Since this is a topic with universal appeal, I am going to move this to TravelBuzz! for more responses.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

Very sorry for the "double handoff" here, but the best strategies for this question will come in our MilesBuzz forum. Please follow it there. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

Companion travel and gifts.

I have give at least 200k worth of tickets away in the last three years, most often parents.

My earn/burn rate has been very close the last few years, but I still have over a million banked miles.

My spin: if, for a given trip, the $$-vs-award ratio is such that I might 'better' use the $$ for future EQM/RDM earning-power .. then it's BURN!!

- - - Good catch!! what is this TravelBuzz! you speak of ?? :D :D

I've always burned miles on Y tickets (since I don't mind slumming it in the back nearly as much as some people :)) but I'm now starting to lean toward buying an upgradable fare and using miles.

But I'm not entirely convinced... I mean, yes, the return on the miles is much higher when you use them for upgrades. And the experience is nice. But I can manage in Y for very long spans of time, so I think I'd rather make more trips in Y than less nice trips in C/F (I'm assuming the places I want to go are more compelling than the plane ride itself).

I use them for gifts (RT business class to Europe for our daughter's wedding present) and also for expensive long-hauls especially with stopovers eg. SFO-SYD return ADL-NAN-SFO

Since most of my travel is paid for by work, I tend to hoard my miles. I'm on my own for upgrades, so with United as a 1K, I'll use as many free upgrades as I can, but if I need more, I'll use miles.

I've also thought about using miles to trade on CC if there's something I'm interested in. For example, I just saw somebody post 4 CR1s for 50k miles. 4 upgrades on UA would normally cost at least 60k miles, so that was a good trade for the person with the miles.

I earn and use. We like to vacation for lowest cost. I used miles to go to Kona with Timshare for 2 weeks cost of trip about $468.

You seem pretty risk averse given that you are worried that United will straight up fold their frequent flier plan and take the miles away from you. It would take a lot for the industry to move to that and United is plenty happy to keep you content given how much you fly. I can't see any possible scenario where United would take all of your miles without you having a LONG period of advanced warning.

use them or the may be gone some day!!!!!!!!!!!!

I used to do the comparison of $$$ vs. points using some sort of $ per point valuation.

Over the last few years, I've realized that points/miles are rapidly losing their value and holding on to them makes much less sense. USAir miles haven't just gone from 20K to 25K for an award, they've really gone from 25K to 37.5K or 50K because award are practically unavailable at the standard (oh, pardon my, the Saver) rate.

This is happening all over the place - how many "xxx has massively devalued my points, I'm never flying/staying with them again..." threads do we plow through every year?

My problem is, I've paid for one flight and maybe 3-4 hotels in the last 5 years and still have 1M+ in both air and hotels. If I were able to burn them, I'd start thinking about conservative use once I got down to 250K air, 150K hotels - keeping enough in reserve for one week+ trip for the family.

Earn them and burn them. Devaluations occur all the time.
Nothing beats a no cost vacation a couple times a year.
(Life's short, don't hoard)