What is the best usage of miles?
 

First, I'm really talking about any flyer with a yearly range of EQM's under 105,000. Or people that through flight and CC points generate around 165,000 miles per year!

How do you use your miles and what do you consider the best usage to be?


If you generate more then 200,000 miles per year I'm not to interested in how you use them unless you'd like to donate to the skibum family fund!

First and business class tickets to faraway places like Asia and Africa. In other words....flights that cost in the the tens of thousands each, that you could never afford to purchase yourself.

And to those who think they can't earn enough miles for this kind of travel, get the credit card.

I often find the best use of my miles is for very short, otherwise very expensive trips. This may be more of an issue in Canada than the USA, but I'm not sure.

For example, a flight from YOW to YTS is only a distance of about 420 miles, but flights up there regularly range around 1000 CAD (with advance planning). Because of the short distance, it's only 15k to pay in miles.

Second choice would be as Ericka said- F and J tickets that we wouldn't be able to afford otherwise.

I agree with Ericka.

I do a lot of travel between Europe and the US. Economy usually costs around €600. Business (were I ever to pay for it!) would cost around €4,000. So: I pay for coach, and I use miles for Business or First. As a UA1P or 1K, 4 RTs in Economy (for €2,400) get me enough miles to do an RT in Business. Seems like a good deal to me...

For me it's an upgrade; but if you aren't going to be traveling for a while (or earning miles) and want to prevent miles from expiring than one great use is to get a magazine subscription to keep the account "active" and not lose miles. The absolute worst thing to do with miles is "nothing" and wind up losing them.

It is a value judgment. If you feel that the best use of miles is using miles for the most expensive sets of tickets, then upgrades and business or first class seats are the best use. If you feel that the best use of miles is the maximum number of trips, then economy/coach tickets are the best use of miles.

I agree completely but I will also add that miles are there for emergencies as well as when my best friend's father passed away last May and being Jewish, one has to be buried within 24 hours (or have an exception made as was the case as he died in Florida and was being buried in Boston) and with that, he died on a Friday and was to be buried the following Wednesday and there was no way I could afford even the cheapest ticket so I used miles.

I typically use them for vacations in biz (long haul overseas). But I did just book a friend a ticket from BOS-LAX to come visit me. I haven't seen this very dear friend in a while and this was a great time for them to visit but we only decided a week in advance and the tickets were $700 which was out of budget. So yes, 50k for a domestic roundtrip sounds like a massive waste, but it means a ton to me to be able to see this friend so in a sense it is priceless to be able to use my miles this way

- Last minute rewards to go places I wouldn't ordinarily go. Last year I got to go to Game 1 of the World Series on a 32.5K Y Saver Award. The cheapest tickets were around $800.

- Tickets to get friends/family to come see me who couldn't afford to visit. I've done this numerous times and I've never regretted it.

- Premium Cabin tickets on Premium Routes. Some of my best inflight experiences have been on AA F between JFK and LAX. Or the Oneworld J class award I did to Rome and Brazil several years ago was great.

I like to use my miles towards family trips to Hawaii..

Classic rewards were 40K.. going up to 45K..

We've done this for 8 years now.. every year.

Still have jetlag from my trip to BKK. I'm keeping all sorts of weird hours!

The reason I ask, is the temptation, after mounting 165,000 miles is to blow them on a F ticket to some place in Asia. A handful of years ago, I did just that, blow loads of miles on trips to BKK in F. After awhile found it silly and a waste of miles. Now I use miles for standard awards to Asia for family member to join me on trips or for segment upgrades. With only making 3 to 6 trips to BKK each year I always ran the prospect of a lose of status if I used one or more of the trips on miles in F.

My relatively new idea for the last several years to gain space on long haul trips: I book in E+ try and get no one by me. I let everyone board then I go to the desk about 10 minutes before they close the gate and ask if there is any seats on the airplane where I can catch some sleep. I've always had luck finding the 4 open seats on a 747 or 5 open on a 777 and go to them and set up shop. This takes the guess work out of...is this seat taken or not...will someone step in and move into seats I want to go to once the door closes and so on... However, I do feel odd when I have 4 seats in the center and several rows on my left and right are 3 deep! I just remind myself that with planning you reap it's reward.

I use my miles for family vacations. With my status bonus unless it is a very expensive or last minute fare I just pay so I can earn miles and status.

My best use of miles is that which saves me the most cash that I would have spent on purchasing the goods/services in the traditional way (using cash and/or bank cards) even if I had no miles/points and which has the highest return per mile spent to save cash on such purchases.

I find the funny money valuation of miles using full-fare first class or business class award tickets to be amusing but unrealistic unless the purchase using miles/points is a substitute for a purchase of the same using cash or credit/debit bank cards.

Business class tickets to fly from US to South Asia - those 14-16 hrs non-stops can be brutal in economy and for just 120K for business class tickets (that would cost at least 6000 USD), that is the best value for us for our miles.

So about 5 cents per mile.. I read on a thread that they valued their miles at 8 cents a mile on a mini RTW in business/first..

Reading FT posts.. makes me think that somewhere down the line we need to start discovering first class.. seems to be the short cut from buying First Class or Business Class Tickets.

I value my points at 2 cents, possible sometimes 3 cents per mile..

This is FlyerTalk, so the first job is to exponentially increase your harvest of miles (and points). No, I mean it.

What you prefer to spend them on is up to you; for me, I have given some "dream trips" to others - e.g. US-HKG-BKK r/t in First for a honeymooning couple that was very concerned they were not at all well off (restaurant business!), wanting to visit his family in Thailand, and looking at over $3,200 in (yech!) Coach! Instead, they got silk pyjamas, suites, F lounge access, a much more memorable way to get there and back. Cost to me, some miles; benefit to them, priceless.

(As they discussed the dates and costs, wondering how they were going to do it all, @:-) went on - the looks on their faces when I told them casually they would be flying First Class on Japan Airlines, first disbelief - "Of COURSE we're not!" and ultimately calling to verify the PNR I have them... THAT was the payoff to me!)

No doubt, study FlyerTalk and 'way up your take, broaden your scope and raise the barrier.

Motivational speaking at its finest.^

Being a 15 year member of AE.. we've flown on points all the time..

Miles collections has opened up spectrums.. all of a sudden more money in the coffers to up the level of travel in terms of accomodations and such.

Instead of spending $thousands on travel before getting there.. the $thousands are saved either for accomodations or another trip.. so its' been a couple of vacations a year for us now for last 5 years on points..

Joining FT, I've opened my eyes to new possibilities learning from many contributors here on FT! A heartfelt thank you!:cool:

longhaul F. It pains me to redeem for shorter F flights that are still long-haul, like TATL flights. One of the best values out there in my opinion is Europe to Southern Africa in F for 100k.

Depends how much time you have to travel. If I had several months to travel the world each year I'd likely redeem for the maximum number of trips...but since I don't I go for J awards that I otherwise couldn't justify purchasing using cash.

In December of 2008 I had a measly 40K miles with AA. :eek: Then I discovered FT.

Current levels: 610,000 LT miles and 530,000 RDMs, 70K HH and 51K SPG points.

I have used my miles for east bound TATL upgrades.

Right now I am planning on using the remaining to take the family on an exotic trip to Asia when I retire from the US Army in the next year or two.

ABSOLUTELY!!!!

(See my signature below for proof! :D)

Great thread for the MilesBuzz forum. I'll move the thread there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Sounds like FT did the trick..

Looking forward for myself to benefit greatly, and continuously as we roll along!^

Since we have been moved to miles buzz I'll tell everyone an amazing trip with miles/points one can take with their wife or girlfriend!

Hyatt gold passport points are quite easy to earn miles/points from plus they are always offering amazing deals on www.Hyatt.com Whenever family comes into town, a weekend away for me and the wife or a business trip I try and stay at Hyatt Place or Hyatt summerfield suites. This way I can rack up points with minimal out-of-pocket expenses. Note: weekend stays from Friday to Monday are always less.

Now the way it works is after you generate 5000 points you receive a free night's stay in a standard or for 7,000 points a Grand club. Under the free night selection in gold passport you will find listing around the world you can stay at. The lowest free stay is 5000 points to the highest at 33,000 points for a suite. Check out the 12,000 point stay in Aspen for a studio!

Internationally Grand club is worth the extra 2000 points because each morning you get a paper and breakfast and each afternoon you get drinks, wine, beer and hors d'oeuvres and it is well over the top in quality, service and selections. I stayed at the Hua Hin Hyatt in Thailand in a Regency club king last year and with the Continental breakfast, evening drinks and hors d'oeuvres we only ate snacks by the pool or had a late dinner while out in Hua hin. The hotel and beach were awesome, the trip was great, off to Bali Hyatt this year for 2 weeks.

The amazing trip: r/t to Bali in F. Stay at the Bali Hyatt for 2 weeks in a club King. Airfare and hotel paid for in miles/points! Two weeks at a 5 star hotel on the beach, inclussive of 2 meals...memories for a lifetime!

If hotel points are part of your game, consider using either an SPG Nights and Flights award or a Marriott Travel Package as your starting point if you have/earn points in either of those hotel programs, especially if you can time the redemption with a stackable promotion like the 25% to 75% USAirways hotel point conversion bonus going on right now. I just redeemed 70K SPG points for 87,500 USAirways miles PLUS five nights at a nice Category 4 Starwood resort (~4 cents per point for this redemption, overall), as well as 270K Marriott Rewards Points for 210K USAirways miles PLUS seven nights at a nice Category 5 Marriott Resort (~2.1 CPP for this redemption, overall). Once you have the US miles in hand, you can use them for many Star Alliance flight redemptions, including some of the suggestions bound to show up in this thread. I used 55K miles (I get 5K off as a US-branded credit card holder) for a first class off-peak round trip to London next winter.

Thank you...I'll look over the plans!

The problem I find with most hotel plans is that I really only want to spend less then 75.00 for a nights stay. With Hyatt I can stay at either Hyatt place or Hyatt summerfield suites for as little as 49.00 to $75.00 and each night I generate 2500 points.

Last year I spent 64.00 average per night on 25 stays for a total cost of around 1720 with taxes. These times were used in business or weekend trips etc. This grossed me a little over 70,000 points included some bonuses. I then booked the Bali Hyatt for 5,000 points per night for a couple weeks! If I bought the room outright it would have cost well over 3,000 with taxes.

I'd love for someone to show me how I could have done better...I'm not saying I couldn't how...I just don't know how!

In reading over all this...I see why 25-75% is a great deal! Could have turned my 70k in 122500K (if I needed miles) How did you still get the 5 nights? I'm not clear on that part?

Marriott and IHG (Priority Club), like Delta and USAirways do in the airline department, offer very generous promos that are often stackable and/or free and can be utilized to get boatloads of cheap points. With Marriott, a lot of them are leveraged by having status (particularly Platinum), but lacking status doesn't mean you can't still take advantage of a lot of them. You can buy gift cards at 10% off and stack 4% cash back on top of that. You can buy those cards with a Chase Marriott card and get another 5 points/$ on the spending. You can book your room online and get another 3% cash back. You can earn 200-500 bonus points as an arrival gift if you're Platinum. Typical Megabonuses will allow another 2,000 points per night if used wisely. You can get 10-15 points/$ as a member (higher amounts the higher your status). In the end, it's usually easy to make $90/night stays for an effective cost of $75/night and get 4,000 points. If you save those points and then utilize it via a redemption like the ones I described earlier, you can make the points worth 2 cents each.

With SPG, every 20K points redeemed at once is subject to a standard 25% bonus, yielding 25K miles. The US promo, if you qualify at 75%, makes that 43,750. You wouldn't want to redeem 70K... you'd want to do an even increment of 20K (40, 60, 80, etc) if you are doing a straight conversion. The 70K comes into play because it is the number of points needed for a Nights & Flights II package (read the details in the link I gave earlier). Of those 70K SPG points, 40K are converted to 50K, then 87,500 US miles with the promo. The other 30K are good for the other half ("Nights" portion) of the package - five nights at a category 4 property, which can often be a nice resort that typically commands $300+/night.

It is fun to give someone a First Class Airline flight and throw in free Hotel stays. I've done it a few times and I know the experience will last them a lifetime.