So how do you folks use miles?
 

So as you can tell by my post count and my 2P status, I'm relatively new to this game, but I find it all so fascinating.

I'm curious, though -- what do you folks tend to do with your miles? If you purchase seats, are they usually XY, XC, or XF? Or do you prefer to upgrade? If you upgrade, what routes/equipment do you think are the most useful?

Finally, what do you think are the best ways to use miles for someone like me? I travel not infrequently, but not nearly as much as you guys seem to here, and I tend to have less than 100k RDM in the bank.

I personally use my miles to get free domestic tickets for my wife so she can travel with me on business trips. I'll of course use any DBCFREEs I have first, and then use miles. I did use miles for our honeymoon trip last Summer for both of us. Even got upgraded on 1 segment! :)

I know many on here use them to get biz & first classes international tickets, preferably on Star Alliance partner airlines. This is probably the best bang for your buck when you calculate $/mile. But I find great value in obtaining a $500 coach ticket for 25k miles.

I never use them for upgrades, but now that I'll be losing my 1K status next year, that might change. I would only use miles to upgrade a flight longer than 4 hours. Anything less than that would be waste IMHO.

Apologize for one more thread move, but the best forum for this discussion is our MilesBuzz one, so please follow it as it moves there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

With moderator hat off, I use miles mostly for family members and when the fare seems too high to warrant a revenue ticket, compared to the miles required.

That's what I use them for most often.

For me the whole point of the game is to accumulate miles on dull domestic travel for work, then burn them on fun overseas longhaul first / business class travel for family members, me, or all of us together. It's very satisfying to experience the world's best airline lounges and cabins in Asia or Europe, knowing these experiences were paid for almost in full by a lot of grim SEA-MSP-ORD business trips.

I rarely use my points. I've cashed them in for one first class domestic ticket and one upgrade. I have about 300K total saved up on two different airlines (63K on US and 230K on AS).

They can come in handy where you cant afford the ticket price. For instance I would like to take first class trip somewhere exotic with my girlfriend. I cant justify spending the price of a car for two tickets. I also want to visit a friend in Canada where it would cost me 25K points (AS) vs $800 ticket. Most places i fly are under $350 so i can never justify using points.

I redeem mine only for premium international travel. There's no point in using them domestically for me -- at least not right now as an EXP on AA, where I've yet to miss a free upgrade to J/F. I'd rather accumulate miles that will take me trans-oceanic, and comfortably so.

For example, this summer I had the following itinerary, which IMHO was a great use of 100K miles:

AS SFO-SEA (F)
AS SEA-YVR (F)
BA YVR-LHR (J)
BA LHR-ZRH (F)
IB MAD-BOS (J)
AA BOS-SFO (F)

So I prefer to save up my miles for itins like these.

I always accumlate enough to take overseas trips (usually to Asia) in first class.

I use mine for Hawaii and international upgrades to first/business, so the miles flown count toward elite status. (I learned that on FT.) Occasionally, I've used them to get free tickets for faculty members for a conference I own.

Red Carpet Club membership and upgrades

Admirals Club membership
Last Minute travel
Open Jaw expensive tickets

Last summer I used 100K miles to fly business class round trip LAX-CDG-EVN with a week long layover in Paris. When I priced out tickets for that trip economy cost about 2K and Business class ranged from 8-12K. This year I used another 100K miles to fly LAX-CDG-MUN with in business class for Oktoberfest. I used my SPG points for hotels in Munich and Paris and the hotel in Munich was going for over 300euro a night due to the Oktoberfest. Next year I'll hopefully have enough miles for a business class ticket to Asia on Cathay and maybe another trip to Armenia.

I try to get out to remote locations with the family or wife in J or better.

First or economy class tickets to Alaska, business class tickets to Europe. Often I invite family or friends to accompany me using my miles.

Back in the day, a sizable portion of the FT community used miles primarily for international upgrades. When used in conjunction with systemwide upgrades, this allowed many people to spend most of their transoceanic time in C or F, even as their employers/clients were tightening their purses.

But, as of now, miles for upgrades are a terrible deal in almost all programs.

However, the real game changer IMO has been the transfer of power from airlines/hotels to CC issuers.

What I'm getting at, is that in today's world, it's possible to earn far more miles than all but the fiercest of road warriors by simply gaming the system.

Alas, my current strategy:

-try to net 400k* miles per year plus hotel points and typ (or equivalent)
-maintain gold status in at least one airline program, often by of status comp (don't be too afraid of the "once in a lifetime" lingo, as there are obvious ways around it)
-spend miles in C/F on all personal travel and as much business travel as possible (and bill client for lowest available fare)
-redeem in Y on flights less than 4 hours

What I've learned is that status isn't all that important when you're flying in C or F. Neither are status miles or redeemable miles. Thus, the argument for flying on revenue tickets is greatly diminished.

*: If Citi continues to throttle back its AA initiatives, those of us that have benefited from this relationship will need to look elsewhere to stock our war chests.