If any can give me their perspective on this it would help. I've got over 300,000 miles on my program. Should I upgrade using my miles or keep racking 'em up? And what are the benefist of accumulatin say to 500,000?
A bit vague but I'm just curious about this "Up in the Air" reasoning. Thanks!

Generally I try to use miles instead of accruing more. They don't appreciate, and may even be devalued by the airline.

The Up in the Air reasoning was due to AA's policy of giving lifetime gold status after 1MM miles, and so on for 2MM and 3MM. So you could be lifetime gold, etc., and have no miles in your account after using them up.

If you can use them and want to use them, use them. No use in holding them up to say 10 million "just because." I can understand people wanting to build up a good stash for retirement, but beyond that, devaluation of miles would make me want to err on the side of "use them now."

BTW, welcome to FT! You should give us a little more information on your FF program and what your usual travel is like (i.e. class of service, frequency, etc.) so we can better help you. After all 300k miles on one airline could get you a lot more on one program than another.

Welcome to Flyertalk

There is no reason to accumulate miles, they offer you no benefit until you use them. It's just a question as to what you want to use them for.

The only really good reason to save them is if you prefer to fly on paid tickets for elite status. Otherwise, burn 'em.

They don't appreciate. As the gentleman said in Night of the Living Dead, "Burn 'em".

welcome to ft aetos....keep a balance for a rainy day & use up the rest....no point in keeping them....

I'll say it a bit differently. Figure out what you want to use them for, save up for it and THEN burn em. For a special itinerary in First Class, 300,000 might not be enough!

That said, I'd spend some time on FT before spending them on anything. Lots to learn and if nothing else, reading the differing perspectives will help you determine what is important to you. The two extremes are using them for a 25,000 mile domestic award versus for a ridiculous First Class experience that most of us could only have dreamt of save for miles. Obviously, I vote for the latter!

And welcome to FT!

Many flyertalkers value their upgrades. I have never upgraded using miles and I don't think I ever will. Are free tickets for friends and family a possible use for you? And there are some other uses for miles.

The number of miles in your account and the number of miles you've earned in a program over your lifetime are two different things. Your lifetime total, which Clooney was bragging about, doesn't go down when you claim an award. I have over 2.7 million lifetime AA miles, but my current balance is far lower. (It went down by 200,000 this past summer when my wife and I flew from the U.S. to France and back in business class. Well worth it.)

AA is not the only airline that offers lifetime status based on total lifetime earnings. AA is, however, probably unique in counting all miles earned from all sources. Most, such as UA and DL, count only flight miles - not bonus miles, partner miles and so on. Some use other systems, such as bmi that grants lifetime Gold status after ten consecutive years of earning it. In all these cases, though, your account balance at any given time is irrelevant.

As for what I think you should do: Stevens397 said it well, two posts up from here. Ditto to his/her welcome, too!

ditto for that. i would definately use them and use them for upgrades./

I have a bit of a counter-opinion on this matter. I think there is some benefit of accumulating at least some amount of miles in order to have a stockpile. For example, I value int'l premium-cabin travel. I make it a point to always have at least enough miles to get one first class ticket to anywhere in the world on two separate alliances. This gives me the peace of mind that I can decide to fly anywhere I want more or less any time (with the flexibility of two alliances' award inventory).

So, if I were in a position where I needed to take a domestic trip and could book the exact same flights for either for $400 in cash, or a 25,000 mile award, I'd probably go with the cash option in order to not deplete my stockpile. If it were $1200 vs 25,000 miles, then I'd go with the miles option because the bargain was so large.

If I got to the point where over time I was accumulating miles quicker than I could ever spend them, I'd make different decisions and would spend them whenever possible. I do agree with the notion that they don't increase with value over time (i.e. no interest is paid), and there's a chance of reduced value over time (although I think changes to award charts is sometimes grossly overstated), so above what I want to have for a "comfort level," I see little value in holding on to a large pile of them.

As far as saving them for retirement travel, unless that's coming up soon (say, 5 years or less) for you, I wouldn't bet on it. Past a certain point, too many things could change with the way mileage programs work. The one thing you know will not change is that money will continue to work.

I agree with almost everything you said. That's how I think.

One difference, I redeem 25000 miles for a domestic ticket that would cost over $500/$600 if I bought it outright.

I am nowhere close to retirement but I am trying to accumulate far more than I use/need at the present time. My second child is just around a year. I am planning for the time when he turns 3 or so which is when we will start traveling a lot more than we do now.

For me, part of the question is how long is the flight are you thinking about upgrading? I would rarely if ever use miles to upgrade on a flight of less than at least 3 or 4 hours - just not worth it to me - but might use them for a longer (i.e., TATL or TPAC) flight. Absent the opportunity to use them for a worthwhile upgrade, I'd say you should use them sooner rather than later for a free trip.

I second that accumulation has some value here, to a point.

Our primarily limiting factor is time off and with most trips being domestic family visits, we don't spend that many miles per year.

I also believe pretty strongly in holding .5m points distributed across a 2-3 primary carriers for program flexibility, though our trips are mostly domestic and relatively short distances so economy is fine.

I've learned that if I'm willing to work credit relatively aggressively, I'm pretty sure I can create .5-.75m year, or .25-.5m in excess of what we use.

Since I can generate that excess for the moment, I will. I suspect that I'd go to a pure maintenance mode if our bank reached 2m points across all accounts. That's not hard to imagine at all (though a year ago it seemed unthinkable).

Of course, there may be special programs I'm working for status. That skews things a bit.