ipod for miles?
 

My travel has ground down to a halt (A total of 2 flights in the last two years) Now I'm left with about 60k AA miles, 20k NW, 20k Delta, about 100k each of hilton and Marriott, 20k United, and a smattering of a few others here and there. United will probably survive due to Safeway, but the others are in danger of expiring due to these new policies... However, I don't see much traveling in our horizon for the next few year... And, I just smashed my MP3 player, so I'm looking to get a new IPod or other player... So the question - is there anyway to get an Ipod with the assortment of miles? Any other useful things that can be obtained with smatterings of miles? (Hmm... I already have 2 years of the Economist from Delta, maybe and could just keep extended the sub there...)

AFAIK, the only venue for this is points.com. Never thought it was a good deal, but if you're going to lose the points anyway, might be worth it.

check the marriott.com web site as there are a number of products that you could trade your points for - although i'd say they are overpriced

I picked up a 30GB ipod + Bose headphones through Marriott.com a while back, for 85,000 points. Probably wasn't the best value for my points, but given that I don't see using the points for lodging anytime soon, it was a good deal for me. YMMV.

I took a look at the Marriott site, and saw a few Ipods with headphones - put it looks like everything is now above 100k. :( Though there were a couple of mp3 players in my range. The sony one llooked interesting.

why must they expire, given the various shopping, iDine and the like that require an investment of a dollar or 2?

that said, i'd think AMEX MR offers iPods, so perhaps you can find someone on CC to help you out.

good luck

Looks like they've got a 30GB Zune for 80k right now, as well as a few nano's for 90k. When I got my 30GB iPod, it was one of their price slashes - it was 115k, but they were offering it temporarily for 85k.

Good luck!