Bangkok or Rio

Riga!
 

if you like eastern european cities... Riga is not to be missed. i went there and Tallinn for a week last may and they were amazing. the food, culture, museums, and nightlife were very worthwhile.

highly recommended, and it's close enough for a long weekend trip!

I would use the miles to send your wife on a great trip. Let her choose where she wants to go.

Now THAT's what I call a vacation! :D

Whenever I see a subject title like this, I get a little adrenaline rush! I love tracking the "time expired" between the original post and flyco's response. Thanks flyco for making this so fun! :cool:

(2hrs 17min)

Oh she got her little Tucson spa trip last fall.....

Silly me for having some fun here. Next time I will write a novel in the subject line to spare you guys a boring click of the mouse....

;)

Miles are a scam
 

Judging from what I see on this board using your miles will be more difficult than going through the eye of a needle. Unless one is flexible that is and willing to travel when and where CO wants you to go. For people who have heavy personal committments and work a tight non-flexible schedule then finding a suitable reward flight seems near impossible.

I have 200K miles and not much use to me - prefer to use them for international upgrades but that too is near impossible. FF miles to me are one of the greatest scams of the 20th century. They are largely worth nothing because a currency is only valuable if it is exchangable for goods or other currency but what good are FF miles when you cant spend them. There must be billions of miles world wide which will never be spent in exchange for goods or services. Whilst some do manage to use there miles I suspect most of us just bank them for no good reason. I know people with well over 500K miles for several years - now what use will that ever be if it has not been useful all these years?

Wonder what happens to the miles when we die?

You can't take everything you read on the internet at face value. A frustrated poster who can't get 6 BF seats on a IAH-LGW flight on the Friday before Memorial day at Standard level may write up a rant, but that doesn't mean the miles are useless.

It's important to note that CO does not control its partners' inventory. Sure, CO is stingy at giving out seats, but they don't control AF, VS, KL, etc., and your OP miles are good on them.

If you want to redeem your miles on a specific flight on a specific date, and fly only on CO, yeah, they're harder to redeem than they could otherwise be.

But with reasonable flexibility (e.g., carrier, routing, dates, etc.) and an understanding of the partner networks and combinations of carriers you can use, they're much easier to use. Having redeemed over 1 million OP miles in the last 12 months, I can tell you that partners is the way to go.

I agree that miles are sometimes difficult to use, but if you use a little creativity you will get great use out of them. I've burned through more than 500,000 miles in the last year (465k on NW, 35k on CO) and gotten $30k value out of these trips. (If I had purchased them directly)

It's quite important to plan ahead. I've burned 175k miles since December on awards that were going up (35k US-South American awards), and booked a number of rewards for next Christmas. These awards will be impossible to get if you wait a few months before you want to go.

I've never used miles for domestic flights, and use the miles for high dollar tickets. For example, you can book an Asian $3000 BC ticket (from NRT) for 30k miles.

It's always quite important to check partners for flights. Almost none of the airlines will list non codeshare partners when you check flights online. You chave to go the extra mile to check MH, Copa and other flights.

Depends if you want to spend 5 days in the plane or on the ground. Alaska would be great in the summer.

But the south pacific would be my first choice don't know the mileage rewards of hand.

Can he do an island hopper with 130K

I'd go for Guam, if I remember correct, there is a nice Westin or Sheraton there...

-I'd also take the Islander Hopper in one direction (both is alot). It's one those things you have to do like once in your life... (kinda like the Concord would've be...). Esp since who knows how much longer they'll keep is going (hopefully a long time as this is a very economy vital flight)...


-Vincent

here...i'll change it up this time:

"So What Would You Do?" what?

i would have created a decent Topic title.

;)

Feel free to donate them to me. I can put them to good use. I've never, ever had a problem using my miles...not sure why some folks claim that they can't use theirs. Hell, my account rarely goes over 100k because I keep using them.

You don't have a lot of time for this "guy's night out" trip, so I suggest getting the most bangs for the miles with the least BIS time. Forget about Australia and the hours, jet lag, etc. Go to Rio or Buenos Aires, traveling south/north with no jet lag and two places where the dollar still goes a long way.

You can travel to Rio via Sao Paulo on CO or go to BA via Panama using a combination of CO and COPA. It takes 90k miles for FC, which would leave you some miles to give Mrs. MBM3 a little trip somewhere in the USA or Mexico.

The CO/COPA routing requires an overnight in Panama, but it is easy and breaks up the trip. The Riande Hotel is close to the airport with a shuttle and can be had on the internet for less than $60, including breakfast. COPA treats its FC passengers as close to royalty as a 738 will permit. The PC in Panama is small but nice, and you will also have access to a club at BA or Rio.

I did the BZE last year this way and had a wonderful time -- it was one of the cheapest trips for the quality food, lodging and ambiance that I've ever had.

The CO elite desk helped me with the arrangements since it is not shown anywhere as a valid connecting trip.

Rio can be had all CO metal with no overnight enroute.

Robin