pay or use miles?
 

I have 250K+ miles on delta and using some to take a family trip. Should I pay for my ticket to build up flight miles toward status (ny/la & 2 for 1 coupon, $400 2 tickets) or just get a 25K ticket (tough to obtain, usually spends 50K)?

Thanks

Most would agree not to waste 25000 and certainly not 50000 miles on a $200 ticket. However, it depends on a lot of factors including:

1) Will you have another use for those miles, particularly one that derives greater value such as first or business class travel?
2) How close are you to achieving status? Is it likely that it will happen?

Welcome to FT tiredofflying

Before everyone gets out their calculator, if you don't plan to travel outside the US and can get the trips for the lower award amount, go for it. If you have to use double the miles and first class award seats not available, compare the out-of-pocket price and whether the additional miles would help you make a threshold elite level, prevent loss of miles (reset activity if you are nearing 18 months with no activity in either your or your S.O.'s account). of if you want the possibility of upgrading by buying the ticket. I often mix - Mrs Outoftown flies on the award and I fly on the paid ticket on the same flight, because I fly for business, she flies only on leisure.

Good luck,
outoftown

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.2.2 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

Personally I think redeeming domestic awards is a waste. It is a better value to redeem awards for international travel or better yet premium cabin international travel. Just my 2 cents.

I do something similar each year w/ my family. I always pay for my ticket though - usually needing the miles to keep my status on AA. My experience has been: You can save thousands internationally with an award ticket while saving only hundreds domestically. Only exception is when booking domestic award tickets for several people saving hundreds on each ticket. Anyway, what a great dilemma to ponder.

ds

Pay cash for coach, use miles to upgrade those coach seats to F!

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