This illustrates what I am saying. Most people who burn miles are Platinums who travel a lot anyway for business or pleasure, so adding a 20th and 21st international trip in a year won't be a problem as they are away traveling almost every month and one way or the other they will have somewhere they can go to (on an award ticket) anytime of the year. If an award is not available they pay for the ticket. Chances are if you make 20 international trips a year at least 2 will have award availability. Even if they did not have the miles, chances are that they would still make most of the (award) trips, so indeed it is a genuine way of saving money for them.

Also they all have flexibility in their life, and either travel a lot for work or have a job that allows them great control of their time. Personally, I can barely plan what I will do next month talkless arrange a reward trip for December.

For the onepass members who do not fly that often but build up a moderate amount of miles in their account it is extremely difficult to find convinient awards - if they had places and time to fly to, they would also be plats. I suspect for many silver and gold elites their onepass account serves little more than to collect miles rather than reward their loyalty.

Sorry, but I think your ideas about Platinums and their travel are a bit misguided.

I for one, don't make many revenue int'l trips (I can recall paying for about 2 in the last 5 years). Most of my revenue tickets are domestic.

If I can't get availability, by no means would I pay for an award ticket. If I can't find Qantas F availability, I'm not going to say "oh well" and shell out $14,000 x 2 tickets for fun.

If your scheduling won't allow you to plan well ahead of time, you probably will find CO miles of more benefit to you. CO tends to "dump" seats at the 2-month mark (give or take), so emptier flights are more available for rewards. Many people don't like planning a big vacation like that with such short notice, but others find it suits their needs better.

I have seen countless posts here on FT talking about how the mileage cannot be used, later to find out the posters hardly exhausted their options -- often because they didn't know what they were. Further, lack of creativity among customers and agents prevents use of mileage. When I book an award, it's often because I personally suggested a creative path to make it happen.

When booking a return in WBC from NRT a while back, the agent said NRT-SFO is not available anywhere around my dates. I asked about NRT-PDX, and it was, then asked to search for AS PDX-SFO or PDX-OAK to connect with it. We booked NRT-PDX-OAK, and I was all set on my preferred date. The agent said she didn't know AS served that PDX-OAK market. But that goes to show you that those reservations agents who may be experts in booking revenue tickets on CO metal, are by no means experts in finding reward seats. It's a totally different skill.

Yes, his idea of Platinums is waaaaay off the mark. I rarely travel internationally for work and I only just recently made Platinum. I would have made the EXACT same comment about not having any problems using my miles even when I was just a Silver or a Gold (in fact I have made that comment before making Platinum). Fact is, I have never had a problem booking trips to various cities around the country. Maybe I am just lucky or maybe I don't sit there and expect CO (or any other airline) to have the exact flight (time and day) that I want to fly and if they don't I refuse to fly for free. That's simply stupid. No, I am flexible and sometimes it may mean an earlier or later flight or maybe even a different day but I make it work.

Why do people have such unrealistic expectations of airlines. Why would anyone in their right mind expect to get a free flight, whenever and wherever they want. That's simply not how the world works. And if you really think miles are a ripoff then hey don't join OnePass (or any other mileage program), but don't sit around and constantly complain (and whine) about how you can't use your miles EVER!

Why don't you give Mrs MBM3 the option to use the miles for her own Valentine's gift? That might get you farther than airline miles...

Guys only trip = AMS

I generally burn my miles on family vacations, and other family member's flights. I fly about 30% international for business, most of it is for vacations and is usually because of a sale at that. I've never paid more than $1000 for a plane ticket, and hope to keep it that way unless a good Business Class sale comes up.

I used to plan, much the same as you. I switched from CO to NW because I could never use the meager (40k) miles I had in my account. I don't hoard my miles, and usually book something as soon as the miles hit my account. The great thing about plat is that if my plans change, I just redeposit the miles.

I don't see why you can't say, "Hey, I'd like go to Buenos Aires or Costa Rica for Christmas". It's pretty easy to plan, isn't it?

Thanks to everyone for the great ideas and suggestions. I think I will piece together a trip online before working with the International desk on flights.

In reponse to some of the posts:

1) I have found CO to be fairly decent when it comes to using my well earned miles. But I am also a realist who understands that I need to be educated and flexible when I reserve intineraries, espescially international considering all of the great options we have with partners.
2) Don'y worry about Mrs. MBM3 - she takes her fair share of "girls only" trips.
3) I am leaning toward the South Pacific if I can convince my new boss that I deserve a week off this spring. Yes, it will be a LOT of BIS time but it will allow me to obtain a goal of mine (flying the upper deck of a 747 (DTW to NGO or NRT)) and possible take the ever so cool island hopper from GUM to HNL.