I derive great pleasure in redeeming miles for airline tickets for my children, grandchildren, and friends with family emergencies.

I have two million miles on Delta (lifetime Silver Medallion) and over a million on US Airways. Nothing really to proove for my million on US, unless there is something behind the scenes. Perhaps it will give me lifetime united status soon?

I just hit one million with AA, slightly more than three years after seeing the light and coming over from a competitor. I still have 700K+ in my account, with another 200K+ from AmEx sitting in TWA until they're combined.

I use them for upgrades (less so recently, since I've been getting VIP2s and VIPOWs) and to give to friends and relatives. I may start using them for long front-cabin trips I couldn't afford otherwise, but I haven't had time to take any pleasure trips lately!

I am approaching 2 million actual flight miles on United. Started in about 1985. Been a 1K for about 8 years now.

Round trip first class tickets to Hawaii are great. Also, a trip to Melbourne was super.

Neither AC nor CP count anything other than flight and class of service miles in calculating their true Million Milers, unlike most US carriers which award this status for flight as well as other miles accumulated (credit cards, hotel stays, car rentals). I hit 1 Million [including all transactions] on CP back in the late 80s and 2 Million in the mid-90s. On AC, I hit 1 Million in the early 90s and am now approaching 2 Million. About half of these were all flight-related, since the programs began up here in mid-1984. By the way, we don't really get anything official for these achievements, though I did get a thank you letter from the president of CP when I hit the first Million on them. Nothing else since. We hear a rumour that 1 Million flight milers get lifetime SuperElite [like 1K or ExecPlatinum], but that has not been confirmed. But AC has not merged the balances of CP members in calculating this milestone.

I thought AA was the only major US carrier that counts miles from all sources for MM status. They use that to justify somewhat lower benefits than other airlines at that level, but I think their difficulty/benefit ratio is still pretty good.

Delta counted all miles until 1995 when they switched to actual flight miles as part of the SkyMiles change. They let people keep the lifetime miles they had until that point.

Depending on the program you are in my recommendation would be use some miles for a trip on the BA Concorde, assuming it resumes service. It is truly the ulitimate form of travel and will not be around forever and no replacment in the works. I flew both BA and AF (unfortunately not using mileage program) and the BA service is a class act all the way from being ushered through to a private check in lounge to the flight itself.

AA Million Miler - 3rd year EXP and shooting for 2 million
member of Advantage since 1984

------------------
MRKEY

Either I have vastly overrated the experience of most people posting on this board or, more likely, people are either not reading this thread or not bothering to respond, We know that DL alone has (two dozen?) thousands of million milers, and I assume the other major carriers do as well. As for me, the best thing I ever got out of it didn't cost me any miles at all. Rather, it was a fully comped (first class in every way) trip to the 1996 Olympics (back before Delta introduced Simply Good Business).

I'm MM on both DL and AA, and 1K with
UA for fourth year.

Yes, the upgrades are nice, but I enjoy giving miles and gifts. Several years ago I sent my mother and three friends (bridge club) FC to Hawaii plus rooms the the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It made me so happy to use these miles the bring job to other people.


------------------
UA1K, m/m AA/DL,
Hilton Diamond, Hyatt Plat., Starwood Gld.

I have 1,815,757 on American and 515,000 on Continental. Working hard to get my 2mm on American for Lifetime Platinum.

Alfred--

Closing in on 3 MM in AAdvantage - should hit before the end of the year.

Will cash in miles for a First Class trip to Sydney on Cathay next year.

I am a 4MM lifetime AA platinum (about 4.1MM lifetime miles, 99.98% charged on Citibank Visa; very few earned/actual flown/paid for miles, so it can be done via charging), currently sitting on about 250K miles; spouse is 80K short of 2MM lifetime 1,920,000K or so lifetime), so vested/lifetime platinum is within 60 days; about 350K miles in her account currently. Yes, I donate some miles to MakeaWish everytime I send in hard copy P25M requsts; Just flushed my 250K Continental miles last fall to friends as I despise their program (a real sham w/ such little availability for even basic 25K domestic awards I could not believe FTC didn't investigate); 980K points/potential miles sitting in AMEX (*sure* wish AA and AMEX would get together - AMEX is now very weak missing United and AA, world's two largest airlines), but good news is I will dump some of these miles into TWA in a week or two so they can merge into AA I think end of July Missed the excellent and now fleeting opportunity to enroll spouse in TWA Aviator's program so i could move more AMEX miles thru TWA into AA account before that window closes. Oh well. Keep thinking AMEX will put some teeth back into AMEX's MR but so far am years' disappointed. MR continues to decline with every airline partner departure, and MR is not addressing this in any apparent way. But that's another topic.

I mostly use P25M "Plan-aheads" like crazy. Did a FC/Hawaii w/ spouse and kid about 5 yrs ago...was happy with the service, and am sick to read in these threads that FC/hawaii has degraded so drastically. I realize domestic f/c will probably never be on par w/ international f/c, but thought AA's to Hawaii was impressive back then.

FWIW, I always weigh value of a P25M at $500 (2¢/mile), so I will still buy any ticket @ at $450 or less and save the miles.