These are certainly familiar to most frequent flyers, but here are a few tips from some experience in using the miles one earns...

(1) Save your miles for the largest award you can realistically go for. The higher the mileage award, the more its value. One rt business class to Asia is easily worth a lot more than three rt trips from Chicago to Newark ( both alternatives require about the same miles !)

(2) Don't use miles for upgrades if you can avoid it. Get to know the ground agents at your home airport. Don't be afraid to ask if they have upgrade certificates available.. they often either do have them, or will upgrade you anyway.

(3) Don't use miles for non-airline products, if you can avoid that... and even check out whether the value is the same when you use airline miles with so-called "partners". The value will always be higher in using miles with the airline than with products; often higher with the issuing airline than with partner airlines.

More to come.

A return trip between ORD and EWR without a Saturday night stay is worth more than a coach ticket to Asia. I would agree about domestic upgrades but international upgrades (ie 25k for upgrade on CX) seems to a good value. The value of miles is so subjective, it is diffucult to determine an absolute value on them.

I agree with Tango on international upgrades. I fly BOS-LHR a lot, usually AA, in discount coach paying $350-$850. A business class ticket costs over $4,000 RT. The upgrade is 50,000 miles, which works out to 7-8 cents/mile value.

The only time I beat that was for a BOS-SJC round trip on short notice with no Saturday night stay, which would have cost over $2,000 RT, for 25,000 miles. That's a much better value than a cheap coach ticket to South America for 40K or 60K miles (depending on the season).

I get operational upgrades to London about a quarter of the time, which is nice when it happens but not frequent enough to count on.

Phil's right on about non-airline products. Those tend to price out at about 1 cent/mile.

It all depends on what you want.

Efrem is right that it all depends on what you want most, and your abililty to earn miles.

I have business associates who travel a lot and, in addition, are able to rack up several or many hundreds of thousands of miles in business expenses every year. For those folks, using miles to fly first class (even domestically) is a necessity of sane survival.

For other folks who have to work hard to accumulate even 100,000 miles in a year, through all sources, using those miles for a business or first class ticket to their most exotic dream destination makes a lot more sense.

Or, if you have lots of miles, and hate to fly, maybe the best thing to do is give them to friends, relatives and countrymen, if (of course) you don't happen to be gifted with flying offspring to gobble them up like M&Ms.

Or, if you happen to be an old lady like me, longing for the serenity of your golden years, you can sock them into a FL-IRA and plot nefarious unannounced visits to your children and grandchildren when you are a batty old wo(man) who has nothing better to do than golf, play bridge, hang out on Flyer Talk and drive your descendants crazy. For these trips it is possible that trading in miles for totally outlandish and embarrassing outfits that cause grandchildren to cringe as you deplane, would be appropriate and fitting.

To each his/her own.

Yep, I should have said don't use mileage on domestic upgrades if you can get them otherwise. Chances are you CAN'T get international upgrades otherwise... at least that's not normally dependable.

Regarding coach to Asia.... ORD to EWR rt ANYTIME ought to cost less than coach to Asia. In fact, they ought to pay US to fly coach to Asia.

I still think it's generally true the higher the mileage required for the award the higher the value per mile, and I think that's often overlooked. I have had a total of 3.5 million on NW, so it's certainly been easier to pursue the higher awards. But the 100,000 k range is probably in reach for most frequent flyers.

can somebody explain to me what an operational upgrade is?

Essentially, it just "happens" due to favorable cicumstances that befall you! No rules of entitlement, no certs, just- "here you go sir/maam or whatever, I have a seat change and a new boarding pass for you. You look down and see 1A and smile to yourself happily - and say Thank you of course!!!

doc- A nice example of a perfect explanation!!

The circumstances of the one I got from BRussels to ORD, was that the flight was overbooked in Coach, but there were seats in FC and BC. Therefore, Elite customers in BC were moved to FC, and Fortunate Elite members are moved up to BC, therefore freeing up seats in coach for non-elites who have tickets. They do this before offering lots of vouchers asking people to give up their seat. - So it saves the airline money, and makes some people VERY happy.

------------------
DtG

A question about using milage. I live outside Huntsville, Alabama. Due to the high government/business traffic there are very few low fares from here to anywhere. Also, with a few exceptions, you have to change planes to get to your destination. Does this increase the value of my "free" coach seat? Thanks.

Is it a "good" deal to use 40000 miles to buy a companion a first class coast-to-coast flight? I'm going JFK->SMF with my girlfriend, and this probably is the only way to get us up front. I'd be upgrading my own flight.

Thanks,
Darq

If it's the only way to get her up front, and you want to impress her, it's worth it, no matter what it costs in points.

Most important tip:

When traveling with your spouse, put both of you on the upgrade list in a linked record and make it clear that it is all or none.

For single people:

Always have a couple of extra upgrade certificates handy if you happen to meet Mr. or Ms. Right in line when they happen to be are on your flight.

Moral:

Nothing beats flying next to someone you might like.

Cool! Someone else from Athens. It is a small world after all.

I've seen an average value of $.02/mile for US domestic miles, e.g. a 25000 mile award is assumed to be worth $500. Using that metric, if you use a 25000-mile award for a $200 ticket you're being silly.

For example, I occasionally have to travel HSV-SEA on business. Travelocity claims that the low fare with no specified dates is $238. If I didn't care when I flew, I could take that fare. By contrast, the same flight with the specific dates I need comes out at $384-- $0.01536/mi. If I suddenly needed to fly there on Monday, the best fare I can find right now would be $642, or
$0.02568/mi.

International flights can vary too. The best HSV-Tokyo fare (with no dates) is currently $1000. Delta wants 90,000 miles for a business class round-trip ticket from the US to Japan. For that fare, your miles would be worth $.01 each-- not so hot.

Bottom line? What the miles are "worth" depends on what you're willing to pay for a fare and what else you might want to use the miles for.


[This message has been edited by paulr (edited 04-21-2000).]

Paulr
Thanks for the help. It's especially nice from someone in my own backyard
Having gone from flying sporadically to semi-regularly I'm still getting used to this. Everyone here has been very helpful. Thank you.