when to use miles
 

1st time poster and visitor so be kind as I'm sure this has been around the block many times.Recently read that the old 1 mile equals 2 cents is no longer a good measurement.How do you determine when to redeem miles or purchase ticket? My interest would be from central Florida to Europe during spring and fall.I have most miles with Delta. Thanks, Gary Mc..

Every person has a different answer to this. You appear to have a goal of a trip to Europe. If you have enough miles, most people would tell you to go business or first. I use my miles for long haul international first class trips that I would never be able to afford without the help of miles. Last summer I flew CX first class to Australia for 140,000 miles. Best use of miles I've ever seen. I also once used TWA miles for a next day STL-BOS ticket to see Pedro vs Clemens at Fenway in the playoffs. The ticket would have cost $1500, but it was mine for 25,000 miles (and no expedite fee). I love the Red Sox, but I'm not going to spend $1500 to see them. Both of these uses of miles were great deals to me. The bottom line is, if you are happy with the end result, and you feel like you got a good deal, then you probably did. I would never use 25,000 miles for a $350 ticket, nor would I use 40,000 miles for a $500 ticket to Europe. But if that's what would make you happy, then go for it.

ignoring the cost per mile, I base it on what the ticket would cost. If I could fly from New York to London for $300 then I'll use Mondy, not miles to get there. If it's considerably higher then that, I'll use miles.

I look at the dollar amount and think what fraction of a free trip I'm getting with the miles and bonus miles, so if $300 or so is getting me half a free trip then I'll pay for it. If, however, I'm flying to Denver and that cost is $700 or $900, then it's miles to the rescue.

I find it so hard to fly on anything but an award ticket. The flexibility is invaluable. I change my itinerary more often than anyone I know. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't change my itinerary at will, and not make a couple of stopovers on international flights ... It makes me anxious to think of it.

I use the 300.00 limit. More, I use miles less I buy.

I have used domestic award (or a free RT bump cert) to places that are usually somewhat expensive and/or last minute such as a funeral. For intl, I will usually use it for someplace that is expensive in coach in season (Australia comes to mind). Recently, I have spent the extra miles to go in Business or First. Best use of miles IMHO.

I have Business class booked on QF using my 95K US Airways miles. Since I got lots of bonuses last fall going to Europe on US, my cost of flying was very low.

Using your miles to upgrade an inexpensive ticket on a flight to Europe gets you a very high return. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

mikey, does that $300 limit include international flights? For international, I like to use my miles for upgrading to B/E and will pay the price of an upgradable ticket on DL.

The other major consideration that I have is where I stand for requalifying for elite status. As a GM on DL who never comes close to hitting PM, I tend to buy my tickets until I reach the 50k needed for GM. After that, I like to redeem my miles.

Another consideration is the financial health of your airline. If it goes bankrupt, your miles will likely be worthless.

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Middle_Seat

I use miles pretty freely myself. I usually have under 100K in my account at any point in time, and use them to travel internationally.

Sometimes I wonder what all these people saving their miles are saving them for. You have to spend them eventually, or else their worth is zero. Sometimes it makes sense to spend the miles on some $250 ticket if that's the most expensive ticket you're ever inclined to need or want, IMO.

I would never fly coach International....So yes I use miles

And, for anything over 2 hours needs to be PM upgradable (no LUser fares)or I use miles

Another factor: maintaining status on your airline(s) of choice. I have booked one International Business award for June (to China on UA) and am planning an autumn vacation to Europe as well. But it's very possible I won't fly enough on business this year to keep even my "lowly 2P" status on UA.
So I have a number of possibilities to work out....

Kathy

I pay for every flight I possibly can, so I can 1) maintain my status, and 2) keep earning miles to pay for intl upgrades and last minute unavoidable flights. I also use miles to fly family and employees who don't care about earning their own miles or status.

macatak44

I just read the whole thread and noticed that no one welcomed you to Fylertalk.

Where are our manners?

welcome to flyertalk.

some here are only interested in earning miles and they cannot bring themselves to fly without getting the miles. i myself found it difficult to buy an award ticket last year for just that reason. 6000 miles that i didnt get added to my account. in addition, i used 360,000 miles for the 3 tickets. it didnt matter that i flew over 200,000 miles last year and had about 140,000 logged at the time of my vacation. i have about 1 million miles in my ua account alone. add the amex, dl, hp, aa, hilton, marriott, starwood, blah blah blah and i have so many points and coupons and stuff i can never use them all.


if the ticket is for work, i always buy it with money. no reason for them to get a free ride. if it is for my pleasure, i look at the cost of the ticket. my tolerance is $500 r/t.

like the others here, i try to avoid coach at all costs and i would never, ever fly over 5 hours in coach. so most intl. destinations that i would go to would need to be in F or C.

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f

If one has lots of miles, then they are more likely to redeem it for first or business class. On the airlines that I only have 50-100K, I often redeem it for domestic or transatlantic coach trips. On the 2 airlines that I have more, I tend to redeem for business class international or spur of the moment domestic vacations.

Delta upgrades to BizE to Europe are nice ways to use points. 40k will get you upgraded from coach.

Following are the limits I use -

Domestic - $250
Europe - $400
Japan - $550 ( Mileage Runs )
SIN/HKG - $650 ( Mileage Runs )

If the price of a ticket is above these numbers, I use an award ticket.

Then again, it depends on the airline too.

I burn Dividend miles as fast as I earn them ( who would'nt at 4x). Using AA miles is a taboo unless they are being used for an international itinerary.

You too, eh?

I'm a mileage hoarder. I get sick to my stomach when I think of flying somewhere on miles and not earning status.

That said, I am about to fly my "biggest" award ticket to date starting on Thursday... 135K AAdvantage miles for CX F to Bali with a return stopover in HKG.

Considering this trip priced out at over $14,000, if I use the old $0.02 valuation, I'm getting my ticket for about $2,700.

You too techgirl, I thought I was the only one who gets sick getting on a flight without earning miles. Really, the thought of priceline, "read my lips, I will never fly a priceline flight"!

More than that, there is a very rational reason to horde miles, their value is accretive, and when you accrue large balances, you can cash in on HUGE awards like yours to Bali (way to go!).

The only time that I am happy not to earn miles is when I used to snag flight on one of our corporate jets.....but alas no jet as a student again.....for a few more months at least!

Using the advice from this board, I, personally am spending my first miles to upgrade to First coming back to TUS from LGA. This will give me a confirmed First Class Seat (and more importantly a FC ticket) which will allow me to use the FC Check In and hopefully the Elite/FC security line at LGA. On the outward leg, I do not worry about the lines at TUS because in the past they have only taken at the most 45 minutes, but from LGA, based on horror stories on the board, I do not want to spend 2 to 4 hours waiting in lines. So I feel that this is a good use of miles. (plus I still will earn miles on the flight back :) )

Here's a good example of value for miles:

Price out ANC-ADK (Anchorage-Adak Island) and notice that the lowest fare is $1210. Alaska Mileage Plan members can get this flight (it's actually operated by PenAir) for 15K miles.

IMHO, that's a good use of mileage! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

It's pretty simple:

1. If the price of the flight is worth the $$ to me I pay for it.
2. If the price is more than I'm willing to pay, I don't go.
3. If not going is not an option, then I use miles.

Three scenarios as examples:

1. I want to go from DFW to SFO for the weekend. The ticket is $300. I buy it and go. The ticket is $500, I don't go.
2. I must go DFW to EWR tomorrow. The ticket is $1800. I use miles.
3. I'm going to europe. I'm tired of flying coach. I'm not going to pay $2500 for a business class ticket (one way) so I use miles to upgrade.

I've answered this before, but I'll bring it up again because no one mentioned it here yet.

I use my accumulated reward miles for the annual New Year's Eve trip I always take....it net's me about 15,500 "status" miles when flown as a "paid" round trip.....but in late December I'm well past my status qualification for the year, and I don't want to spend real money on mileage accumulation when it gets split between two years and wasted as a result. So I empty out my account for 1-2 flights.

A slightly different twist: On a domestic trip if one is planning to upgrade flight anyway with 30,000 miles (AA) for round trip, you can get R/T F award for 40,000 miles. That effectively makes the price of a coach ticket 10,000 miles, lowering the price I'm willing to pay for that same coach ticket from my usual limits.

how far in advance do you request for New Years..? I've tried like first possible day and they weren't avail...its like they never existed, are there less reward seats on some days?

I spent waaaaay too much money on travel last year. This year I have less time to travel due to the ole work schedule, and I need to trim my travel budget (I didn't have a budget last year). So the time to spend miles is when I am not sure when can I travel? Last minute, just to get out of town, go to a hockey game, visit a friend, for one day kind of thing travel costs an arm and a leg. The miles are therapy. Can't put a price on that.

I used to hoard my miles, and then I decided to use my first award ticket to go to a FT get-together. No regrets. Me and 7 good-looking guys at an Irish pub. What a deal.

macatak44, welcome to flyertalk, and go first class to europe. I just got a FC award ticket EUG-VIE for 80,000 miles for a friend (who's never flown FC or had status) for his birthday. Paid ticket would have cost over 7000 dollars. I've never seen him so excited and now he is looking into collecting miles through phone, dining and other means.

Linda

It depends on what you can get the tickets for. The value that most folks tell you to assign to frequent flyer miles is $0.02 per mile. That means that if you have to cash in 40K miles to get a ticket to Europe, then if you can get a coach ticket for less than $800, I'd pay cash -- or actually charge the ticket to my mileage linked credit card, get Citibank to give me a month loan, and then pay it off but I digress.

I wouldn't sweat the coach/business/first class thing too much if I were you. If you've got the miles to go business or first, then go ahead and do it, but if you only have enough to fly coach, don't sweat it.

I've flown to New Zealand in coach, and if you listen to some of the folks here, I should be dead or have lost a limb or something. I got there just fine, and was skiing the next day so obviously, it wasn't that bad.

Having said that, the difference in mileage required to get a business class ticket to New Zealand versus the miles required to get a coach class ticket is a hell of a lot less than the fares would run you. It's 90K miles versus 60K miles, and I guarantee you that the business class fare is a hell of a lot more than 50 percent higher than the coach fare.

Award use for me is divided into two primary categories: Cost/Benefit, and Sheer Indulgence.

Cost/Benefit is similar to what most others have posted. If you can fly somewhere and earn a reasonable number of miles for under US$300 within NAmerica, US$400 to Europe, and US$600 to Asia [before taxes and fees], then I pay for the ticket and hope to be able to use upgrades.

Also, if there is not sufficient notice for a must-go trip to purchase a discounted fare, then miles become an option because NAmerican travel to easily top up to US$1500 or more for a full fare Y ticket, elsewhere even more. [And award tickets are almost as flexible for me as a full Y, J or F fare ticket.] Being top tier in AC, I have access to any seat still for sale on the flight I want, even if no award inventory exists, for the normal award price. This is an extremely valuable benefit.

And AC also offers short-haul NAmerican awards for 15K. While expensive to some, these are also quite useful for mileage runs, when the objective if to top up one's status miles. Since fares are too expensive ex-Canada, I will use a short haul award to link up with a mileage run on UA or AA. The MR flights will generally earn 15K to 20K status miles, and twice that many due to elite bonuses. So I will net out what is spent for the award, and still be ahead on each balance: status and general account.

However, for the most part, I will still use awards for Sheer Indulgence: to fly First Class to Asia, Africa or Australia, where sleeper bed seats come into their own. 120K or so miles for the equivilent of a US$10K First Class ticket is a pretty good use of one's miles.

Of course, these strategies can best be managed by those of us who hold elite status in one or more programs, and who have been at it long enough to have account balances that would make us very wealthy people were they dollars instead of miles!

It's interesting how many people here say that they refuse to travel in coach, especially for long distances. Many say that they use their miles for upgrades or free trips in business or first.

I always use my miles for free trips in coach. To me, it's better to get two free trips in coach than one in business or first.

I've been on intercontinental flights in coach many times, and I've never had a problem. I've never flown anywhere in business or first class, so maybe I don't know what I'm missing, but it can't be so great as to be worth more than taking another trip another time.

Of course, I don't earn miles very quickly, so when I get enough for ONE free trip in coach it's a big deal!

Ed

I would gladly trade off all FF miles to do all travel in private jet. Hands down, the way to go. Miles don't begin to make up for the hassles of commercial airline travel.


[This message has been edited by jsmeeker (edited 04-01-2002).]

Ed, I'm with you, buddy. If it's within the US, I'm not giving up the premium for first class. I'll use my e-upgrades if the flight is full, but other than that, I'm not worried about it. Just get me my e-plus seat and I'm a happy boy. I'm not giving up what is 60 percent of another coach ticket to fly in first class, especially since the longest flight I'll be on will be around five hours. I can live with e-plus there.

However, with my trip to New Zealand, I will cough up the extra 30K miles to fly in business class. It costs 50 percent more, so that's less than the premium for a domestic flight. On top of that, I'll be in the air for around 20 hours when I'm all done, so that means that the benefit to me is four times as great as for the longest domestic flight. On top of this, if I fly on Air New Zealand, they don't have e-plus, so it's a little different.

I get so much more bang for my buck doing this that it's worth it to me.

To each his own, though.

I've had to fly at the last minute for suddend deaths in the family. Without the miles, I would have paid a lot more, even with a bereavement fare. Miles for last minute situations are always good to have.