I hoard miles because I just want as many as possible.

I am a bit of a travel addict. And, the more miles I have, the more options I have.

On my 3 major airlines (UA, AA, DL), I probably have 250K miles.

And, I have been saving points for and mentally planning a dream "around the world" trip. . . It's probably 2 years out.

I also have an oppty to go to Europe every year for personal reasons and I use the miles for that.

When I do fly, I build in as many long layovers or stop-overs as I can into my itinerary. I've spent time sightseeing in between flights in Germany, Vienna and I've had a few side-bar trips using that strategy.

I guess I would be considered a "Hoarder" (CO: 1,300M +, UA 400M+, QF 350M+*, SPG 190M+, Hyatt 300M+ ), but not for the same reasons as others on FT. I value the perks that come with elite status--upgrades, better rooms/views, reservation availability, recognition etc) more than using points for trips/hotel. Thus I will always look to book the cheapest rate and when necessary use my points for an upgrade for hubby (keeping my fingers crossed for my own CO EUA ), or if I am at an expensive hotel for more than 1 night (my max is generally 3 nights at one hotel) I will pay for one night for the points/stay credit and use points for the other one or two. I am not particularily concerned about future devaluation as I don't see my 'spending' pattern changing much.
(*QF was acquired by moving SPG points to QF during a promo awhile back for BA/Concorde flight-- of which I did take 2 R/T, and thats my balance)

I'm a hoarder, but with varying reasons.

Initially it was for a round the world to celebrate turning 40, but work plans meant that the 3 months that had been agreed in principle 2 years ago, got reduced to 2 weeks.

Now I'm keeping them for "emergency" travel. I live in the UK and my family live in Oz. If I had to go home in a hurry, I'd have to stump up a lot of cash to buy a last minute ticket. Having the miles gives me at least the possibilty of a getting a flight at short notice for less than what I would have to pay otherwise.

I would say by my actions I am a hoarder but definitely don't intend to hoard miles. I tend to want to save them for expensive trips in premium cabins, but inevitably the tight capacity controls on awards, combined with my not-that-flexible schedule force me to hoard rather than spend.

It is definitely bad because the miles get devalued over time.

The other factor at work is the desire to fly on paid tickets to maintain elite status. It is very easy to tell yourself 'I'll fly now for the miles, then use the awards next year.' Somehow, next year never arrives.

Regards,
Traveler

1,750,000 AA
400,000+ DL
870,000 SPG
65,000 Hyatt
75,000 LH
250,000 TYN
30,000 SQ
20,000 NW
30,000 UA


NOTE: not willing to sell, barter or trade. Thanks.

I keep them for very expensive trips got lots of AA UAl DELTA IG and HH points

Over past 5 years mr and mrs ned have accumulated over 4 million miles (airline and hotel equivalent). We have used about 2 million including one trip booked this year and one next year. Do we hoard?

Sorry, not a hoarder.

Burned over 2million AA miles, over a million US, over a half-million DL. I have a half-million PC points and about 100,000 HHonors points, but will burn a substantial chunk of this in 2008.

Highest level I have now is 230,000 US miles only because I need 240,000 for Mrs. outoftown and I to go to Fiji or Bali, which will be burned as soon as I can book this award.

-outoftown

Started saving miles in about 2000 for a honey moon, changed my mind and burned them all in about 2005, been building them up again now. Mindful of airlines going bust and devaluation, so have been topping off accounts with enough miles for a decent trip in C, i.e AKL-LHR etc, and then moving on to a new FF plan to hedge my bets. Do still use some for awards, but trying to get enough to 2 decent C or F tickets again.

tht

I'm not a hoarder. I burn hotel points when I get enough for the vacation I want and keep enough miles in my UA account for upgrades and an occasional gift award.

Wow. What is 'TYN?'

Not a hoarder -

Been a FF for many years so I have seen too many "program changes" not realize it is better to use them when you can.

Peace!

Thank You Network. It's a home-grown points program from Citibank.

I've never hoarded anything up to the million mark or even close. Right now, I'm sitting on 500k Marriott and it has me a bit itchy. 200k HH, 100k SPG as well. In the airline world, I have about 440k AA and 240k UA, plus four or five WN award tix that I have earned through Hertz.

And I'm a bit of a noob to the Thank You Network, with about 60k there. Yes, I realize I missed out on some outstanding awards in the past, but I figure TYN can still function as a 4 to 6 percent rebate card on a subset of my spending, so that makes it a might complement to SPG Amex.

I'm likely not the kind of person this kind of article focuses on... I'm in my first job out of school and traveling about 25-30 segments per year (based on the past 18 months), all domestic. Right now I've made Silver Medallion on Delta and should be HHonors Diamond very soon.

Because ALL of my flights are domestic, and few are transcon, I build airline miles pretty slowly. This makes me a bit skidish of letting them go (sitting at 30k Skymiles right now, only redeemed once for a confirmed transcon upgrade). I also fly ATL-TUL more often than any other route, so my company most often books me on AA through STL or DAL. Sometimes I get CO through HOU if the rates are close, but they'll never pay the $1350 a Delta Connection direct flight costs. I have around 10k AAdvantage points but no real way to use them since AA options from ATL are pretty limited.

It's also hard to make myself pay for ticket on a legacy carrier for short-haul domestic leisure. We go ATL-MCO about once a month as WDW Anual Passholders and have yet to fly anyone other than Airtran or Spirit. The cheapest DL fair i've seen is $320/ea for L/U/T. Next weekend we're flying Spirit for under $100/TOTAL w/ 2 confirmed BIG LEATHER SEAT upgrades. I'd love to be able to pay the premium to fly legacy/mainline but right now being 25, just married, w/ a mortgage it's impossible to justify the difference just for miles. Someone in a DL forum thread rolled their eyes at me for supporting lowcost carriers and not building miles, but at this point in life a $550 difference considering it's a 1.5 hour flight and a 3 night trip is a HUGE difference, more than a car payment and almost half of a mortgage payment.

Now w/ HHonors it's a different story. I've built around 200k points in less than 6 months and only 15 stays, mostly at Hamptons and Embassys. I use the HHonors AMEX for everything I can and average around 20k per month from that. Because I know I can build the HHonors points quicker, It'll be ALOT easier to let them go for a 6 night in Hawaii next spring/summer. Since I work on-site at Delta TechOps 2-3 days a week and know alot of folks there we'll be getting Buddy Passes and flying through CVG, leaving a flight/hotel trip cost of around $400 total. Because of the way I fly (basicly making it impossible to build large amounts of miles), building hotel points yields the best returns from my business travel that can be directly applied to my personal travel... there's always a Hilton property somewhere near by.

I've got over 1.6 million AAdvantage miles in my account at the moment (from nearly 2.5 million earned in the program) but I don't consider myself a hoarder.

I'm saving miles just as I put money into my retirement savings accounts, so that when I retire in a few years I'll be able to travel freely despite having a lower annual income than I do now.

That doesn't mean I won't spend miles now, however, as I'm planning another visit to Australia for late 2008 and I'll be using miles for my business-class Qantas ticket as soon as the reservations window opens later this year.