JaysonW

How many miles do you all keep in your accounts? I'm curious as to how many miles you consider too many. I don't want to load it up too much, only to suffer a mile devaluation; right now my balance is 161k and my wife has a little over 78k.

gnetwerker

Surely one's MP balance is a rough proxy for life/work balance, at least for most of us. When I worked for a Fortune-50 company and flew 100k BIS miles/yr on UA, I had over 1.5M miles in my MP account, and frankly mileage deflation was the least of my concerns, though I wasn't a mile-counter either, really.

While not retired, I now travel less for business and more with my family (on my own dime), and while I still prefer to use my miles for upgrades rather than award seats, it is nonetheless sometimes convenient to spend them, and my account fluctuates between 100k and 400k miles, as I still have considerable credit-card spend going to my account.

Perhaps the better question is: what life event is it that turns folks here from deeply analyzing how to earn miles to deeply analyzing how to (most effectively) spend them?

I do honestly get the road-warrior mentality, as I was there once, but I would by lying if I said that in retrospect a better work/life balance is desirable. Of course, some people just love to fly.

aacharya

I have ~200K, but usually cycle between 50K and 300K, as I have parents who are now spoiled flying back home to KTM in C.

Red_Rob

I have been letting my account grow, using maybe 80% of what I earn. The last 3 years I have earned 800K - 1M miles per year. I am just short of 1M miles currently in my account. I am saving miles for when my travel eventually declines. My wife also has ~200K. I think keeping a min of 100K is a good idea for booking last minute personal travel (berievement fares stink for example).

snowed

Just crossed the million mark on my account. I like to think of it as my other 401k plan.

rankourabu

Unless of course one doesnt fly a single mile for work

I try not to keep more than 200k in my account at one time.
Burn burn burn.

Duke787

Agreed I'm concerned about mile devaluation all the time so for me 200k is enough to have flexibility and put together a pretty nice F / J itinerary, while also having some reserve in case you're in a real pinch.

mmack

We have about 700K each. It is nice in case of emergencies to have enough miles to rescue a vacation, or send a friend somewhere special. We rarely use the miles for ourselves.

jchiguy1

I keep around 1.2 million miles in my account and whatever I burn is for friends and family.

jgxtrav1

Can I be your friend???????

Seriously, I try to keep 100K in either my wife's or my account in case of an emergency need (first class, of course). Currently I have 111K and my wife has 75K so it's time to plan a trip!

Continental250K

2.5 million over 5 years. No reward travel booked ever, why burn when you can earn?

jchiguy1

<G>I've probably been around a lot longer than you...Actually I do find that I've been using miles quite a bit more for domestic upgrades as certain CPUs (ORD-LAX/SFO) seem far less likely to clear now than in the good old PMUA days. Happy travels to you and your spouse.

fdflys

I'm saving mine (just over 800k) until I reach nirvana . . .er, retirement

ChicagoDave

I have about 200k, but I don't have a goal. I use my miles when I can't find a reasonable airfare. I just used 120k miles for two round trip tickets that would've cost over $4k. If the tickets were reasonably priced, I would've bought them and earned the miles / status.

It also depends on whether you are saving for something, and how fast you earn miles.

drewguy

My objective is to keep enough for the possibility of using for upgrades, so at least 40k for a R/T. Ideally more in case I have two itineraries pending (I tend to have intermittent international long haul).

Above that and it's flexibility to buy award tickets if needed, but to have that flexibility I would need to be up near 500K for 3 saver C tickets to other parts of the world, which is a pretty lofty number of miles.