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Originally Posted by pinniped
(Post 20198519)
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.
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Originally Posted by DHAST
(Post 20199510)
Yup. I had a coworker ask me if miles have actually saved me money. I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Literally? No." Points or not, vacations cost some real $ that you have to budget for. Last year (marathon 5 week trip across SE Asia) we budgeted $6k. Without points, we'd get a week at an all inclusive in the caribbean. We could also get a nice cruise. With points, I got first class airfare and free 5* hotels for most of my vacation. I've gotten some truly nice experiences that I could never afford to pay for.
I'm at the phase in life where I am looking to enjoy the very best of everything, and my hobby is to do that on the cheap. Along with the flights/hotels thing I also look at wine corkage fees etc to avoid 4x markup and drink a $50-$100 retail bottle for $70-100 so get an experience beyond my price point by 'playing the game'. |
Originally Posted by DHAST
(Post 20198468)
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.
Overnight trains and backpacker type places was where I started, though. Food I kept at a minimal expense- I didn't eat that much more - though if you eat at the wrong places then I can understand the $300 figure. Do your research and the trip will be cheap. You don't, then it will be a fortune. |
Originally Posted by pinniped
(Post 20185598)
Wow...somebody busted your chops on a J award RDU-VIE because you didn't go F? :confused: That's actually one of my preferred uses of miles (the 100k J award to Europe)...IMHO it provides a decent balance between a comfortable cabin and extending the life of my miles.
Well, that and it's my way of soothing myself since I can't ever find an F seat on LH or LX... :o |
Originally Posted by brooklynmatt
(Post 20198550)
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... I know with US you can book a North Asia award and route it through Europe. So U.S.-FRA(stopover)-HKG-U.S. would be a 90k award in J. But I don't know if it works the other way on a carrier like United. Redeem on two-cabin planes and it kind of feels like F. (Kind of... ;))
Originally Posted by AA_EXP09
He said in Y
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Originally Posted by no1cub17
(Post 20198067)
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 :)
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Plus there's some value in the wide range of partners that SPG has. Plats can transfer tiny amounts of points if necessary: I've used SPG transfers to unlock orphaned miles or do a small top-up for a big award a couple different times.
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Originally Posted by friedablass
(Post 20202858)
Just FYI, transferring SPG to airline miles is not necessarily that bad of a use because you do get 5k bonus points for every 20k transferred, so for example 60k SPG would give you 75k AA and SPG I believe is the only way to transfer existing points to AA (Amex and UR don't transfer to AA). Yes, you can do credit card sign-ups to earn AA miles but I don't know if you are in that game or not. So, if you don't have the airline miles to fly to the place you want to be there will be no use for the hotel either ;).
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Originally Posted by AA_EXP09
(Post 20201635)
When I went to Europe I was able to get accommodations for much less than that.
Overnight trains and backpacker type places was where I started, though. Food I kept at a minimal expense- I didn't eat that much more - though if you eat at the wrong places then I can understand the $300 figure. Do your research and the trip will be cheap. You don't, then it will be a fortune. |
Originally Posted by pinniped
(Post 20202559)
I interpreted the Y trip as a separate itin entirely (the World Series trip). People trash-talk the domestic U.S. Y award on FT all the time, but this is rapidly becoming one of my preferred uses for Avios.
Incidentally, I have to confess I used to waste miles on upgrades a lot. I went through a phase where I hated flying coach so I used 15,000 UA miles to upgrade LAX-ORD-LGA once where I slept for 50% or more on both flights. These days I wouldn't bother. |
Originally Posted by brooklynmatt
(Post 20199308)
I have to fly to the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Tokyo from NY in Coach... can you help a brother out?
sri lanka and tokyo sound pretty killer, though! |
In the spirit of the forum... I was going to book 60-65k points each way to Cozumel with my mom. I should have been able to get this for 35k each way but a trip with my mom is priceless so points didn't matter. But, yes, money does. I couldn't afford to go otherwise. So, in this instance I would be a points waster but it would be worth it to me.
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Originally Posted by rajuabju
(Post 20156483)
I've had family members redeem hundreds of thousands of AMEX MR points for crappy products in their catalog many times despite my best efforts to teach them otherwise. So frustrating and depressing.
Perhaps you can cut a deal with them in the future. You buy the crappy products for them and they "give" you the miles. |
Originally Posted by Gamecock
(Post 20219854)
Perhaps you can cut a deal with them in the future. You buy the crappy products for them and they "give" you the miles.
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