Burn or Hoard Miles
 

With the airline industry in flux and Mileage inflation a possibility

Is it better to use miles for a cheaper ticket (Bird in the hand)

or

Hoard those miles for a round the world first class ticket (Which may never come)

my strategy has been to do the following:

1) research who partners with who...

2) figure out what you fly or can fly and how that works with your miles or airlines you like...

3) bring up those that work to levels you can later use when you really need to use them. For example, if I had 3k on US Air, I might just use those for magazines. If I had 3k on AA I might bring it up to 5k and transfer to HHilton. But if I had 69k on United and didn't mind flying econ, I would try to get 1,000 more miles to bring my account to an even 70k and fly two people to Hawaii.

I would tend to bring my miles up to no lower than 35k levels if you can do that over time. That way it is worth using them on trips to places like the carribean or hawaii. I then stop concentrating altogether on airlines that I have like NOTHING left in anymore and just worry about the ones I still have growth in.

I have many AA, UAL, Singapore Airlines, BA, Alaska, and NWA right now. I have HHilton too and some Starwood, but everything else in my world is kind of minor these days. Thus, less to concentrate on, and if you really look closely at who is in all the partnerships and how, you can see that I have many options using the above.

I say you should quickly grow your accounts up to levels you like and need, and then BURN EM when you need to! I think it's all going to change too much from the ways we like it to be some day soon anyway. Getting less worth it all... Especially for those who fly less or have less miles in their accounts. I am one of those as I do mostly leisure travel and don't mind flying econ alot, but I do have flying and travel experience, which some of the big guns in here may not always understand how...

Make it so if you HAD to suddenly choose to use an award, you are in a position where you CAN. Mine are all at or just above an even 5k level in that sense... (for example, 35k or 36k, not 34k.) that way you do not need to buy or wait for miles.

There are a lot of good threads here with varying opinions. The $300-rule-of-thumb is the latest one that covers a similar topic (e.g. when to use miles vs. buy).

It depends on many factors, #1 being your current cashflow situation. I've turned more to "burn" mode lately, but not because of the industry or fear that the miles will evaporate.

For strategies on RTW tickets, look at the two alliance boards at the bottom of the Miles section. (Star Alliance and One World) After you read about common strategies for both using miles and buying these tickets, you might have a stronger opinion about whether to go for these awards with miles.

I hoard until they honk me off. When an airline brings me to throbbing neckvein fury I donate all their points to Make-a-Wish. Sometimes I even get to use them myself.

Burn 'em

Very deep. rat hole or go for the gusto...
Very deep issue in life... Not to open a whole different issue...but. CAn one use the miles after death....I will tell you that a spous can xfer miles postmortem on their spouse with great ease in the Milage Plus program. But since I came back to life they reestablished my account!

Randy Petersen has some thoughts on this matter

One thought...if you reserve and confirm an award flight to a desirable destination then cancel. Say NZ or Peru. Assuming your going to go sometime, just not sure when.

Then you would have a travel voucher for that destination. This might be a good way to hedge against future increases in mile requirments for that same trip.

edited for typos

[This message has been edited by pierre mclopez (edited Feb 03, 2004).]

While burning might sound like a good idea, I think it depends on the amount that you *want* to travel. I'm just short of 2 business class tickets to SYD. That is a trip that I would like to take in a few years when my daughter will be old enough to enjoy it.

Should I burn up my 180,000 miles now on 3 (at standard rate) or 7 (at saver rate) domestic tickets that might only be worth $200 to $300 each? Or should I hang on to the miles, even knowing that they will be devalued -- but still more valuable when used internationally than when used domestically? Perhaps by the time I am ready to actually go to SYD, I'll have 360k miles (for 3 first class seats), or I will by some coach tickets and upgrade using miles to business?

To burn miles, you need to have someplace to go that you want to go. Otherwise, I think its like burning money -- yes you know you dollars are going to be worth less tomorrow than today, but that doesn't mean that you literally burn them today.

FCfree makes a good point. I tend to work between a minimum and a maximum balance. When I have plenty of miles, I'm more inclined to capture some value with a special long weekend trip -- something that might be very inconvenient to do with money at the time, but is a nice thing to be able to do with miles. These are always standard awards or at even lower, promotional levels. We often end up with FC upgrades, which is an added bonus. I don't really consider it "burning" the miles so much as just seizing an especially good opportunity to use them.

I mostly hoard, but spend on premium tickets e.g. 1) trans-continental bus class to go home at Christmas, where the airport is a nightmare, there usually are delays and I don't want to buy an expensive economy ticket as well as Christmas presents), and 2) upgrades from WT+ to Club World.

On-line version of USAToday had a small article on FF programs and the possibility of doing away with FF programs. A small tid bit...

"One wonders how airlines losing billions of dollars can justify continuing giving away 10% of their seats as a sales gimmick," muses industry consultant Mort Beyer.

Beyer estimates that about 10% of revenue-passenger miles are flown "free" because frequent fliers usually cash in awards for long trips. By giving away 10% of their product, major U.S. airlines missed out on some $25 billion in revenue between 2000 to mid-2003, Beyer calculates.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/today/sky.htm

The airlines probably won't make that drastic change for the simple reason that no airline wants to be the first to go out on that limb and hang itself. I could see the mileage redemption rates going up though.

Burn or pay is really a difficult call!

IF you burn, there are NO new points toward Elite for next year without at least paying for a Coach ticket and upgrading with miles.
Then you get more miles for the paid Coach ticket portion!

I was able to get a Standard FC R/T ticket to Rio for 70,000 miles with a stopover in NYC on the return. Otherwise paid $1735.00 plus 40,000 miles to Rio. The seperate R/T to EWR was $317.00 plus 20,000 miles for FC.
So I consider for the additional 10,000 miles, I saved about $2000.00. But it may cost me dropping to Silver Elite in 2005, since I won't have 50,000 flight miles for this year!

Still not sure, it was a good way to go, but the 'deal' sounds better then spending the $2000. plus 60,000 miles. Of course the Flight miles credited from a Coach paid ticket would make it a little less expensive, and may have qualified for Gold in 2005 with a couple more miles earning trips with paid Coach tickets.

I will typically keep enough for one standard award for use in an emergency. (Real or perceived)

I do like to save for nice trips. At Christmas, I flew my three grown children to meet us in Hawaii. I'm a hero and it didn't cost anything.

Some people will also travel with the primary flyer buying the ticket and accumulating the miles (and bonuses) and the others taking the freebies.

There is no right answer...it's personal preference.

I tend to use the $300 threshold for domestic trips, but I always prefer to gift trips to others, and pay for myself in order to line up on elite status. Still, with awards not always available, I look for opportunities to burn miles. I won't get into a discussion of which airlines have better availability, but you can't count on a free flight on a certain route on a certain day. Plus, I don't want to build up
a big balance on any carrier (more than say, 200,000 miles) since it is hard to tell who may or may not be flying a few years from now, not to mention the possibility of devaluing miles.