Is 250,000 AA miles considered a lot????
 

Hi, I have 250,000 AA miles which is the most I have ever had. Is this considered a lot of AA miles?
Thanks.
D.

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I thought I would start another thread about this because I have more info to add.

My AA account has 250,000 miles which is the most I've ever had.
My wife's AA account has 77,000 miles.
So we really have 327,000 miles total.

I also have 37,000 American Express Rewards points which I understand I can transfer to AA or Hawaiian Air. Now the interesting part is I have 80,000 miles in my Hawaiian Account already so I don't really need to use the Amex points there although I could to round up to enough Hawaiian miles for 3 free tickets instead of two.

I am also thinking of transferring some Amex points to Hiton Honors. I currently have 150,000 Hilton Honors points. Although, I think that 37,000 Amex points would be of greater value if I transferred them to either AA or Hawaiian what do you all think? Are there other better options for the Amex points?

How would you all allocate the various options? I have to purchase 4 roundtrips each time I redeem miles for the family and will be flying coach.
D.

If you flew them all this month, I'd consider that a lot.

For a lifetime, not so much.

If you're not a Platinum or EXP, yes, it is a lot of miles. You'll find EXP flyers tend to build up that many in the course of a year with bonus miles and promotions.

250,000 miles is a lot of miles compared to someone who has no miles... and if these were the only miles you had ever earned, would get you 25% of the way to being a "lifetime gold" 1MM. 250K is more than I currently have banked.

Ultimately, the question is, do you consider 250,000 miles a lot? This is a subjective valuation of the quantity of the frequent flyer miles in your account. Personally, it's not how many you have, but how you use them... Would be good for a handful of long-distance first class travel for you and a friend, or many flights ORD-CLE (not that that's what I would recommend).

Just make sure you have activity in your AAdvantage account at least once every eighteen months and don't let them expire!

I have $250k in the bank which is the most I have ever had. Am I rich?

No, but you will be after the election.

Yes......and no.
 

It's all a matter of perspective.

Right now that's a lot, compared to me. However I am in "recovery mode" since a family trip to BKK and Japan for Christmas and New Years last year. ^

Not to hijack the thread (but I will :D) but the most available miles I had at one point in time was in 89-90 when I had about 3 million United miles and about 2 million miles with Delta, all BIS (no Credit card tie-ins back in the "Dark Ages).

Had to laugh out loud at that one. :D:D

lol!!

That's enough for two first class tickets to Asia (zone 1), Europe or South America, which on routes such as JFK - LHR, are sometimes over 15K each (even higher on some other routes). So, think of it as having over 30K to travel. :)

Haha that's about the wittiest comment I've seen on this board not involving a toe...

no

I recently used 250k miles to book two round trip tickets to New Zealand in J for my honeymoon. I found that amount of miles to be quite valuable. YMMV

250K points has a good equivalent value. Do *NOT* use them on 10 domestic roundtrips like ORD-MIA. That would be a waste.

I once had 250K Qantas miles. They scored me a roundtrip ticket on BA. One way was in F on a 747 from PHL-LHR, the other way was on the concorde from LHR-JFK. Would that be of value to you? Most would agree it is a good use of points for the Concorde experience (when it existed).

Miles are worth the value you ultimately realize.

before joining FT i would have said it was a lot, now I bow to the master(s).

How and where do you want to travel? On sAAver tix to Europe, it's 2 in F or 4 in Y.

OTOH, if you wanted to fly to, say, the MidEast on a partner award in J, at 135k each it's not enough.

As mentioned before, all that really matters is if it is alot to you.

It's a lot of miles to me.

I have to use the miles to purchase 4 tickets at a time for the family so I was thinking of doing 4 rt on Alaska to Vancouver from SFO for the olympics and then 4 rt. to Hawaii.
Would that be a good value for the miles?
What is the required miles to travel to London in coach?
D.

If you had 30k to travel, would you spend it on two F tickets? If not, what's your point?

How much would those tickets cost to buy? What else can you do with the miles? What would the value be to you?

http://www.aa.com/aa/i18nForward.do?...jsp#awardchart

Who would have thought that this info could be found on aa.com of all places?

SFO to Vancouver may not be the best use depending on what the route prices at. It's too far out to get prices for 2010. If you can get a ticket in the $200 range you might want to save the miles for something that would cost more. Frequent flyer seats may disappear quickly when they do open up. You won't know until you start playing with dates, fares, and availability. All those factor into a decision. I used an award ticket for the Beijing Olympics and booked 11 months ahead, and did that primarily in the event I needed to cancel (cheap insurance--$150 to cancel the ticket). If you are looking at using miles for Vancouver, you do want to look that far out for the best options.

With recent SFO-Honolulu fares up in the $600 range this would be a good time to use miles there. It would be 35K in coach off peak, with higher priced awards available.

As low as 40K between October 15-May 15. I'll be using one of those myself in December for a week visit.

Brilliant question. That's EXACTLY the issue that's often missed when people ponder the riddle of "how much are miles worth?"

The worth of your miles is determined by your willingness to pay -- in cash -- for the services redeemed with those miles. Not the actual price of those services as charged by the airlines.

It is not. It is peanuts.

I say spend it quickly. Miles are not worth what they used to...

not impressed
 

An average executive platinum by definition earns this number of miles every year he re-qualifies.

Mrs. BLG and I each have about 200,000 banked and I would say that we both consider our balances nice, but not anything stupendous. If I had more than 400,000 banked I would consider it a lot because I would be thinking that it was dumb to let that many bank in a mileage-inflating world. With 200-250 I figure I'm still in the ball park where I can use them for a RT Asia award in F or something else that would be feel worthwhile and have some leftover for an upgrade here and there.

Isn't how many miles are used as relevant as how many miles are earned?

Or she.... ;)

Actually, you're both wrong...your neighbors will be richer once you've had a chance to "spread the wealth around"...and you will be "happier" since you had the opportunity to "change" their lives for the better.

Won't you?

:rolleyes: :mad:

Oh, and to OP...as some others have stated, it's relative. This will be my second year as EXP, qualifying on segments; at the end of the year I'll have about 400K program to date and about 250K "in the bank". I've averaged about 150K RDM/year and about 80K EQM for the last two years. I've been an AAdvantage member since Jan 2006. Some here accumulate miles faster than that, some slower. Within the relatively rarefied company kept here at FT, I'll guess I'm on the below average end of the scale when it comes to accumulation of miles.

Does it really matter what any of us think of how many miles you have? I think not. If you're happy with the miles and with what you do with them, that's what counts.

cheers!

this is so true, tired so seeing FTers who normally would not pay for C seats gloat of the value of the savings they have when booking premium awards.

See the chart at http://www.aa.com/aa/pubcontent/en_U...p#travelawards

There are offpeak Y awards to Europe at 40k per...

To the OP's original question - I was once in the FRA AC, and the gentleman using the computer at the next desk had his current AAdvantage balance of 13,000,000 miles showing on the screen :eek: :D

Indeed. I myself have 250k+ miles banked. I plan on using them for Y tickets for my gf and myself. I'm sure many here would say that's a bad use of miles, and I agree to an extent. But I would rather take a trip to Hawaii, a trip to Europe, and a trip to Asia on those miles rather than take one F trip somewhere. They're worth more to me to go more places rather than taking one trip in F. The only way I'd use them for a premium class trip is on a Oneworld award.

I wouldn't be purchasing F or even J anyway, so I'm not really saving that money as I wouldn't be spending it. I'm blissfully unaware of what I'm missing out on. :p

Didn't the investment banker on the CNBC documentary have something like 31,000,000 miles.

wow did he live in a plane?

Essentially, yes. I don't recall the exact details but it seems like he flies ORD-LHR in paid F twice a week or something insane.

I thought it was LAX-JFK....

There's a thread about him somewhere but I can't find it.

Don't hold your breath on getting through on this very valid point- like banging your head against a wall.