TravelManKen

I don't agree with your position. Cash can sometimes be tight for a business owner and you can't always throw out $500-$1000 for a flight. I've only redeemed for a domestic award about 3x's that I can recall and each one of those were for some fairly expensive, last minute transcon flights that I needed to take. If you have 250k miles in the bank, the best price on a flight is $700 and you're short on cash, why not use an award?

Efrem

"Never" is much to strong a statement. While I appreciate the OP's desire to get attention for this thread, we don't need reporters' "hooks" here.

I have used 25,000 miles for last-minute transcon round trips that would otherwise have cost me over $2,000. I have used the same number of miles for trips with open jaws and stopovers that would have cost nearly as much. And I have used them for trips without Saturday night stays that would have cost well over $1,000 even with advance notice. In every case I would have had to take those trips, one way or another.

There's no question that many domestic coach trips can be obtained for a fare that makes it unwise to burn miles - if one expects to have sufficient opportunities to use those miles more cost-effectively in the future and that the airline(s) they can be used on, or successors that will take the miles, will be in business that long. All in all, there are too many exceptions to the original statement.

CutStyle

I counter with "ALWAYS save some miles for domestic tickets." My father-in-law had an emergency surgery a few years back, and a ticket for my wife to visit last-minute was in the $900 range. Miles were a superior choice there.

Also, since I've shifted nearly all my accrual to AA, and mileage burning ops with United have become a pain in the arse (try to find some availability SFO-OGG or HNL), I'm also willing to use my UA miles for Pacific short hauls, the same way that KW does.

skofarrell

Nonsense. Use miles when the fare is cost prohibitive or if you'd prefer to keep the cash in your pocket. This is all the more logical with two of the big six in bankruptcy; one of those two close to liquidation, and a third teetering on BK.

Where your logic falls apart is that you'd never pay $31,000 for 3 F tickets to Asia. If you were going, you'd fly coach, and my guess is that those tickets would net out to something closer to $1,500 each. Granted you're up front, but still you're not "saving" $31,000.

I just booked 3 premium coach awards to Fla for spring break. Cost was 120K miles. These 120k miles saved me over $1300 out of pocket.

I'll take $1300 right now and hope the airline doesn't liquidate before March.

skofarrell

^^^

DevilBucsFlyer

Ok, I'll somewhat cry "uncle" here, but I think the above quote from my original post gives me an out.

The "unique" situations may not be all that "unique", I guess. I suppose I'm somewhat spoiled by my location. The idea that a last-minute coach flight to anywhere would be over $1,000 - much less $2,000, is just a foreign concept to me. Flying out of Tampa, and with the always-present option to drive the 90 minutes to Orlando, I can get pretty much anywhere for under $600 if I'm willing to drive a bit on both ends. It may not be my preferred airline or preferred flight routing, but I can get there for a reasonable price.

Just to test my theory, I'm going to jump to ITA and see how much it would cost me to get to some obscure airport tomorrow. I'll pick Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Its ski season, so it shoudl be tough.

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Results:

TPA-JAC roundtrip / January 4-5 / $1,184 on Delta outbound, United and Air Tran return

MCO-JAC roundtrip / January 4-5 / $1,029 NWA connecting to Delta

MCO-IDA (< 100 miles from JAC) roundtrip / January 4-5 / $626 Delta

TPA-RIW (< 200 miles from JAC) roundtrip / January 4-5 / $592 Frontier

MCO-BOI (< 300 miles from JAC) roundtrip / January 4-5 / $396 United

So, I would say that my presumption was arguably correct. Of course, if I had to be there before noon tomorrow, the results may be different. I didn't check times, only days.

If you're living someplace like JAC, rather than TPA/MCO, there would likely be substantially higher last-minute (and advanced) fares that I didn't consider in my original post.

LLM

And don't forget bereavement and other family emergencies. I always keep a stash of miles for us and to give out to family members for these situations.

Football Fan

What bothers me is the extra "taxes and fees" one has to pay with award tickets. In Germany, there are now a bunch of "no frills" airlines which often have cheaper paid tickets than just the bare "taxes and fees" I pay with LH for an award ticket! That's why I rarely use miles for domestic awards. However, if there is no cheap ticket on a particular route and I would have to pay € 400 instead for a domestic ticket in Germany (basically a short hop), I would use miles instead.

I feel that airlines (at least LH) are using these ominous "taxes and fees" (which are not explained in detail) to cover their own cost completely, even if someone is using miles and getting a supposedly "free" ticket.

auh2o

When you have millions and your airline may not live for another year...

As posted above and the title of a really lousy James Bond movie... "Never Say Never Again".

dhacker

I'm just about to ticket four domestic coach trips to Florida over MLK weekend. I wouldn't normaly consider such a thing, but I figure I might as well burn the last of our US miles now and save about $1000. Four 20k awards will come from four different accounts, two of which have almost exactly 20k. The $1000 is real money saved now versus a very uncertain future.

Boraxo

I hate to disagree with you again but your original post inexcusably fails to consider the value of miles for a carrier in liquidation.

I recently burned 25K US miles on a trip to Vegas (on UA) that would have run close to $250RT and netted me approx. 1000 miles (or more likely 3 WN credits).

The US miles will become worthless when the carrier liquidates, most likely within the next 60 days. So it was a damn good use of miles IMO.

Not everyone has the time or the luxury of accumulating miles for high value C and F seats. Not to forget that the airlines are constantly moving the ball on these awards (witnesseth AA's recent implementation of the upgrade "co-pay" and CO's increased "co-pay") so you may find that there is no pot of gold once you finally accumulate the necessary miles.

jackplum

I think you have been beat up enough! For me, flying out of ROC is like opening up my bank account. In the past award travel has been a reasonable tradeoff especially to other locations like AVL.

wldtrvlr

The original poster has a valid arguement, but just used the wrong language to state it. I think something along the lines of "Never use an award ticket that is less valuable to you than the cost of a paid ticket" is more what he/she had in mind.

This board has posters from many countries and even more cities, as well as people with high investments in many different FF programs. I think we mostly tend to think that our knowledge of our home city is how the airlines work all around the world. As the OP found out, he/she is very fortunate where they live to always have low fares, and in their particular situation the philosiphy is correct, but it does not apply universally worldwide.

THere are very many variables in how to use your miles, and we all try to get the best value for them. That best value comes in the "eye of the beholder", or the owner of those miles. I use miles for mostly Domestic trips since I don't generally take intl trips, or when I do, they are usually in the winter when you can get a R/T to Europe for $300-$500 and it will give me 11,000 EQM. However, I did use miles for a WBC award to Europe in November and was glad to experience WBC.

As KW stated you have to take all the factors into account. When my mother had a mini-stroke and I wanted to get there that day the last minute fare was $900 DFW-IAD. With miles it was 25,000 and a $10 Tax. As a NW Plat I have the distinct pleasure of being elligible for Upgrades on Domestic Award tickets, so I Fly F/C on a Standard Coach award. That increases the value of the award significantly. In addition NW allots more seats to Elite members for award redemption, so I have never had a problem gettting an award when I needed one.

I generally don't even consider an Award Ticket if the fare is under $200, but seldom is a last minute fare under $200. Open Jaws, Circle trips, etc. Do tend to raise the fare also, but not the cost on an award ticket. The exception to this is if I am giving a trip to someone. I will always use miles if I am giving someone a trip since I don't generally wish to pay for their travel when I have hundreds of thousands of miles available and I do not earn miles on award travel but I do on my own paid trips, but not theirs!

I think since I hit Plat and the miles come in faster than I can use them, that my philosiphy about the value of a mile has changed. When I had very few, they had quite some value, now that I have tons, they are much less valuable to me.

Punki

When my Mother died it would have cost us over $10,000.00 to buy next day bereavement tickets for my family to attend her funeral. We used miles.

There are times when I need to get an employee to a distant domestic city in a day or so. I use miles.

IMHO, each decision needs to be evaluated independently.

outoftown

I am also a firm believer and user of BC or FC awards over the ocean as much as possible, including Mrs. Outoftown and I flying FC in an AA flagship to Tokyo, 5 times FC to HI, 6 times BC to Europe, 2 times BC to South America, all of which would easily have set us back over $100K in the last 6 years, and no, I would never have paid for any of that out of pocket. But I see the unexpected domestic need on occasion. A contractor friend lamented how he couldn't get his wife and 3 daughters across the country for Christmas. I came through with 5 domestic award tickets. Although I didn't ask for any favors in return, he later helped me with a home improvement that increased the value of my house $30K. He was happy, I was happy. The "real" value is the trip itself (or in my case, the exchange), not the cost of the trip. As the possibility of taking a free trip with our banked miles continue to diminish, I say any worthwhile free trip will do, since future free trips may not be forthcoming. It doesn't make sense to argue about the value of trips not taken based on the perceived value (what the airline charges), but on what you get out of it. For example, I could fly to Tokyo and back the next day and say I used my 50,000 miles for something worth over $2500, but did I really need to go there? What was the benefit of the trip? Two people going to the Grand Canyon for the same miles would have resulted in a much better benefit, although some would argue that the outofpocket cost of about $500 doesn't justify the free trip.

Outoftown