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..