I told my brother (who lives in England) that I would help him out with ff tickets for his family (5 of them) so that he could afford to go on a carribbean cruise with us, our kids and grandkids, my parents and sister.
I told him I had enough miles for 3 tickets and he would have to buy 2.
He was able to go based on that agreement. However I could not get the tickets so my husband and I ended up buying the 3 tickets. But what a GREAT family cruise we had! He works very hard and enjoyed it so much and my little nieces were so cute. I've also got our son who lives in Colorado free tickets to join us on vacations, it's always great to see him and I feel so lucky we can do this.
Pam

You guys are all too generous. I have just over 100,000 WP miles sitting in the bank. I ditched my WP visa card awhile back, but am trying to get it back again. Soo... all of my miles are earned by pleasure flying, and it hasn't been until the last year or so that I've been really piling on the miles.

I NEVER discuss the miles I have with people, and I don't talk about all of the free flying I do (well, to date, I have not redeemed miles for an award seat, just upgrades). What I do talk about is all of the F flying I do, courtesy of NW. My parents have never asked me for tix, and I'll probably be off the hook... my mom HATES making connections, so I'm sure she's happy to buy a cheap ticket out of ORD on UA/AA as opposed to flying for "free" on a cx out of MKE.

Frankly, I'm saving up for an F/WBC ticket to Europe or India hopefully next summer. After that I'm hanging on to enough miles to use for a Rulebuster award (you know, the have-to-go-and-can't-afford-it trip).

In all fareness, I did upgrade my friend on a trip to Hawaii that we took, the only thing I charged him was the cost to "top off" my account to make the 70,000 miles total that we needed.

In the wake of the Jackson trial, with its exposure of cancer victim scams, I have one question: Is he dead yet?

You now have an object lesson in the art of giving. Doing good is not a transaction. I haven't weaned myself from the need for some kind of recompense, if only a Thank You, but I'm working on it, and now and then I succeeed, and Wow! it's a great feeling. Of course, in your case, she didn't let you just walk away from your good deed, did she?

Dear Mr. Rice !!!

I promise not only a heartfelt Thank You, but a truly exquisite letter should you feel the need to relive the experience. I will even phone you to Thank You in person, or if itinerary allows a stopover, will drop by in person to Thank You for the miles you may wish to dotate for my travel.

I do not expect spending money, nor money for a hotel, and while FC would be nice, I'd be more than willing to slum it in coach.

You see, I'm a bit down, because my five year old central air has developed problems, and it's just outside the warranty period. And while I could probably deal with the Texas heat, it's very humid here on the Gulf Coast, and the moisture does bad things to household furnishings.

Thanking you for your miles donation in advance so that you may relive that great feeling, EmailKid

No

me neither

took an ex-boyfriend to CA from MD for birthday...used miles for flights & cashed in hotel points for free room and he commented that I didn't even "Buy him a gift" when I caluculated I spent over $1,000 in points...

Sorry to say it...
 

...but some of these people you gifted these miles/points to are absolute morons. :mad:

I have approx 120k on NW, saving for something, Hawaii, Europe or India maybe.
I am more then willing to share with family members information about FlyerTalk, how to earn miles (sometimes w/o flying) and how much fun it can be. Heck, I have even signed up my father in law for some promos that earned him almost free miles. And I have signed co-workers up for hotel loyalty programs as well.
On the other hand, I have also shared that it has taken me about 4 years to get the 120k miles. So it is not like I can rack these up overnight so I will not be giving them away.

Does anyone here think it is cheeky to request "cash only" as a wedding gift?

If so, then what do you do when the charming soon-to-be married couple have a gift list, and the ONLY items on the list to choose from are frequent flier miles or loyalty points for specific airlines/hotels?

Just been invited to a wedding in the UK, and along with the invitation was this gift list, as noted above (they want to fly First around the world for their honeymoon!) - - no toasters and silver trays, please! :rolleyes:

people dont know what they are doing but we can help them!
 

hmmm, you actually have to like this couple! Never give vouchers or restricted gifts from airlines, and never buy miles from the airline sites, rather, offer them an award you can book with your miles to their liking. For example, their plans may take them from UK to Boston, for example and you may have a bunch of those old British Airways Jaguar miles still laying around with no intention of using them. You have them fill out the form saying their address is at your home (as far as the airline is concerned, a newly married couple could have moved into a temp apartment or community housing place) and then you add them to your household account and let them have the award! they could even book it on their own that way, and by the way, my BA plan DOES work, since I have just recently done it with a friend from a forum, and have used the miles we collectively had in the HH account!

OR, gift them some other award that makes their plans happen, like a stray Delta 25k ticket or two you may have from Chicago to SFO or something...

Cash may be cheesy to some but miles are good--if done right! See if they are into--and able to understand the best ways to use them and stuff like that. Asking to have someone gift you miles like on the airline sites would be a bad move on their part. You should feel obligated to inform them that this is both a waste of your money and a waste of how much value they can obtain from you and the other guests! This could be your chance to educate other guests and do some sort of group gift resulting in travel! It coudl work if well-planned, but if not, it will stink anyway. If they get restricted stuff or something like that, they will hate their gift-- and you, in the end.


I can hope this is partly why he is your EX! that sucks. Hope he figures it out one day when flying around trying to figure what went wrong in life.

;)MM

Too much planning toward the Wedding, too little attention on the Marriage
 

If the cash request were for funds toward a downpayment on a house, or say , just a washer/dryer, I might be inclined to make a cash donation. But for a round the world trip in first? That couple would definitely be getting a toaster. These folks sound to me like the prototypical "Young, Fabulous, and Broke" people to whom the financial advice columnist Suze Orman addresses her comments.

My wife and I have been married 14 years, and the most useful and long-lasting Wedding gifts we received were a washer/dryer from an uncle and a nice little toaster oven from some friends.

I made one big "whoops". When my very dear, in-house accountant got married a few year back, I gave her and her "soon-to-be-hubby" first-class award tickets to their intended honeymoon destination--Puerto Vallarta.

A few weeks before the wedding it registered in my feeble brain that she was talking about the condo week her Grandmother had given her in Cabo San Lucas--not Puerto Vallarta as had been originally discussed.

:eek:

Fortunately, AS took pity on my and my situation and changed the tickets for them. We often laugh about how disasterous it could have been, had I not caught on to the conversation about their final destination.

They were, BTW, very grateful for the first-class flights.

She is soooooooooooo entirely worth it. I am really glad that I could do this for them.

Wedding gifts
 

My son just got married and I gave them J tickets to Europe and two weeks in Hiltons and Marriots on awards ( Including 6 nites at the Rome Cavaleri). They paid for another 1 week in B and B's by themselves. Their emails about how incredible business class and the executive lounges were were worth every one of the 160K UA miles and 540K hotel points used:) They even took pictures of the "honeymoon" cake that SAS baked for them on the flight over. It was really nice to see business class and executive lounges and ungraded rooms thru their unjaded eyes. :D

Wow.

Way OT, but my two cents: it was a gift and they experienced the bump, not flyerwife. To even expect any offer would be out of line IMO.

Uh, HUH! and Amen to that. By way of background, check out the May (or maybe it wuz the June) issue on Money magazine. The article on wedding expenses.

My niece. Bright future, yes. But starting off that much in debt and then spending ~$40,00 on the wedding...and THEN asking for miles contributions to their CO account for the honeymoon in Hawaii. Gag me with a spoon, how tacky.

Not to mention that one can not transfer CO miles, or any other miles, into another party's account.

Don't even get me started on this cluster-#### of a wedding-disaster. But hey, they were *entitled* right?