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.

I usually redeem for peak week coach seats to Caribbean Islands. For Presidents week 2010 I got six AAdvantage award seats for JFK- SXM. IN the past I have done the same to STT, AUA, and SKB. Those seat usually go for $1000 or more.

On the hotel side, I have redeemed Christmas, Presidents and Easter week at various properties including Hilton Whistler, Westin St. John, Westin Mont Tremblant, Hyatt Aruba, Westin Aruba, Hilton Los Cabos, Hilton Barbados, and Hilton Key West (when it was a Hilton). Those room go for $400 to $900 a night.

I am very pleased with the value of my redemptions.

Long haul international F.

I've had a rather mixed bag so far.

With American I used 260,000 for two OneWorld J class tickets on a US-Rome-Brazil-Mexico-US trip. I have also used some for a last minute ticket for myself to Michigan, for family and friends to come visit me, and for Admirals Club memberships. Right now I'm saving up for another OneWorld J ticket.

With NW/Delta I've used them for friends to come visit me.

With United I've used a lot of them for upgrades. I got to try the new 767 J class seat last year. I've also used a lot for the Red Carpet Club and for friends to come visit me.

With USAirways I used some for a friend to take a trip he couldn't afford to, for a friend and I to go to San Francisco and for a friend of mine to accompany me to Savannah. I now only earn US miles with my Bank of America Check Card so they're accululating rather slowly.

In my pre-flyertalk days I used them for domestic tickets and upgrades.

Since discovering FT last November I've accumulated 300K miles on AA and am planning in an around the world vacation flown in J, maybe F if I earn enough.

upgrades on longhaul after running out of SWU's (TATL, TPAC, NA-SA)

award tickets when the fare would be too steep

Primarily for business-class trips to Europe, then domestic trips for relatives and very occasionally when I need to travel domestic at a specific time but the prices are too high. I've managed to get tickets at the lowest mile level for almost every trip on NW, UA, SK and AA, but suspect that I will no longer be able to accomplish this on DL.

Oh, I upgraded a couple of NW Europe flights with miles on a B fare several years back. Forgot about that.

Same here, Rudi taught me that trick in the 90's. Up until that time I would save the miles for a free business class ticket, but he pointed out that buying a cheap coach ticket and using miles to upgrade resulted in the flight earning miles and counting for elite status (and the miles counted toward Million Miler status as well). It also allowed you to fly in business more often. :D

These days, though, as was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, the miles cost for upgrades has greatly increased (particularly for the discounted coach tickets) or requires a cash co-pay, if miles can even be used to upgrade (some fares are not eligible for upgrade no matter how many miles you offer). So, I don't upgrade internationally with miles as much as I used to, although I still do so occasionally.

My largest outlay of miles is once a year my S.O. and I will take an international vacation in business or first to some exotic place. Using miles for such tickets is the best "cents per mile" redemption, and certainly helps V's mood.

I also occasionally use my miles to get tickets for vacation visits by relatives and friends, and once or twice have used them to get last-minute tickets for myself where the cost of buying the ticket would have been outrageous.

International Premium Cabins. Preferably XF but XC when travelling with family. This is by far the best bang for your buck. No comparison to domestic travel in any cabin. We never use miles for international upgrades but will use for transcons.

I used to use for last minute domestic getaways but now I am going for the gold with international rewards/upgrades.

Upgrades for long trips ...sponsoring upgrades for friends and family that otherwise would of never seen F in their life.

Mileage upgrade that includes domestic that I knew as a low/mid tier elite I had no chance to clear and longer than 6 hrs flight time. eg. BOS-DFW-YVR, 7.5-8 hrs of F.

Also do reward long haul F/J ticket provided I can save up frequently enough

#1. International first or business awards to europe and asia.

#2. More often but much less fun, last-minute short trips (350 miles) to small aiports where the fares are always high. The route doesn't have first class so coach awards always.

Ideally for international TATL or TPAC business class seats and upgrades or Hawaii upgrades.

As a practical matter that has become difficult on UA the last few years due to *A blocking and obnoxious inventory controls. And the upgrades will soon be a worse deal due to the heinous co-pays (ditto for AA and CO).

Also would like to have used for coach travel to Cancun and Orlando but found that impossible during peak season on all major carriers.

As a result the only miles I've burned last year were for my infant on SFO-BOS-SFO. Well worth the 25k cost even though she could have travelled on my lap for free, as she slept the whole way. :) The only thing that pissed me off is that UA would not refund 5k when it launched an award sale.

I think I have found the best use for my miles :-)

The future mrs gdaily is living in Ukraine, and she needs to get a visa for every trip/country we visits. The problem is that she needs to show a return ticket when applying for the visa. And it is not 100% that she gets the visa...

So I book a refundable ticket with miles, she applies for visa showing this ticket, and if she gets the visa, we cancel this ticket and buy her a cheapo ticket instead.

For my self, I have used miles mostly for upgrades to biz on long flights.

One of the Few Who Flies Coach?
 

Economy class for domestic US and international vacation travel.

I can't justify spending 2x the miles to fly up front, for just a few hours of less-uncomfortable travel.

All of my miles have been used for Saver Awards on Star Alliance. Some trips include:

* Japan in 2004
* London in 2006
* Hong Kong in 2007
* Thailand & Japan in 2009

Re: OP. I do the earning on leisure trips on my own dime, always on a coach fare code. Usually it's by bottom fishing spot-special or hub-attack fares (DL/NW sometimes take aim at CLT for those). Sometimes a real "gift" comes along in the form on a mistake fare that also earns usable miles. Thanks to the economy lately even the WN/FL-match fares can look pricey, and my flying on DL/NW has dropped a bit. Free upgrades are never objected to.

Burning is for leisure trips, also in the back. SE Asia is a favorite target, and it's important to maximize value with stopovers, open jaws and things like that. HNL as a stopover for Asia trips is nice, for example. Domestically a favorite target is Alaska in September at 25K RT.

The high-water mark had to be a 60-day summer 2006 odyssey with Australia (CNS), New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Samoa grafted onto a SE Asia trip with MNL-GUM-CNS on CO a key connecting link. Took 7 total tickets, 4 of them as awards, and 125K miles.

Take LAX-HKG, for example.

It's a 15 hour flight and the difference between Y and C is ~20k miles, or 2/3 of a credit card application.

Having experienced both products (Y and C on CX), the decision is a no-brainer. What's more, F for an additional 12.5k miles is also a no-brainer.

On the domestic front, I agree with you.

For a trip AUStin - SYD, Mrs. Middle_Seat and I flew Economy Plus on UA. Had to pay a couple of hundred dollars for the Economy Plus membership, and used it again for a domestic trip before it expired.

All other trips, we try for exit rows.

New to FF
 

For those of you who use your miles for International F and J tickets, how many miles do you normally accumulate in a year? Also what percentage of those miles come from something other than actual miles flown?

I will b flying about 4-5 Tran-Pacific r/t and some domestic flights back in the US next year. That seems like a lot to me but at that rate it will be years before I can afford to purchase an international F class ticket with only miles. Am I missing something or do I just not fly as much as I feel that I do.

I flew a bit more than that for a 10 year stretch up until mid 2008, and have dropped to (an accrual rate of) less than 50k per year since. However, around the same time my travel tailed off, I started to get more serious about credit cards and related schemes, and have never felt richer (in terms of miles and points).

Part of the problem with flying a lot of transpacs in Y (since you didn't mention a biz class travel policy, I'm making this assumption), is that you end up burning a lot of miles on upgrades (either directly or via trade) so the net result isn't so impressive.

Applying for credit cards, by contrast, can be done from the comfort of your own home (i.e. soar legs and jet lag don't enter the picture).

How do the taxes and fees compare for Y and the premium cabins? 20k additional miles sounds like a relatively small price to pay, but I was always under the impression that the taxes/fees for a C or F redemption represented a substantial additional cost...

Taking your LAX-HKG example, how much are the taxes/fees for a CX award ticket in C? In F?

If using AA miles, the taxes/fees should be identical in all service classes and AA does not collect YQ for award redemptions. (BTW, it's possible that there are exceptions to both of these rules, but I've never encountered any.)

The only case I think think of where premium awards entail higher taxes are flights to/from LHR because they have a luxury tax there.

Vacations with the family - mostly Caribbean, Hawaii, western US, etc. I may be the oddball, but I'd much rather take three coach flights to Hawaii, Aruba, Grand Cayman, etc. for week long vacations than a single J/F flight to Europe, Asia, etc. Sitting in a comfy seat and getting free drinks is nice, but it's only for a few hours, vs. the week of the actual vacation I'm traveling to.

My guess is, those who took the J/F seats to Europe, Asia and Australia, dont just fly there and back for the sake of flying although flying in comfort is a big added plus. They also spent week(s) long actual vacation, too. We spent 6 1/2 weeks earlier this year doing an AA OW130C to the Pacific Region involving 7 countries and 11 cities. On top of the comfort afforded by lieflat seats over Pacific, lounge access in airports also is a valuable benefit. :)

It also depends on where you are in relation to where you go. For folks on the East Coast, going to Hawaii in coach is kind of tough. Likewise for folks on the West Coast, going to Europe in coach is also tough, but is much less so for folks on the East Coast.

The flights to Asia and Australia are just waaaay too long to endure in coach to many people, even for folks on the West Coast. The flatbed seat, even the lieflat seat, really makes HUGE difference.