It seems like people treat their miles/points in vastly different ways. Some people like to accumulate a large amount of miles/points during the "good" years to keep for times when they will earn less and will be able find the time to get free vacations and such. Others use the points almost as quickly as possible.

Given the point inflation for awards, Hilton recent 2003 award hikes come to mind, it seems wise to not sit on too many points at a time.

Personally, I usually go out of my way to redeem points as quickly as possible. The last couple of years, I have been earning 250.000 miles on United and redeemed at least 200.000 per year for both myself, friends and family. The logic being, I would rather save some money for someone in my family to travel for free than saving the miles and expose myself to inflation. I also subscribe to the theory that having points does me no good, actually using them does. I get very little out of just posessing them but quite a lot of redeeming them.

Do most people fall into these categories or do some people have a more unique view on how many points to sit on?

Since my goal has been to achieve lifetime platinum with AA, I fly rather than use miles, while I can get lots of miles (while platinum) and a cheap ticket. If the ticket has been expensive then I've used miles - or don't fly. Once I achieve lifetime platinum I will feel freer to use my miles which now amount to quite a bit. I always wonder at those people scrambling to get the extra XX amount of miles to get a ticket. Seems like a lot of pressure. I would just fly the next trip and use the miles later. What's the rush?

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Ms.DtG

I pretty much agree with the above post. If the tickets are reasonable priced, I purchase it and save the miles. If, however, I am flying into one airport and leaving from another, which raises the price considerably; or, if I am going somewhere that costs much more than I like, then I use the miles. In my opinion, that's what award travel is for. To make an expensive trip cheaper. I also save miles in case of any family emergencies and needing a quick flight with no advance notice.

I pay for the ticket if cost is less than 2 cents per mile or if I need status miles. For upgrades and friends or family I use miles. I get lots of miles so as long as I have some I am willing to use miles. I don't hoard miles a I think that they are constantly being devalued.

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dallasflyer

Whether for business or on my own dime, I try to get the cheapest fare I can get...while keeping as much of my miles on CO (to achieve top tier) as I can. I've only used CO miles to upgrade internationally or on a rare occasion, domestically (when I know my upgrade odds are slim to none). That said, I did transfer a significant amount of *wood points to QF enabling me to take 3 or 4 free r/t on Concorde/BA FC. Which brings me to hotel points, aside from what I did with the QF transfer, I never have a need to use those points, so they just keep accumulating. My trips are generally only one or two days & most on business with my company paying. For my own vacations, which are also a maximum of 2 or 3 days, I'll pay for my hotel-- generally staying in a different property each night (to maximize nights/stays), and use my elite status with those hotels for upgrades & better treatment.
So, contarary to many on these posts, my hotel points are the ones languishing in my accounts.

HOTELS: In 2001, my thoughts were "hoard hotel points for the biggest awards, because that's where the best bang for the buck is". Now my opinion has changed 180 degrees: Hotel programs are fickle. Hotel programs don't care about my loyalty. I am in the process of redeeming my final few hotel award vacations, and it will forever be Priceline for me going forward. On my handful of business stays each year, I will evaluate current promotions and perhaps take advantage if there is a near-term reward (e.g., Take Two or FFN), but I will no longer hoard for ALOA's and things like that. And I will never pay more than the Priceline rate again for a leisure stay, because any hotel status below Platinum/Diamond has become a throwaway status.

AIRLINES: I'm approaching Lifetime Gold on AA, so I will probably focus travel there in the future. (Plus, AA works well for the routes I fly.) I like to buy cheap tickets, accumulate miles, and spend the miles for international upgrades. I rarely fly a straight award seat on AA, because I'd rather earn miles and upgrade. (Of course, it doesn't always work, and to places like Hawaii it used to make sense to just book the two-seat F awards.) I don't fret about using AA miles the instant I get them - a little inflation may bite me, but that's better than burning them on trips I don't really want to take to begin with.

For airlines on which I have no status, I spend the miles as soon as I have enough for a business-class seat.

I do not save too many miles, the risk is too big too be stranded with a million miles and obliged to make trips you do not want or lose them !

Every year, I make sure I fly enough paid trips to maintain status. Then I spend my miles for : tickets that would otherwise cost me more than 1 cent per mile, and if there are still miles left I accumulate for one goal / Concorde, first class round trip ... then blow them all.

I also keep some miles for emergencies, though. So I always have over 100 000.

That's for my main airline. For other airlines, I spend them when it is worth it, no accumulation.

pinniped,

I mostly agree with your assessment of hotel point programs. However, your strategy could be optimized a bit: you say that you will never pay more than a Priceline price for a stay. Have you ever tried to use Priceline for a busy weekend - Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Superbowl weekend, etc?

In those cases, points are worth more than their weight in gold. When it's my money, I use Priceline almost exclusively. But I'm also reserving several hotel rooms for Mardi Gras 2003 with points, in hotels that are probably already sold out.

Also, using points provides a level of flexibility that Priceline (or even a standard reservation) does not. You can change days or even cancel up to a day or two in advance.

This is a very interesting thread, thanks for starting it! I didn't realize there were so many different strategies out there.

Here's what we do:
Airlines: we use our points almost exclusively for upper class international travel - usually buying the entire ticket on points, since the places we got tend to be expensive for even a coach ticket (Asia, Australia, etc). Like af fp, I value my points at around a penny each.

Hotels: My view is I can never have enough hotel points. Again, we use them exclusively for our 2 major vacations a year, plus 5-8 weekends away over the year - mostly starwood. For the big vacations we tend to stay in either 'resort' hotels with great pools and beaches, that would be well over $200 a night, or major city center upscale hotels in foreign language countries which we couldn't afford to stay at any other way. We really like to stay at the major properties in these foreign cities for the amazing help provided by the concierge in choosing restaurants, travel arrangements, etc, so the points are good use to stay at a hotel with good english speaking concierges, if we don't speak the native language.

I'm a Chiefs fan, so I'm not too worried about hotels on Super Bowl weekend.

I take it you are a Starwood guy. That clearly is the best hotel program for the type of travel you are talking about - Mardi Gras, the Olympics, Super Bowls, Final Fours, etc. Believe me: I've thought about trying to run every single penny I can through the Starwood Amex for the sole purpose of having enough SPG points when I want to do a major event like what you describe.

My problem is that Marriott and Hilton are the two programs I can choose from for the cities I frequent. Those two programs won't help me if the Chiefs get to Super Bowl XXXIX (Marriott's individual properties can block Anytime awards and HH just laughs at you when you try to redeem at peak times). I like both of these chains a lot - I think Hampton Inns are great - but I have lost confidence in the rewards programs and will no longer go out of my way to spend extra money for the sole purpose of earning the points.

As for flexibility, that's obviously a good point. For business stays (about 15-20 nights/year for me), I will definitely look at each program and see what short-term promo benefits me the most. If there's a good one, I'll jump on it. Otherwise, I'll just pick the hotel I like the best.

(Perhaps my opinion of hotel programs would be different if I had 40-50 nights a year on business in a good Starwood city. The no-capacity-controls feature of SPG is certainly worthwhile.)

I generally use my miles for upgrades. Sure, I'd like to cash in 120K and try First Suite on a LAX-SYD run, but I love Business Class on the 777 and can use those miles to upgrade an inexpensive Coach fare to Business for LAX-SYD *and* SEA-NRT.

In general, I fly overnight when going East, since I lose the day anyway. Since I cannot sleep on a plane, I do not bother upgrading to F/C. However, I usually will upgrade the return leg (early evening) so I can relax (plus the headwinds usually add an hour to the flight time).

As for cars and hotels, well I usually send those miles into airline programs. I use Hertz exclusively, but having to spend $18,000 to get a free weekend in a Prestige Collection car (what I normally rent) seems ludicrous.

As for hotels, I do not use the miles for free rooms. I know Hyatt allows miles to be used to upgrade rooms to suites. Yes, you need to pay the higher rate, but the times I stay at a Hyatt, the rate is high anyway (special events) so that is really nice. As for Hilton and Mariott (my other two), I like Hilton's "Double Dip". I did the Mariott "Take Two/Silver" this year and will see what that is like, as well.

We accumulate miles with Starwood AMEX, telephone long distance, and air travel which is purchased if the fare is less than award tickets @.015 per mile. Spending miles include US business, emergency, and spontaneous or immediate travel where tickets cost too much to purchase. We try to keep a balance of about 3-500,000 miles but don't want much more than that due to devaluation.

Ah! The strategy. IMHO, it�s more to do with picking the right program for you than having a great strategy. Here is how I handle my miles and points.

Requirement

1. With 100% leisure travel, STAY WITHIN BUDGET.
2. One 1-week vacation a year.
3. Vacation every month for at least 3 Days.

Preferred Vacations
1. Beaches (Including diving)
2. Outdoors Travel (Hiking, River Rafting, etc)
3. City sightseeing vacations.

Earning Strategy

Things have changed a little bit since the system wide double mile promo. For some reason I do not like doing pure mileage runs. We both (me and my wife) realized that traveling is our hobby, not miles/points. Collecting miles/points are means to an end and not the end itself. For e.g. Doing ORD-SEA non-stop is dumb. ORD-DFW-SEA is the preferred routing whereas ZRK-ORD-STL-DFW-SEA-DFW-STL-ORD-ZRK is now out of question. It is a costlier way of earning miles but, IMHO, it is worth it. So here it is.

Airline
AA: AA is my preferred airline. All paid base miles are flown on AA/OW. Based on our travel budget, we both normally earn around 125-140K miles apiece from airline related bonuses and base miles. An average year would have 1 Asia(15K), 2 European(20K) and 3 North American(15K) trips. As an exception, Idine miles go to AA account along with a few Citi AA transactions.
DL: DL account is the preferred dumping account. All partner earned miles(except Idine) go into DL. These points are yearly converted into HH points. With the new exchange rate in place for AA:HH, this account would be phased out. In all, this account adds on 35-40K miles a year.

Hotels
HH : As far as possible, all paid stays go to the HH account. IMHO, Starwood's higher end properties(LC and SG) are more luxurious than Hilton's but 50% of the times, I need a room in the middle of nowhere. Try Marshall NC, Corolla NC, Billings MT or even Flagstaff AZ. Average yearly earnings are around 130-140K with 50K promotions.
SPG: Still, a few SPG stays creep into the system somehow. . The SPG Amex is our number one mileage earning card. Because of limited earning partners with SPG, this is the only source of earning Starpoints. Average yearly earnings are around 40K.

Redemption Strategy

Airline
AA: Most of the AAdvantage miles are redeemed in premium cabins on transatlantic / transpacific flights or in Y to Caribbean/Mexican Beach destinations. On an average, around 200-225K miles are redeemed per year.
DL: DL miles = HHonors points. = 80K HHonors points.

Hotels
HGVC: HGVC takes care of the one 1 week vacation per year. As we own a 2Br unit and normally redeem 1Br unit, one year's quota stretches over two years. Even then, there is room left for a 2-3 day vacations per year. As HGVC allows points stretching(dumping points into next year and then borrowing back) and points conversion, it basically dumps 160K HHonors points into HH accounts every other year. Well, at least till the time we don�t need a 2Br unit
HH: The pesky little HHonors points. Contrary to the expectations and experiences of many FT's, I have not had a problem redeeming points for hotel stays. On an average we burn around 150K HH points for award stays. As the earning rate is way higher than the burn rate, this account just keeps on growing. Maybe a few GLONP redemptions would cut it down to size. HAH! That would mean HGVC would have to dump and extra 160K points.
SPG: Ah! The emergency fund. Barring a transfer to AA to top off for an award and a 1 night stay redemption to see if it really works , this account just sits out there growing and waiting for an emergency to happen.

Summary
Earning
AA : 250K-280K
DL : 40K = 80K HHonors
HH : 200K + 160K every two years = 280-300K.
SPG: 40K
Redemption
AA: 200-225K
HGVC: 3500 ClubPoints(7000/2)
HH: 150K
SPG 0 (Preferably)

Wish List.

1. With the current travel budget, we both fly enough for two AA PLTs. Though 2 EXPs are affordabe and would assure 90-100% F/J travel, I would rather sock away the extra cash for retirement than take double the number of vacations right now. Maybe around the time when a $xxx target is achieved.
2. A Four Seasons Residence Club Membership (Fancy name for their hotel timeshare)

Disclosure:
AA - PLT/PLT
US - CP/GLD( At 6x-7x miles per base mile flown, rules can be bended. )
HH - Diamond ( Only for 2002, Average is Gold in a Mutual fund)
SPG - Gold( AA PLT benefit)



[This message has been edited by Bourne (edited 12-21-2002).]

I am a DL Platinum. I use milage to take my two kids aboard, usually in FC. I do not use mileage for myself because there is apossibility that if I did so, I would not make PM. Itend to accumulate mileage however. I have 360K One Pass left over from the days of Eastern/CO and the Denver hub, kept alive with periodic charge on the CO master card. Hoping that CO/NW/DL codeshare gets approved. Then my million+ DL miles will have more uses!

Before the Starwood/QF promotion, I was only an AA mileage junkie. I now have a significant amount of Qantas mileage which I have used successfully for a LAX-JFK-LAX first class ticket multiple times for myself and my famly. I am also using Qantas miles for a BA trip to LHR with my family for summer 2003. Too bad transfer rate goes from 1 SPG point = 2 Qf miles to 1 SPG point=1QF mile as of 1/1/03