Poll: Are you a hoarder or a user?
 

Have you used more points and miles than are presently accrued in your accounts?

I’m a user.

I'm a user, also.

I'm a user. I don't see much point in hoarding... it just gives the various programes a chance to devalue my account!

Hoarder - been collecting since 1999, but have used only 80k miles for 2 awards to Europe!

Great use of miles though: I did YUL-ORD-LHR-CDG... (rail)AMS-MXP(rail)... FCO-LHR-YUL for 40k miles, and also got the coveted ORD-FCO award on AAdvantage.

Hoarder.

I don't fly as much anymore, and I have 14,000 miles in HP that I am ready to trade in for magazines :mad:

But I digress, in the 3 years that I have been doing the miles thing, I have accumulated close to half a million miles, but only used 120,000+

I am saving them for vacations with my baby girl that is soon to arrive :)

I'm a NW horder. 350K in the bank. Spent 120K lifetime...but with the odd signals NW is putting out these days I'm switching over to a spender.......

Definitely a hoarder.

I'm a giver. I hate to use the miles myself because I am always thinking about earning EQMs to maintain my elite level. I use them occasionally for trips where they make a lot of sense (like $1200 or 35,000 miles to Peru), but mainly give them to friends and family who are not stuck in the elite trap or use them to bring a companion.

I would say I am a hoarder, who is unfortunately spread thinly across three programs. US, UA, and DL. I haven't hoarded much, but I hold enough for a couple of int'l awards in each except UA; however, I have never redeemed an award.

I'm a hoarder!!!! UAL at that!!!

Hoarder :cool:

I'm a hoarder especially on UA. I definitely think I should shift to user to burn some of my many miles. However, I hate using miles on cheaper flights where the value isn't over 2 cents/mile.

definately a user!

User.

Although since the late 1980's I've earned the better part of 3 million miles I've never spent more than 35K miles on any one award as all of my redemptions are for coach "saver" type free roundtrips either within the 48 states (typically 25K miles) or to/from Hawaii (35K miles). As soon as my balances reach these mileage thresholds I typically make an immediate redemption to zero out the account.

PS: Not one single mile of my 3 million has been used for an upgrade - I know some FTers cringe at the thought of the indignity of having to sit in the back of the bus but burning miles for upgrades is a total waste in my book

I used to be a hoarder, but I have reduced my Air Canada Aeroplan account from over 1,500,00 to a little over 100,000 points. Air Canada has sent me and my partner Business or First Class to every corner of the world over the past 3 years. I say use them now before they get devalued.

Major user. I've been burning like crazy this year. For a legacy six frequent flier mile, I will take anything over 1 cent/mile at this point. Stuff like $275 R/T MCI-DTW trips where I used to buy - now I'm burning. MCI-DEN $240 R/T - got 4 of 'em during ski season for 15k each.

My hoard/burn pattern is more in balance with hotel points.

Hoarder

I'd be more of a user if I had better luck finding availability to use the awards for trips that I'd really like to take.

Hoarder
 

I've used my miles twice. Once for a domestic upgrade so that I could experience the AA Flagship suite and just recently a J award to Europe ... 90k ouch!!

I earn them to get to levels where I can use them soon after. Everything is as planned as it could be. I figure one day this will all end and I wanna redeem everything first. If I decide to save up for Tahiti or something, I will have to pick some nails and lose some sleep a bit though to get there mile-wise!

:)MM

Big-time user.

Until recently, I've been a user - the economics made sense in the days of $1800 transcons in Y w/o Saturday night stay. Now, tho, if domestic awards are available, it's likely that I can probably find fares of $300 or less, so I'm hoarding. For many years, I distributed my flying among lots of carriers so it was hit or miss with status; now I'm UA 1P so it's hard to turn down the lure of EQMs and double miles to take an award flight. Hope to be able to take the family to Europe in C or F next year by burning miles, but it's a real challenge to find available award flights.

User.

In the past 7 years:

CO - 2 BizFirst RT EWR-LGW
CO - 2 Y EWR-LAX rt
AA - 2 Y JFK-LAX rt
CO - 4 upgrades to BF on HNL-EWR
DL - 4 Y JFK-CDG-WAW rt on Air France

and already ticketed for this summer

AA - 3 Y JFK-LHR rt
CO - 3 BF LAX-EWR-TLV rt

OTOH, my balances are now down to under 150k on AA, just barely 160k on DL, 100k on SPG and virtually nothing on Amex.

USER!

I average about 15000 miles in my account even though I've flown more than a quarter million in flight (that doesn't included bonus miles, cc miles, etc).

Once I have enough for my wife and I to go somewhere, I book the ticket within about a week!

Hoarder, but not by choice. 95% of my flights are business and company paid. The last 2 leisure flights I had to purchase tickets, unable to redeem miles. :mad:

There are benefits to hoarding as I found out when, after amassing so many points and pondering what to do with them, the price of award tickets was slashed in half during a summer promotion which I then I went on a mad spending spree.

Both. I hoard miles for myself (always buy the ticket and earn elite miles), but spend them whenever a family member or friend needs to get somewhere.

User, Hoarder and Giver
 

I've earned one million NW miles and have 155,000 left. When it reaches 200,000 my wife and I will fly FC to Europe.

Hoarder on AA. We worked hard to earn 150,000 miles each for an around the world award in business. Now, it's find time to go.

United- Hoard them for son #1 and then Giver. He's taking them to Australia next year.

Delta- Hoard them for son #2 and then giver. Whatever he needs them for.

I am a Hoarder !!!!!! But lately I have been using them or getting vouchers

Hiarder, like some others I do not have too much opportunity to burn a lot, and what I burn quickly replenishes at an exponential rate!

Hoard and then use in spurts
 

I tend to hoard for long periods of time because (a) most of my travel is for business, and (b) I'll buy tickets for leisure travel if they are relatively cheap. I generally try to achieve at least 1.5 cents per mile on my reward tickets, which means that I'll use miles for a domestic ticket (25,000) only if the ticket price is $375 or higher. Most of the time, even for transcons, I can find tickets cheaper than that. Of course, sometimes when the fare is very high, there is no availability for FF reward tickets. :(

However, when I do use up my FF miles, I tend to do so in clumps of 100K+ because I'll get tickets for the whole family for a vacation trip. I recall back in the late 1980s or early 1990s, when Continental changed its reward mileage thresholds (from 20K to 25K for a domestic ticket), my wife and I cashed out almost all our miles. I think I'm back over 200K for Continental and close to 500K for American, with smaller amounts in US Air, Delta and United. Time to cash in again! :D

hoarder.

I've only been playing the FFM game for about 2 years but i got ~160k in AS, 23k in CO (which is earmarked for a trip to BOG/CCS from TIJuana, Mex) and ~50k in NW with about another ~70k to go this year alone.

not sure what i'm going to do with them except I have a few of them :o

Definitely a user.

Hoarder, then splurger :D . Every mile cashed out was for long haul business or first.

Hoarder....but I'm not cheap and I always use protection.

Definitely a user.
2MM+ AA miles and only have 45K in bank.
850K Marriott and have 2K in bank.
750K SPG and have 75K in bank.

I was a hoarder until I got to about 1.5M on US, another million on other airlines, 400K in Marriott and a few hundred thousand elsewhere.

Then over the last 2 years I have switched - down to about 700K on US and burned about 300K at Marriott (although it's up to 400K again).

Mostly a hoarder. I have only used mileage twice.

I have about 275K lifetime on NW, used for 2 flights.

March 02: Used BUF-STL so I could go to a conference there, lowest fares were upper $300's, which seemed ridiculous off season, over that short of a distance. Glad I went cause got to know my now wife at that conference.

June 04: We spent 200K of NW mileage on BUF-FCO for our honeymoon! So mostly hoarder, but spender when well worth it!!! :)

I have around 40K on Delta, I think 28K on US Airways, a few segments here and there on AirTran, JetBlue, and Southwest that I don't have a good handle on.

I was getting close on Vanguard Airlines before they went broke. A couple of flights BUF-MDW and BUF-MCI. They were great for keeping Midwest flights low here, I miss them.

Earn 'em and burn 'em.
:)

I'm a hoarder up to a certain point. I like to make sure I always have x (ie 500k) miles in my account. I'm still building my Hilton points balance.