best strategy for managing miles? is there one?
 

I was reading another thread on what do to with with 500,000 miles and it got me wondering what is the best strategy for managing your FF miles.

I've always had the thought that I would rather use up my miles (on reasonably long distance award tickets such as us-oz) as I needed to rather than accumulate a lot of miles for an as yet undetermined future holiday flying biz class RTW for example. My reasoning is that you never know what's going to happen to these programs and the miles as well as the time value of money...as a consequence, I've tend to keep the balance in my MP account around 70,000 or below.

any thoughts on the best strategy? is there a threshold of how many dollars per mile below which you wouldn't redeem for an award?

My strategy is that as long as I have a shot at 1K, I don't use miles to maximize EQM. If I have no chance, I plan to just get the EQM I need for status, and burn miles for any remaining trips.

Our stragegy is to rack up miles and hope to score award travel in premium cabins as soon as we save enough miles. Wife and I have done two trans-pacific premium cabin award itineraries in five years; and now, we have enough miles to book another trip soon. To us, saving for an award in C (and if really lucky, F) is well worth the extra miles because the difference between coach and premium is like night-and-day.

I plan my trips so if it's cheaper to go by miles, I do that. Spend the $240 for transcon but if I have to fly into a small town for $500, try to do 25K saver award.

Similar to others, I try not to spend miles if I have a shot at status. In practice, I only spend miles on short, expensive trips or mid-cons on holiday weekends.

My personal rules of thumb are to spend miles:

If a mid-con ticket is more than $450;
If a trans-con ticket is more than $550;
If a HNL ticket is more than $850;
If an international ticket... well, never. I would always pay and upgrade. Some day I will spring for a *A F ticket. Some day.

The factors that go into the decision to spend the miles are:
1) Savings on the ticket cost.
2) Opportunity cost of 2xRDM + EQM + BIS (CR1/e-500-earning).
3) Cost of 25K miles + taxes and fees.
4) Lost chance of upgrading.
5) Usefulness of flexibility.

As a 1K, I am enjoying the freedom of no award fees. I can book a ticket with miles months in advance and, if the fares drop below my criterion, I can buy a ticket and redeposit the miles for free.

I do this as well, then enter my flights in yapta and let them monitor the price for me. Alas, I only have 10 more days as 1k :(

I start to think using miles on p.s. upgrades is more useful than *A F.
1 *A F = 8 p.s. legs in C while accumulating miles.
You say, "wait, p.s. flights aren't free." But again, neither is *A F considering TVM and the general hoops one must jump through.
I just want to fly, I am not really a cat in a circus.

I am the opposite. I prefer to use my miles to go long haul in style. When my balance gets high enough, I take along a friend or family member. They love international F, and so do I. C seems mighty comfortable as well.

Besides 4 RT will net (8) e500s so its not like you will always be in Y.

I never ever look for award seats - they're never available when you want them. All my miles go to upgrading int'l flights. Buying an ungradeable fare means you earn more miles for future upgrading purposes. Getting an award ticket means no miles earned.

I and probably a few others on the board would disagree with you on that one.

Very true.

I bank the miles and use them for companion travel and upgrades

For a upcoming trip to HK next week, I paid my ticket with TY points and hers with miles. I earn 19K EQM and 38K total RDM with the bonus and paid 60K for hers. Downside of this approach is no upgrades.

Using miles for international upgrades is the best use (once you have status). When I first got status going back and forth to Japan, I stupidly burned miles mid year for a business upgrade and lost status mid year. I think you had to have 50k back then for any status.


I would never do that again. I will requal for 1P by 3/6. Thank you FT!;)

Both good points. I understand that on some routes it can be really difficult to get C award seats as UA just doesn't make enough available on some routes. So if it's either spend money or spend miles to get a ticket (after getting status) - I guess I factor in spending miles first if it make reasonable $ sense.

Thanks for your input, FTer!

You are able to get miles for TY tix?

Most certainly. To United, TYN tickets look purchased, so you get the Airlines miles. They are just normal tickets. Heck, I've even gotten vouchers from UAL when the prices went down on TYN tickets!

My strategy is earn and burn. I see no good reason to wait for the next devaluation or a merger or change of partners to screw you. As soon as I have enough miles for an international F or C award (or 2 of them if Mrs. Alliance is joining me), I book my next award flight.