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What to do with <10,000 FF miles?

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What to do with <10,000 FF miles?

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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 10:51 am
  #1  
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What to do with <10,000 FF miles?

Like many of you, I signed up for every FF program avaible on the off chance I need to fly other airlines aside from my main one (United).

So my question is, aside from magazines, what can you do with less than 10,000 miles for each airline?

To start it off, for 7,000 United miles, you can get a one-day pass for one person at a Red Carpet Club.
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 11:01 am
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Originally Posted by Uniter
So my question is, aside from magazines, what can you do with less than 10,000 miles for each airline?
Well... magazines are my favorite thing to do.

I also emptied out two accounts with 12,000 miles in donations to charities.
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 11:04 am
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I suppose you could donate them. CO lets you buy merchandise, but the catch is you pay something like 100 miles PLUS dollars. Doesn't seem too appealing.
If you have miles in a program like AMEX you can transfer enough miles to boost your mileage in some programs to get enough for an award. I always get mileage credit when traveling other than United and then I'll either donate the miles when they get close to expiration, or transfer miles in and take a free flight.
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 11:10 am
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With 10,000 Northwest, Continental, American adn Alaska miles you can redeem an interisland R/T award on Hawaiian.

(5,000 United miles on Aloha).
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 11:26 am
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Originally Posted by slippahs
With 10,000 Northwest, Continental, American adn Alaska miles you can redeem an interisland R/T award on Hawaiian.

(5,000 United miles on Aloha).
Good one!

So is United the only airline that lets you purchase a day pass to its Clubs with miles?
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 1:32 pm
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With 5000 miles from Continental or Midwest (via Amtrak Reward), you can get $50 gift certificate to many retail establishments. With planning, you can do the same thing when flying any of the Continental or Midwest's partners (e.g. AA, Northwest, Air France, EVA ..).
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 1:58 pm
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If it's up in the high end of things - like 7k-10k - I'd just hang on to them and not burn them on a frivolous reason. (Use 'em for magazines if you want the magazines, but don't just burn 'em to burn 'em.)

On United for example, they run periodic short-haul awards for 15k. (I think we are in such a period now.) So there you go: a quick little conversion or maybe a CC signup, and you have a free flight. If you don't need it now, don't fret - just tweak the account once every couple of years with an iDine and someday you'll be glad you had a few miles laying around.

If I'm down in the 3k & under range, then I might accept a pile of free magazines.
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 3:39 pm
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Originally Posted by Uniter
Like many of you, I signed up for every FF program avaible on the off chance I need to fly other airlines aside from my main one (United).

So my question is, aside from magazines, what can you do with less than 10,000 miles for each airline?

To start it off, for 7,000 United miles, you can get a one-day pass for one person at a Red Carpet Club.
where do you go to do this on their site. i cant seem to find it. you can get a membership for 70000 miles. but not a one day for 7000
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Old Oct 13, 2005 | 3:54 pm
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On American or Continental (through Amtrak), turn them into Hilton points. I think 5,000 AA miles gets you 10,000 Hilton points, enough for one night at a "cheap" class of hotel.
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Old Oct 14, 2005 | 12:54 pm
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Originally Posted by Uniter
... what can you do with less than 10,000 miles for each airline?
I manage accounts for 4 family members. 6 airlines means 24 accounts, of which 9 are currently under 10,000.

I save the miles. The challenge is to keep them from expiring. But assuming that we are successful at that (there are other threads about this), I think there is a lot to be said for the infrequent frequent flyer. We have eventually gotten tickets that we never expected, because
1.) You never know when airlines will merge
2.) You never know when a sale or schedule might put you on another airline
3.) You never know when you'll fly some airline overseas that has a partnership with an airline you usually don't fly.
4.) You never know when some promotion comes along so you can get easy points
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Old Oct 14, 2005 | 3:07 pm
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Milepoint

www.milepoint.com still lets you use miles for magazines.
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Old Oct 14, 2005 | 5:52 pm
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Originally Posted by grbflyer
where do you go to do this on their site. i cant seem to find it. you can get a membership for 70000 miles. but not a one day for 7000
Sadly, you can't do it on United.com (yet another in a long line of problems at ual.com). You can walk into any RCC any buy a one-day pass for 7,000 miles or $50. I believe you can also buy a day-pass over the phone. It's a pretty good deal if you've got miles in United that you'll never use. Heck, you could even go ahead and trade that day pass on the Coupon Connection!
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Old Oct 15, 2005 | 9:36 am
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You can get a mileage earning credit card that gives a bonus of 15,000 to 20,000 miles in that program. You should have enough miles for a free ticket, or close enough to it that charging a little bit to that ticket will get you there. Once you have enough for the ticket, cancel the card so that you will be ready to do it again if you get a few more miles sometime in the future.
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Old Oct 15, 2005 | 10:19 am
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What about 10k on Delta?
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Old Oct 15, 2005 | 12:07 pm
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Originally Posted by ja_user
What about 10k on Delta?
Sounds like Dash to the Gate... I think wastes-of-paper (i.e. magazines) are about all you can get with DL.
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