Value of Frequent Flyer Miles

[Denverite]

So I've been a member of the United Airlines "Mileage Plus" club for quite a while. Questioning the actual value of that club and how it compares to other airline frequent flyer programs.

You can redeem your accumulated miles for a list of benefits, but I'm primarily interested in flights. The main value issue I've observed is the quality of the flights offered when you attempt to redeem your miles, or the number of miles required to take a specified flight.

The minimum mile redemption for a flight is typically 12,500 each way, so (hopefully) 25,000 miles for a round trip ticket. But many times (even for tickets to a relatively mundane destination) there are no tickets offered at that number. The minimum for many flights is 25,000 each way or more.

Plus, some of the mileage redemption flights offered are so bad they are almost funny. For example, I was looking at a Denver to Cincinnati trip. One of the redemption tickets offered had me leaving to New York at about 8 p.m. Denver time and arriving there at about 1 a.m. The subsequent flight to Cincinnati left from New York at 5:45 a.m. Wouldn't that be a lovely night?

Is this level of "value" unique to the Mileage Plus club? Anyone had better luck with one of the other airline credit card/mileage programs?

 

[AS2019]

I gave up on frequent flier/credit card airline rewards miles. I experienced the same thing. Every time I wanted to redeem them, there were no suitable flights. Same with my credit card which allows me the option of using the points for travel versus redeeming them for cash or other benefits. If I redeem them for travel, then the points are "worth" more. For example, if I have 10,000 points and I want to use them for travel, then they count as 15,000 points (I'm making these numbers up). But if I want to redeem them for cash, then 10,000 points is worth 10,000 points. However, when I go to book flights, the cost of the flight (in points) is way more expensive than if I redeem the points for cash and then use that cash to just buy a ticket through the airline website directly.

I hope that makes sense. I'm not fully awake yet.

 

[athena53]

Welcome to reality.

No, the other airlines aren't any better with the possible exception of Southwest- no experience with them but they seem to have better customer service in general.

I've been redeeming FF miles for years- did a lot of business travel and then traveled extensively for fun (many times paying my own way and using miles for DH) and even used airline credit cards. It's always been frustrating and it's gotten worse. I've used them almost exclusively for transatlantics, where you really can get more for your miles in terms of what you'd actually pay for that fare, especially in Business Class. Still, the "Saver" Fare on AA would route us through DFW AND Miami on the way to Madrid even though there was a DFW-Madrid nonstop for twice the miles.

My last great pile of miles was 171,000 on AA. I'd hoped to go to Australia in Business Class with those. No way. (My brother has a business trip there and is using miles for his wife- it took him 400,000.) It wasn't even enough to get me to India and back in Business- I flew the last leg (London to home, connecting at DFW) in Coach. I also had to pay $1,500 in various junk fees to redeem them and $200 to choose seats- but only on the London-Delhi flight and London-DFW, where I had a Coach seat that didn't have a seat in front of it- well worth it).

I accumulate them now on whatever airline I happen to fly, but just use a Fidelity 2% cash back credit card. I choose my flights based on whatever airline is convenient and has the best prices/routing.

If you want detailed discussions with people who have this all down to a science, I highly recommend FlyerTalk.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus-681/

 

[cathy63]

Southwest's Rapid Rewards program is easier for redemptions than AA, United or Delta. With Southwest, you can purchase any fare on any flight with points, cash or points+cash, and the number of points required tracks with the cash price for the same fare.

The other airlines all have various blackouts and limitations on the number of non-revenue seats per flight. I have not attempted to figure out which airline gives the best value for redemption since I just collect miles while flying and I either have enough to go for free or I don't.

 

[Texas Proud]

One of the things I hate about United now is that your miles will expire... when I was with Continental they never expired...


I have over 250K miles right now... I have not used any except to buy something stupid to keep my miles.... every time I look at taking a trip the cash price is a much better value than using miles... so I do not use them


Now, here is an example of how stupid it can be... I once saw where the miles need for regular ticket on a flight was more than a first class ticket on the next flight!!! Yep, if you could wait a few hours you could go first class for the same miles....

 

[FIYes]

I have collected and used frequent flyer miles over the years. One redemption did cause us to have a horrible schedule, but the others have been okay. I tried using frequent flyer miles to upgrade to business class for a flight to Beijing. I chose not to after a discovered it would require many miles (I was okay with that) and an additional $1200 payment (I was not okay with that).

The miles I have collected and used have been on United and Delta. Southwest doesn’t fly out of my local airport. The convenience and savings of my local airport usually trump using another regional airport.

Most of the miles I have collected have been via credit card offers. It has been worth the hassle since it stretches my travel budget.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

I just have a United Airlines CC to maintain my 300,000 miles from when I was w*r@i$g. Costs me $95 a year for the privilege. I keep them for emergencies.

 

[athena53]

I just have a United Airlines CC to maintain my 300,000 miles from when I was w*r@i$g. Costs me $95 a year for the privilege. I keep them for emergencies.

I once saved 100K miles in my husband's account from expiring by buying an iTunes gift card through AA's shopping portal. (Be careful if you try this and read the fine print; sometimes you don't get miles for gift card purchases.) We later used them to get two Business Class round trips to Madrid. Best $15 I ever spent.

 

[CardsFan]

While w*rking I traveled a lot internationally, so I collected well over 2 million miles (mostly on AA). In the past 15 years we have not paid for personal air flights, except for a few package deals. I have just under 200,000 left and will use them up before we start paying.

I have also found it getting more and more difficult to get reasonable flights and connections. I also noticed that when I was down graded from executive platinum (while w*rking) to life time Gold (in retirement) my options changed dramatically. Higher status DOES allow easier use of miles, with more options available.

 

[pb4uski]

I have a lot of miles on BA, Delta and with Hilton. I occasionally use the Delta... now that we are retired the flexibility makes it so we can find suitable flights at a reasonable price in miles. The BA miles I have been saving for a trip to Europe. The Hilton miles ar fairly useless but I think I'll just use them up to get rid of them.

It used to be that it was good to buy a coach ticket and then use miles to upgrade but those opportunities seem few and far between today.

 

[Sojourner]

I have been collecting FF miles for decades and never used them once, until fairly recently. I booked a round-trip flight to Europe, in first class, for 140K Delta SkyMiles. When I compared that to the cash price of the flight, it seemed like a pretty good deal. When I was looking for flights, it seemed like there were many choices available at all different times of the day. So my (limited) experience has been that, with Delta at least, buying a flight with FF miles is fairly convenient and good deals can be found.

 

[Gotadimple]

If you fly on the west coast primarlly, Alaska has a good FF program. Yes you can accumulate to buy a ticket, but like the others, there are black out periods. Or - even better - you can apply miles to the cost of a ticket reducing the price by $100 or $200.

 

[Souschef]

I had a British Airways CC through Chase.We used the heck out of it, especially when I got a free companion ticket. We flew through London a number of times in Business Class for the same miles as 2 Coach tickets.
BA was tied in with a number of airlines. We flew LAX to Kauai twice for $10!
The one drawback of BA is that the taxes through Heathrow are very high.
Since we have cut way back on our traveling, we have been using miles for hotels.
I finally cancelled the card in favor of a Rewards card.

 

[athena53]

The Hilton miles are fairly useless but I think I'll just use them up to get rid of them.

DH and I used to have wonderful stays in Hiltons in Europe until they got stingy and started allowing hotels to claim that only "premium" rooms were available for award stays, with ridiculous numbers of points needed. Executive lounge access for Gold members, which is a major perk since the ones in Europe typically have very good breakfasts and enough munchies (with open bar) at Happy Hour that you can skip dinner, was left to the discretion of the individual hotel.

They're not totally useless; I get a few points through e-Rewards and also from stays at Hampton Inns on my road trips and I've found they're good for award stays at airport hotels on my big trips. There are no nonstops to Europe form my home airport and I like to get to the connecting city the day before and spend the night there. The airport hotels don't get the same demand for free stays that the major ones in the city do, so I can almost always get what I want.

 

[Denverite]

While w*rking I traveled a lot internationally, so I collected well over 2 million miles (mostly on AA). In the past 15 years we have not paid for personal air flights, except for a few package deals. I have just under 200,000 left and will use them up before we start paying.

I have also found it getting more and more difficult to get reasonable flights and connections. I also noticed that when I was down graded from executive platinum (while w*rking) to life time Gold (in retirement) my options changed dramatically. Higher status DOES allow easier use of miles, with more options available.

Yes. Part of the problem may be that I've never racked up enough miles to quality for one of the premium statuses. I've only accumulated miles through personal credit card use.

I think the airlines compete vigorously for the top tier customers - the ones who fly frequently and consistently (like George Clooney did in the movie "Up in the Air".) The award options would likely be different for that group. I'm not in it.

There is one quasi-benefit to the miles I didn't mention. United has a policy that if you book "close in" (it may be within two weeks - I'll check that) to your flight, they will bill $75 even when you redeem your miles.

The funny thing is - the flight options sometimes appear better when the miles are redeemed this way. The flight is no longer free, but certainly much cheaper than a regularly priced ticket. And the flight selection is sometimes better.

 

[nash031]

Not only have airlines eroded away the value of their miles, they now charge crazy fees to even use them on short notice (say within a month of travel in some cases). I no longer particularly care which airline I fly solely because of "loyalty rewards" because I don't think many airlines actually care about "rewarding loyalty".

 

[Fishingmn]

We booked 2 round trip tickets to Europe last year for the 2 of us (Ireland on Delta & Portugal on United) using the minimum number of miles. Got most of the miles from credit card sign up bonuses.

I think the key still is to be flexible with your dates and to schedule far in advance. Ideally you will book them 11 months in advance when they first open up the schedule for award travel.

 

[Souschef]

I think the key still is to be flexible with your dates and to schedule far in advance.
Ideally you will book them 11 months in advance when they first open up the schedule for award travel.

The problem is if you want to cruise or take an escorted trip, you lose the flexibility. But,as FM above said, we have had success booking 11 months ahead, as soon as the flights open.

 

[aja8888]

After 35 years of business travels and being enrolled in FF programs since 1982, I have finally used up all but 100,000 miles (United) and 4,000 miles (American). I'm a million mile flyer in two airlines and almost there in one more. My hotel points are down to 140,000 (IHG) and 40,000 (Marriott) from almost a million 5 years ago.

Like others said above, the programs have turned to crap. Once I use up these points (or they expire on their own), it's over and I won't miss it. With the few pints left on American, I am trading those for magazine subscriptions!

 

[Montecfo]

I have about 1.6 million American Express points which I can transfer to partner airlines. That works pretty well, bit it is hard to use them efficiently. I am getting pretty smart about transferring to BA to get domestic AA flights (my preferred airline as I have elite status), Flying Blue for Delta and Air Canada for United.

My company paid the Amex charges. I use a cash back personal credit card.

 

[explanade]

I've been with United for about 5 years and with Delta for 10-15 years before that.

All leisure flights meaning I paid for those miles, not having an employer pay for me to do all the flying.

I also play the credit cards churning game, though not to the hilt like many people.

Earlier this year, I got 75k miles for a Delta Amex for $3000 spend and booked an upcoming trip fro SFO to Switzerland for August for 140k miles. Had to also transfer some Amex MR points to get just enough (had some Delta miles already).

And last fall, I booked a trip to Singapore using 160k UA miles, flying on ANA and Eva Air.

Last couple of years, I've been able to consistently redeem miles for awards. Not always the optimal routes, but nothing crazy like layovers which last over 10 hours. I think the most I've had to deal with was about 4-5 hours.

I've had award redemptions to both Australia (on AA, purely from miles earned from credit cards) as well as to New Zealand (on Delta miles).

Yeah I often wonder if it's still worth it but one of the reasons I FIRE'd when I did was to travel more and on my terms.

I've been spending a fairly high amount on travel but my overall spending is still less than 2% of my assets.

 

[athena53]

A thought on hotels, although the OP started out discussing airline miles: I'd mentioned that things had changed since DH and I were able to get lounge access on hotel Reward stays in Europe for reasonable point values. Airbnb has been a game-changer, too. I first tried it in Reykjavik last year when the hotel where DH and I had stayed in 2015 doubled in price. $250/night was fine for a good room and an excellent breakfast buffet. $500/night was not. I found an Airbnb apartment instead and loved it. I just booked one in Edinburgh in September near the Castle for 8 nights.

After the stay in Reykjavik I decided my days of longer (more than 2 days) stays in hotels were probably over, which makes hotel loyalty programs a lot less valuable.

 

[CardsFan]

I think the airlines compete vigorously for the top tier customers - the ones who fly frequently and consistently (like George Clooney did in the movie "Up in the Air".) The award options would likely be different for that group. I'm not in it.

A little off topic: I found out a few years back that AA really does/did have a "secret" tier above Executive Platinum (or whatever they call it now). I was traveling with a VERY frequent flier. We both had the highest published tier level, but he had an unpublished level (Key Card? Gold Key? something like that). On international connections he would be pick-up at the gate, driven thru security with a cursory check, and delivered to the next gate, or a private executive lounge if the wait was lengthy. I'm sure there were other perks, as well.

 

[athena53]

A little off topic: I found out a few years back that AA really does/did have a "secret" tier above Executive Platinum (or whatever they call it now).

I worked for a firm that had AA as a client and they offered it to key people working on the account. I wasn't one of them, but the people who could have gotten it turned it down. While I can't think of anything that perk might have influenced them to do that would be against the client or the company's best interests, it was just one of those things that wouldn't have looked good if it landed on the front page of the WSJ.

 

[omni550]

A little off topic: I found out a few years back that AA really does/did have a "secret" tier above Executive Platinum (or whatever they call it now). I was traveling with a VERY frequent flier. We both had the highest published tier level, but he had an unpublished level (Key Card? Gold Key? something like that). On international connections he would be pick-up at the gate, driven thru security with a cursory check, and delivered to the next gate, or a private executive lounge if the wait was lengthy. I'm sure there were other perks, as well.

I used to know a motivational speaker kind of guy, who also had a sizeable number of private clients (to whose home locations he'd travel for coaching sessions).

I'm fairly certain that he was in one of these 'secret' tiers. He traveled so often that he'd always get the exact same seat in first class on ANY flight he was on. And the cabin crew always knew his drink preference adn served it promptly, unasked. (I'm guessing he also was escorted through airports quickly and efficiently.)

omni