuses on flying, and the remainder on various non-flying stuff (credit cards, dining, hotels, rental cars, other random promos, etc).
But the others I have no clue, because once used up (or moved, or expired) I had no point in keeping track of them at their original sources.
What I can tell you, which is perhaps more signficant, is that whenever I can earn non-flying miles toward a choice of different airlines (that I collect miles with) and no other airline has a much better bonus, I choose to earn toward AA,
precisely because only there do non-flying miles count toward lifetime status.
Only when another airline has a bonus that AA can't come close to for the same non-flying activity (or only when another airline can give me miles at all for that activty) do I choose to earn miles toward another airline.
But the moment I hit 2MM miles at AA (Lifetime Plat), all that will change, since the third 1MM miles won't get me that much more (not enough to work hard for). So at that point, I presume I'll suddenly stop caring much about lifetime miles...