uses for small number of miles
 

Newspaper/magazine subscriptions are one reasonable way to burn off relatively small numbers of miles, making for an excellent way to dispose of miles that would otherwise go unused, "orphan" miles. Are there other good ways to use miles (especially UA) in lesser amounts than required for award travel and upgrades, that is 0 to 5K of them?

Charity donations.

Would I sound miserly were I to ask for suggestions in addition to that one?

What about swapping those miles with some other points program you have? Have you got a hotel card? or another airline card? What about points.com? Maybe there's a swap/reward there that might work. Are your miles expiring, such that you will lose if you don't use? Or are you not traveling any more? (No you don't sound miserly...I'd love 5K miles right now..)

There's no way to swap out of UA - it's a dead-end program in that regard.

5K on UA gets you an intra-Hawaii flight, though.

Not sure of your area, but in the DFW area the local newspaper is available for a pretty low amount of miles.

Outside of the donations or magazines, the next best options seem to be to abandon them or use the mileage mall/iDine to get them up to a threshold to get something you can use (like the 5K intra-Hawaii or using them to redeem for merchandise or some other option based on what the program allows). From some other discussions, the airlines don't consider any balance less than 25K as a liability on the balance sheet so they don't really consider them as any value either.

Any suggestions for 10K UA?

2 interisland tickets...

In the IAD/DCA area you can get the Washington Post (500 miles for 10 weeks of the Sunday edition) or the Washington Times (1,500 miles for 12 months).

UA allows you to use miles to purchase merchandise. I've done this with them, to get rid of a few orphaned miles.

Recently expired e-cert redemption promo may return. IIRC 1000 mi for $25 off or 5000 mi for $75 off.

Does US have any options? They used to have magazines, which seem to have disappeared.

In general, most programs don't have any way to spend small amounts of miles.

A few of the very biggest programs (AA, UA) have multiple ways, and a few more may have magazines only.

But with most programs, the only use is once you have enough miles for a short flight with a partner (inter-island in Hawaii or short hop in Europe, for example). But, of course, that only works if you happen to get to wherever that free flight can be taken (it's useless if you want to spend the miles without traveling to that specific destination).

US uses points.com, but only to accumulate.

To redeem within US, the cheapest options are currently 5K for a one-way upgrade to F from full-fare, or 10K from cheaper fares. If you fly them at all then it might be worth doing something to earn a few more and redeem for that.

A lot of the earning/spending options went away after the merger with HP.