when i first joined ft, the prevailing wisdom was that miles should be redeemed as follows:

-for international upgrades because doing so provides the biggest bang for the buck
-for emergency domestic travel

i lived by these maxims from 1990 through last year, but during 2003 i changed gears. i worked out a deal with my company where they pay me $500 for each domestic award i redeem for business travel. while i've logged quite a few miles in Y over the past 12 months, i got an extra $3k in pocket money in the process that i put to IMO better use than i would have playing the notorious upgrade game.

some of you may call me a fool because several of my award itineraries could have been purchased for less than $400 (a pretty poor value), but i did so anyway because i don't like paying change fees (even if my company foots the bill) and stopovers/open jaws are quite convenient.

perhaps my change in view is due to the fact that my current job isn't as rich as previous endeavors, but even were that not the case, i'd still be a likely proponent of my new approach. simply put, i put more value in getting from a to b than in doing in style.

your thoughts?

My redemption strategy for 2004 is far less complex. It is, in a nutshell, to take advantage of United's Australia award level. I can't imagine they won't jack up the mileage required for that award in the near future, so the decision to burn 60,000 on that one this year is a no-brainer, IMHO.

Not to stray off the topic at hand, but if anyone has cancelled their Mileage Plus Visa and then applied again later, I'd be interested in hearing whether they got the bonus miles twice. Thanks.

In general, I have adopted a use-them-or-lose-them philosophy of mileage redemption whether it be for upgrades or tickets. I've always felt like banking miles year after year for emergency domestic trips is unwise given the devaluation of miles in many of the programs. If an emergency comes up and fares are high at the last minute, why not just priceline it?

But I guess if you average one or two or three such emergency trips each year, than that's another story. I just don't have that many emergency trips come up.

[This message has been edited by jmartin (edited Dec 30, 2003).]

jmartin, I have two MP Visa accounts in my name, and got the bonus sign-up miles for each. I'll cancel the new one before it is up for renewal, in 2004.
Kate

I don't know if I would call it a strategy, but I only redeem miles for standard (minimum level) awards and I do it on an opportunistic basis. In 2003, I used 212,500 miles to pick up three tickets to Rio; three to San Francisco and one to Paris. I think it was a good trade and I will again finish the year with a higher balance than I began with.

Kate -- thanks for the info! I've got a whole year to get the remaining 25K I need for Australia, and it seems just having a United MP Visa sometimes nets a mysterious 2,500 for this, and a mysterious 5,000 for that... I've gotten many of those during the past year, and I still don't know why. So I'm going to try and get there maybe with another card. Thanks again.

This is my strategy

Summary Date: Dec 2003

Program to Date Miles: 472,953

YTD Elite Qualifying Points: 66,485

YTD Elite Qualifying Miles: 109,998

YTD Gold / Platinum Qualifying Segments: 69

Miles Towards Gold / Platinum / Executive Platinum Upgrades: 85,397

Miles with Expiration Deferred Through : 0

Upgrade Account Balance: 9

Total Available Award Mileage -351


That's right folks - minus 351

I will start collecting on JAN9

The O.P didn't say what levels he'd have to spend miles at to get the $500 in exchange, but I assume he has the freedom to do it selectively and applies it only at standard domestic awards, or 25K miles. That would be effectively selling miles at 2 cents each (if you had to go to "Rule Buster" at 50K it'd be selling at 1 cents each).

Even though my own mileage valuation when deciding on mileage runs is 1.5 cents, I'd be hesitant to sell the miles for 2 cents cash unless I had an awful lot of them and didn't have good prospects for burning them off in the next 5 years (i.e. early in career, limited vacation time for years to come, etc.) If you have a lot more miles than time, it makes sense to offload some for cash rather than let them get devalued (all the sale/barter rules notwithstanding).

On upgrades vs. free travel, it's not cut and dried. I'm 100% on the free-travel side (upgrades are awfully nice, but have never spent miles for them). Sometimes you can do well on the free-travel side. In March, for example, I'll be heading to Majuro and Yap (out of Manila) as a sidetrip on a 25K Continental award. Will be in Yap for Yap Day. The paid ticket for that would have been very expensive. If your goal is to see a lot of the world, then there are possibilities with various alliances for free tickets at award costs that look appealing compared to paid tickets.

I've said it before and I'll chime in again: with rare exception, I only redeem miles for long-haul premium class trips (usually in F, sometimes in J). There reasons for this are purely numerical. As an example, the trip I'm on right now (old AA CX140A award) YVR-HKG-AKL-HKG-YVR is a bit less than US$20,000.00 in cash. I earned the miles at around $0.02. Do the math; it's really an excellent value.

Redemptions bring family members together for weddings, graduations, and other reunions. We had a big graduation in 2000, annual reunions, and a big big wedding coming up in 2004. Cousins, nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, and honorary family members appreciate that extra incentive to participate.

My strategy is to use miles for any travel(esp. long haul travel) that I don't want to spend my own $$$ for.

I.e. : Travel to Hawaii with family...even at "discounted" rates of $700 a tix starts to add up fast for a family of 4. That's what the miles are for imho.

I just burned 450,000 miles yesterday for 5 business clas tix to Hong Kong. Pretty good value considered biz tix run anywhere from $3500-$6000.

The only concern was from my wife who wondered aloud how many tix to hawaii that would "cost her"

(Coach Tix were running @$800 to HKG but I could not imagine a better use of the miles for a 16 hour trip!)

With one exception (a coach trip to England) I have only used my miles for trips to Asia/Australia. Good ol' Northwest has "paid" for 14 trips -- all but one in First or Business. I can't complain as I never could afford to do FC or BC but with miles it is relatively easy -- just plan LONG in advance.

All have been standard awards. When NW/UA/DL are tight, I resort to AA which has very good availability if you're a little flexible.

Regarding my pricing, $.02/mile might be a bit on the low side, but:

1) I like my company
2) I take personal satisfaction in booking otherwise expensive itineraries with miles
3) I've found a method that allows me to convert miles into CASH without breaking any rules/laws
4) As previously noted, I don't buy into the idea that premium travel provides a significantly greater bang for the buck

My strategy is still to hold on to our miles and points to use in retirement. I will admit that the UA filing made me a bit nervous there for a while.

The only time we use miles and points now is when we want to fly or stay someplace that is just too darned expensive for our tastes.

We did fly Concorde using miles, and have first class tickets to SYD in the spring, as well as Lufthansa BBJ tickets to DUS in the summer. I would really rather buy the tickets to DUS but the prices are outrageous and I have always wanted to try that Business Jet product.

Premium travel has no value for me and I'm concerned that it might be like crack cocaine is for some folks.

The fact that I could be getting a product that somebody values at $10000 for say $1500 plus miles is worthless to me, since I value that product at a much lower amount.
I would rather get $700 for free than get a supposed $10000 "value" for $1500.

The trip I value; the upgrade I don't.

I too used to bank miles for re-unions etc., but given bankruptcies, the airlines saying they can change the rules at any time and the fact that you can lose them anytime, I have started to use them as soon as I need them. This year I burned 100,000 OP miles for our vacation (me, the little woman and a couple of kid's). I also have burned 180,000 for the NW flights ORF to Osaka in July, 1st class for me and my son. I did spend 10,000 miles so my Mom could fly first class LAX to EWR.

I think the botttom line is use them or lose them. Has anyone donated miles? I did that with mile NW miles since I was using OP instead.