Being relatively new in the "earning" category (2 years?), I've still got a long ways to utilising ALL possibilities for earning capacity. Then watch out! I'll be bursting with miles and wild with FF euphoria.

At the beginning of this calendar year, I had a total of over 250,000 ff miles between three accounts, and not wanting to part with any. My first ff miles redemption was a domestic RT EUG-DCA, booked at 8 pm Monday, departed 6 am Tuesday, and returning on Thursday. Boy, what power, how extravagant, what a whim! Saw a Dali exhibit in DC, met FTers at an Irish Pub, and got some online booking bonuses from Starwood. It felt great doing something that normally I would not even act upon. That flight would have cost me over 2100 dollars, one less FT opportunity (midweek? rare), and more Dali research.

Like geo1004 and others, I pay for my own plane tickets out of my own pocket, so spending miles for the DREAM department is a good way to go. I have since used another 50,000 miles to take an employee to WDW, and have a trip to NYC on hold. I will not part with miles to upgrade, since legroom is not an issue with me. Although getting upgraded by status over 15 segments this year gives me another perspective and I may be getting spoiled and fat (too much cheesecake in FC). I made my first extensive mileage run for triple miles this July, and I'm currently planning the rest of year's itinerary to utilize mileage earnings and achieve status quotas. In the future, I plan to use miles for a friend to accompany me on a trip, and I also want to keep a large stash for in case of an emergency as others have mentioned.

What can I say? I love earning miles, and I love spending them. The planning of the whole scenario is my hobby. You better believe I'm a list maker! And there went the garden, the aquarium, the collecting....

Linda

I love collecting miles. Then I don't want to use them for free flights since I still benefit of good youth fares, so I want to take upgrades. But when I'm not travelling alone (most of the time) but with some non-milager they can't so I end up in coach again. How the heck should I spend them anyway? ;-)

I have been an addict twice...

In the late 80's, early 90's I gained a lot of miles on several programs and squandered them all....

From the early to mid 90's I still flew a lot, but with so many different airlines and carriers that I could never get status nor heavy accounts...

From the mid-90's thru today I have put together over 1.5 million miles on two carriers. I only used 100,000 grand for my honeymoon with my wife. I will never give them away (except to her).

I will never use them for free flights and in the future only on upgrades internationally. My goal is to never fly in economy on a flight longer than 3 hours again. For the last 5 years, I have accomplished this 100% of the time (when not flying on business, in which case the point is moot).

Knowing that at the moment I do not have to fly in Economy agin for the next 10 years or so gives me great satisfaction.

Besides cash, travel is the most cherished gift (according to the USA Today, anyway). I burned over 700,000 AA miles in 5 years, mainly as gifts to Mom (rt FC to Japan x2) and a couple of fc trips for wife, self, mom, aunt and uncle to Hawaii. I've also just given a close cousin a fc honeymoon rt to the Cayman Islands on USAIR miles and I'm sure that will be remembered much more than if we gave a place setting!!! Since my wife and I have no kids, I don't want to wait until we're too old to enjoy adventure travel. The current trip we booked to Hawaii was reserved even though I still had yet to earn 25,000 miles to cover the two fc rt tickets. Once we get too old for the hectic fly there, have fun, fly home routine, we'll hang out with the cruise ship folks. Although previous fters worried about the lessening value of miles, I've already seen it in less availability of ff flights...remember a few years back when you could almost get any itinerary you wanted on ff miles?

I definitely enjoy both. Like some others, I don't worry so much about the total balance with my primary carrier, as long as it doesn't get too low, but I do become obsessed with status miles. I go out of my way to earn every extra 500 miles I can.

I definitely believe that the value of miles will only continue to decline, so I'm not afraid to put them to good use. I like to use them for family, and although I try not to waste miles on domestic runs that would be relatively inexpensive, I have done so.

My wife stays at home with our children the 35 to 40 weeks a year that I travel (usually in F/C thanks to CO's wonderful upgrade policy), so I take her away once or twice a year (w/o children), and definitely fly her in F/C even if I have to EasyPass it (burn extra miles for seats when regular award seats aren't available).

I'm definitely addictive, and competitive, but isn't earning free stuff what it's all about.

I am relieved to know that there are others out there who also are reluctant to spend the miles. The common theme is that people prefer to use miles as gifts or to get upgraded travel for their spouses/family and friends. Very few people use miles to buy economy tickets though at times of emergency they can be life-savers. With low competitive air fares available for advance purchase economy travel, I guess the best use for miles are the upgrades, specially on the long-haul flights.

Thank you FTers for the insite; it has been very useful. BTW, I never thought I reach 100 posts so soon http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I acquire miles and points to use them and the benefits they come along with. I save them for a rainy day, or a special trip. I love free things!!! Who doesn't?

I love thinking about how much something would have cost me had I not had the miles/points to use them?

For example, my wife and I got recently went FC to Seattle from MSP for $200 each, and stayed at the W Seattle in a junior suite that would have cost at least $350 a night for free.

For $400, we got to live like the Jet Set crowd, we got more for our money than I could dream of. I like to accumulate miles, but spending them is what life is all about. it's not like money- money can set you free and give you independence. miles can not. They are a luxury, not a necessity, and using them is in and of itself a luxury.

For all of you that love accumlating miles, but get no joy in spending them, please contact me, as I will be happy to spend them for you.

Part of this has to do with the fact that we are young and have no kids, knowing that we won't be able to do things like that if we had kids....

For me the joy comes in spending miles for an upgrade to a higher class cabin while earning miles for the lower paid class fare at the same time.

There's nothing like give a little and then take some. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif It makes me a happy person at 35,000 ft for 10+ hours.

[This message has been edited by jazzhou (edited 09-18-2000).]

Using them. It costs so *#@#*#&* much to fly out of the local airport, that I usually drive to MSP to fly. It's usually 1/3 to 1/4 the cost. So I relish when I can fly out of the local airport for nothing, like my open jaw to Tampa/from Ft. Myers last winter which was over $1100, best price at the time.

i am with the majority here, but didn't realize until last month....

i've been collecting from a lot of bustrav the last couple of years and have just started to begin redeeming when my fiance questioned "why would you rather spend $120/night @ marriott than use a few thousand of your points?"

it was still hard to do this, even though i saved about $500 and hardly dented my marriott rewards balance.

a feel like pavlov's dog... when the ff miles ring, i am salivating http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by kev LAX (edited 09-20-2000).]

I had been wondering about why I enjoy earning miles. I realized one important, yet unpublished, benefit: The complete control over the size of your Milage account.

This fall, the growth in my AAdvantage account has taken my mind of the decline in the value of my tech-dominated brokerage accounts. I check my milage balance much more than the brokerage accounts, making sure that the miles and upgrades are posting correctly. I wonder how I would have reacted if the charts were reversed http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

By nature, people accumulate whatever gives them joy. Everybody accumulates money; but accumulating miles is definitely more exciting http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. And since you have total control over the direction of your account, being a milage junkie makes you feel good even if you are not doing all that well accumulating money. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/confused.gif (it is way pass my bedtime perhaps).



[This message has been edited by SJC2ISP (edited 12-07-2000).]

Earning the miles is just a means to the end more travel ... however, I'm always reluctant to spend miles because I always thing there will be a better use for my miles right around the corner. In the past year and change I've spent our (me + girlfriend) miles on:

2 BC tickets on UA to HNL + 5 free nights at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (PiP Express & PiP ... the best use of miles ever for me I dare say http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif )

1 FC ticket on Swissair MSY-BCN

1 BE ticket on DL MSY-BCN

1 BE upgrade on DL CLT-LGW

This compares to having spent my miles previously on domestic FC upgrades and coach tickets. I learned the best use of my miles is in the longer journeys in premium classes of service http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I can get compulsive about both, but I'm definitely on the "user" side, having earned about 1.5 million lifetime miles and spent 1.3 million of them.

Like a few others here, my funds are very tight. I'm too much of a mileage miser to use awards for anything but free travel. I'll typically do short domestic or Europe trips to earn miles and longer trips to "cheap" countries (Southeast Asia is a favorite) for redemptions.

A big part of the game is piecing together elaborate bookings, using the Internet as an aid.

You can do it for both paid tickets and award tickets. On award tickets, I really like to use the stopover and open-jaw rules to best advantage (why see one place when you can see 2 or more?)

It's also neat to dig through the partner and other awards and frame the possibilities. I especially like the more out-of-the-way places; a recent sidetrip for an Asia trip went Manila-Marshall Islands-Guam-Yap-Manila. Great trip, and for only 20,000 miles (vs. a $1,000 paid ticket).

It takes way too much time to book it all and get it to work, so there must be something habit-forming about that. I think it's important to use the miles, though.

me...
I'm a fanatic for collecting but enjoy using. i was able to using 80k DL points to upgrade my mom and sister from coach to Biz from SAT to FRA in June. They paid $900 each and got Biz seats listed at $6400 each. They couldn't stop talking about the experience since they had never flown FC or Biz before. The pleasure on my part was significant. I also use my points to upgrade my wife to FC when she travels on business. Now that's where the rewards really come into play http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif I love it when she comes home after a long flight and returns the favor! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

I hardly ever use miles for travel, because I'm usually in one of two situations: either I can get an inexpensive ticket or someone else (a client; when it's my own company, we can plan for discount fares) is paying.

I use them for upgrades, especially trans-oceanic, where the price difference is absurd but the number of miles is not so bad. And I've used them once in a while for "whim" travel when cheap tickets were not available, as in attending a Wednesday evening party given by a friend on the opposite coast of North America (no Saturday night stay, ticket would have cost $2,000+; I used 25,000 miles).

More than anything else, though, I give them away. The most recent was a US round trip to a niece graduating from college. In terms of value, it was her biggest present from anyone except her parents. It was appreciated even more than a check for the price of a ticket would have been. I think, subconsiously, people think about all those hours we have to spend sealed into aluminum tubes to earn the 25,000 miles or whatever.

I can imagine wanting to use lots of miles to travel with a special someone, though my current situation doesn't lend itself to that. Still, I'd be tempted to use miles for her business/first class ticket, buy myself a cheap ticket so I'd earn miles, and use a few more miles to upgrade that!