Thank you, for all of us new acolytes :)

Small rewards help reinforce our families that the concepts are solid... and valuable. They also give us the confidence to do larger and more intricate rewards. Plus, it is fun to have a win, no matter how small or costly. ^

Again, thanks for all the great help and support!

Booked a $23,676, 6 segment, 3 airline, 15,000 mile all First/Bus trip today with 100k UR points. Cost me $190 plus my time to earn the points. Turns out to be about a 12,500% return on my investment. DYKWIA??? (jk) Thanks to all you FTer's who got he here.

Welcome to the new economy. Had you put the money in the bank in a savings account you probably would be charged a low balance fee.:p

details!

I guess I read the thread differently. If folks know the potential value, and choose differently, of course that's fine. Personally, I cringe when someone spends 40k miles on an economy ticket without knowing they could have gone 1st class for 50k. Now, if they don't value it for 10k that's different...and I thought that was the purpose of a lot of the comments. If someone spent their MRs on a mop knowing their other options, that's fine. But, I know I hear folks say "oh, those seats are impossible to get." Without checking or calling.

And, don't your two sentences above contradict each other :D Maybe you're shaking your head, but it's part of their "get active" plan :D Different priorities and perceived values.

So glad I've read this thread. Was thinking of transferring my SPG points to AA but after seeing a few posts about the superior value of starpoints (and confirming after doing some random searches), I'll keep with SPG. Looks like you can get some incredible hotel deals internationally. Strategizing for my first big trip primarily paid for with points miles to be early next year. Speaking of which, does anyone have any Bali resort recommendations (particularly ones I can use SPG points on?)? I'm sure there's a Bali thread so I'll search there too :)

Probably wanna start with starwoodhotels.com and enter Bali into the search box and narrow it down from there...

don't forget that you can redeem for 5th night free with SPG points which might well come in handy in a resort stay.

Guessing the $190 represents two annual fees on Chase UR cards and the $23k represents the full list price with no corporate discounts on a retail site like Orbitz.com for the F/J seats in question. An open-jaw or stopover itinerary could trigger a price like that in Orbitz.

I don't really get carried away with full retail prices for F/J, knowing that most actual buyers are paying about 30-40% less and knowing that *I* am not one of those buyers, but it still sounds like a very nice award for 100,000 miles/points.

Here here! Let's take the mythical (or likely real) example posted above with dad spending 50,000 x 4 for an any-seat award at the holidays to take the wife and kids to see grandma when they could have paid $500/ticket. In my book, $2,000 is $2,000 and I'd probably think long and hard before shelling out that cash if I could get those tickets for free. Sure, they could have gone coach to Europe, but if they're worried about $2k, then that trip to Europe is costing them a bunch of taxes (probably $100/pp depending on the route), food, and hotel costs. Plus, they're still out the $2k they spent going to grandma's. So, if they're not big on hotel programs, they're probably looking at $300/day for food and entertainment, $200/night in hotels, plus taxes. Over a week, that's $4000. Suddenly, that trip to Europe ain't free.

Nobody's suggesting that the trip would be "free". The miles to begin with are never free. You're paying for them, perhaps involuntarily, perhaps not. Their cost is bundled into everything you buy that generates miles. Maybe once every ten years or so, an airline or hotel will send me an email saying "Happy Birthday, here's 1000 miles." Those miles are free (well, kind of). The other 99.9% I acquire are not.

Maybe a better way to look at the miles would be that they enable you to accumulate better total value per unit of travel budget than you'd be able to get without them. And we use this forum to learn the programs so we minimize the chance of being in a position where our best available option is spending 50,000 miles for a $500 ticket.

When it comes to international trips, I'm not one who necessarily favors two trips in Y over one trip in J. I've got enough points where my wife and I are set for one nice trip per year in a premium cabin for the next four years. We're able to go for 3-4 weeks at a time (vacation is a limiting factor, but I get a good chunk of it.) I can't say we'd necessarily value two Y trips for 1.5-2 weeks any more than we'd value one trip in J for 3-4 weeks. If our choice was one trip per year in Y or one every other year in J, I think we'd suck it up and go in Y. But we've been blessed, so that's not an issue. Besides, J is also about shorter check in lines, increased baggage allowance, and lounge access. It's about looking forward to the whole trip, instead of dreading the beginning and the end.

Sure, I could go in Y and stretch my four years of trips out to eight, but I'm not sure that's smart. Devaluation being what it is, the miles I have now may not even be worth enough for a coach ticket 7 years from now.

Besides, I keep earning enough miles through various programs that I'm not entirely sure when I'll be out of miles for good. That 75k AmEx SPG Biz offer + 40,000 SPG points all of a sudden became enough for two rt J tickets to Europe.

Forget the price for a minute.

J using *A would cost 120K points... so if it is F/J (and not just domestic F) then this one could be interesting...

Yup. A lot of young families get into this game because they are trying to find a way to get the family to grandma's house or Disney World. That's their dream. That is the experience that represents the most value to them at this point in their lives.

It doesn't matter how people use their miles. It's like caring about how people use their money. It's their own business. I use a lot of my miles by giving them away half the time. It's not like I paid for them, and if I can help someone out then I will.

I have to fly to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Tokyo from NY in Coach... can you help a brother out?