Drowning in Miles and Points
 

I am a very frequent traveler which is mostly on the road internationally and have amassed millions of miles and points, only air and hotel.

I simply do not have the time to use these miles and have read around regarding Coupon Connection. Although I would like to stay within the boundaries of the program rules associated within each scheme I am trying to figure out what to do with my all these miles / points. My main problem is time, I cant fiddle with dates I NEED TO TRAVEL ON THE DATES I NEED TO, and that goes for vacation as well given that it is on my dime vs. company dime...

Traveling 300,000-500,000 miles per year (YTD approx 185,000) for the past three years have really incresead my balances tremendously accross several programs. Spending half of the year in hotels accross the world has had a major impact to my SPG account (well in excess of MM). I have always stayed current with promo's especially before 2003 when I only traveled 100,000-150,000 miles per year and 50-100 nights in hotels per year.
I had an account with US with 118,000 miles that was dormant (i.e. had no idea I had it as I had forgotten about it) and got in the mail a piece a letter from US letting me know that there were about to expire. Kindly of them or else I would have not even known, regardless I donated them to a worthy cause, which told me it was their largest miles donation from a single user... It got me thinking...

Apologies for the rant but have to figure out something to do with these rewards and if someone is in the same situation as mine would be keen to hear them out.

Regards from the CRC @ LAX

If you don't have time to use them by yourself why not start sponsoring trips to your family members.

The CC won't help you because people are mere exchanging awards from different programs and $$$ transaction are prohibited.

If you do $$ transactions your account might get audited as well documented on FT.

Quite a few programs allow you to exchange points/miles for merchandise. That would be one route to spend the points/miles as well.

That works for me, as I can't use all my miles, either. I just flew my sister and her husband to Ireland, and just today booked tickets for friends to join me in Washington DC for a long weekend. I rotate the awards between family members.

How about using your miles to upgrade to F (or are you already flying in F)?

Failing any of these, most airline sites have charitable links to donate miles. I know AA has several charities on their web site, including Hero Miles, that are in need of miles.

I have done this (or better, TRIED this) a few times and only once it went through on a QF flight in November of last year US-OZ. I usually fly J but many times (such as today) J might be sold-out therefore F becomes acceptable by my employer, this is bcs at times I find out 1-2 biz days ahead of a major long trip (OZ/ASIA?NZ from US), and inventory is full. Today I did MEL-HKG-LAX and HKG-LAX was sold out in J and did it in F. (left on May 25th, booked on 24th...) Only 2 pax other than me. MEL-HKG was 75% load in J and empty in F from what I could tell (seated in 11a, which is second row from F on that flight).

I do not have an extended family and am not married, other than two close members who are well off and would look at me weird by offering them a ticket I really do not have anyone I can closely associate myself in such manner. Perhaps some of you use miles/points for products but ime (limited) the stuff you can buy is really a true rip-off.

I am using about 450,000 SPG points for a week in the maldives in November(SPG is good as there is no fiddling around with dates). Still, even after that my balance will be well over 1MM, I tried (still trying) to get tickets to MLE with OW, ST AND SA but my dates "are not available" even if willing to committ some stupid amount (not saver, but highway robber plan). Because I need to depart on exact dates and my friend coming with me has set flights Im kind of screwed as I will need to shell out for full J and two different pnr's. Connecting in BOM. So... Even trying my best to use some miles its getting tough. I am also pressed for time and infact currently I have time to kill and looking for award J or F but seems next to impossible if your dates are locked... BTW my trip is scheduled for November! Ill just keep trying I know that ORD-BOM (flight we are supposed to take) should open up at some point and will at least get one leg comped with miles... We shall see.

Have you looked closely enough at SkyTeam flights? You didn't say which ST carrier your miles are with, but by November, DL, CO, and NW will all be flying there. And, unlike OW, at least some of these ST carriers have their "pay double miles to waive capacity controls" feature work on partner carriers as well. For example, with CO miles, with the double-mileage awards, you can take seats not only on CO but on NW. I've done exactly this, booking the very last NW J revenue seat on an int'l flight using CO miles. This doesn't work between all ST carriers, but it works at least between NW and CO, so it's worth checking into.

I don’t know your age, but a number of FT-ers see miles/points as part of their retirement portfolios. Given your amount of biz travel, it might be hard to drag yourself on another plane/into another hotel, but when retired a hundred plus days in the *wood of your choice, along with free tix to get there, would likely be pretty appealing.

Sure, there will be some devaluation along the way, but a million plus *points will always have some value; and more so when you have the time to enjoy it.

Good idea about just keeping them for retirement, on the other hand I really hope I do not need miles for retirement pruposes... but who knows?

Appreciate the ST concept to MLE and am trying to look into that today that I am actually at home... before leaving again tomorrow which will not give me a lot of free time. Have many miles with DL, AF and NW (mainly DL and AF with balances in the multi-million level).

What flights btw?

On a side note, I have been getting numerous emails asking to barter, trade, sell etc. miles and have not replied mainly bcs I am not interested, but thanks. However ONE PM was well recieved, about donating miles to another worthy cause. It just so happens I have 56,000 UA miles I do not intend to use or accumulate and have donated them to the ALS cause, thanks for your PM kind FTer the miles are on their way, hope you can use them in a meaningful way.

Roger

Roger,
One benefit of having soo many miles is offering an award to yourself that you might not otherwise offer, such as using United miles to fly Emirates Business class etc. Most airlines offer the use of double miles for when standard mileage awards are not available. One thing to do with starwood is use points for instant awards in the hotel. I did this in Venice for breakfast for two for only 3,000 SPG points. If you have that many points, sometimes airlines will do a special award like tickets to the Masters or a weekend stay at a resort with everything included.

Just some ideas. I understand about where you are coming from as far as not finding flights for your dates. I am going to the Seychelles and could not use miles and just had to purchase a ticket.

One option is to trade for a airline that flys to where you want without capacity controls. I believe Singapore and Emirates both fly to Maldives and have a great premium product, yet I am not sure if they offer double miles to waive capacity controls, yet maybe a partner airline lets you waive capacity controls on Singapore for extra miles.

Cheers

Timo

If you have a charity you work with or have familiarity with, you might want to go to them and see if you can help out in some way. I had a situation a little while back when a animal shelter I was working with was looking at attending a conference, but didn't have any money to do it. They didn't really push it, but I could have redeemed award tickets and hotel nights to get them to the event if they really wanted. That may be something else you can do with the excess points.

I used a whole bunch of extra miles I had to put together a family vacation event and got award tickets for everyone to fly in.

I don't know if this would work for your company, but you may also be able to use them to book one of your business trips and get the company to just give you the equivalent amount as an expense reimbursement. That doesn't work with a lot of companies, but that may be another way for you to consume the miles and make some money in the process.

Maybe you need to get a better job!

Mine comes with 10 weeks vacation a year and plenty of opportunity to use miles and points with some flexibility.

And all that air travel, it seems, may be bad for the environment. Videoconferencing may be less burdensome, so that travel becomes more for personal travel and enrichment.

There are a lot of charitable organizations out there and I would agree with the others who recommend donating your miles, but I'd suggest looking closer to home than with the traditional "big boys" of charity work. I have nothing against donating miles to help the military personnel or etc, but those charities are already getting lots of donations. Your local Childrens Hospital would probably make good use of the miles to help when families have to travel for a sick child's treatment, and they don't usually have quite the exposure that other charities do.

Or give the miles to Habitat for Humanity. They still have a massive effort underway in post-Katrina Gulf Coast areas and volunteers must either pay for their own transportation or get someone to sponsor them. This amount of miles would probably allow several volunteers to take part when it might otherwise be out of their financial reach.

Hi trik/CRC,

The key question is, are you able to plan any trips several months in advance? It is quite possible to get seats in that situation.

True, however transactions for travel related gift certs (AA vouchers are especially popular) are allowed. I can think of at least one FTer who solicits - and apparently completes - at least one 100K plus mile transaction there virtually every week, sometimes more.

Roger, yes, you can get into MLE with what you have. Here is how:

Transfer your SPG points to SQ's KrisFlyer account.

You can fly SQ from SIN to MLE in Business class for 65K miles if seats are available. If not, pay double miles - 130K - and you will get any seats that's available on the SQ flights. SQ flies to MLE everyday from SIN. If you redeem the award yourself online, you can save 15% off the 130K you'll need, by logging into your SQ KrisFlyer account and make the redemption. As you know, 20K SPG point = 25K SQ mile, you have more than enough points for your trip to MLE.

Feel free to ask any other questions you may have. I agree with Napoleon on one thing: "The word <<impossible>> doesn't exist." :)

That is not correct. The award availability in premium cabins is often excellent day or two before the flights.