A few weeks ago, I started
hoarding miles and points from different airlines and hotel programs through
credit card spend. My AoR went pretty well and the miles and points did start
pouring in. While I am enjoying the process and the miles are coming in thick
and fast, I am stumped by what to do with those miles. With the spend bonuses,
the actual spend miles, my personal flying miles and other bonus you get from
various sources, I have enough miles to buy myself some free flights.
Question is, do I want to have
one flight in 2B (Business Class) or 2 flights in 22B (Economy Class).
Let’s do the math- a free ticket
from EWR to DEL in United will set me back by 40,000 miles if I fly economy.
That’s 16.5 hours in a Boeing 777 with a 31” seat pitch clubbed with 18” inch
widths, 4.0 recline and the economy class service (source: Seatguru.com). Add
an additional 20,000 miles, and now I have a flat bed with 20” widths, 76”
pitch and the full blown business class service. A return flight this way would
set my back by a total of 40,000 miles, which is good enough for another free
economy ticket. While this may not seem much, but when this is multiplied in
favor of 10 return business flights anywhere in the world, it boils down to
this – do I want to visit a few places in style or do I want to a few more
places in the regular way.
![]() |
Photo source: CNN travel - Cathay Pacific Gallery |
The question is not for those who
have been in the game for years and years and those who churn and burn a
million miles an year and travel all alone. They probably don’t care. But for
people like me, who are relatively late to the game, have to spend miles not
just on self but also on our family members sometime, trying to play the game
where the bonuses are dwindling and the rapid devaluation of the miles is only
making matters worse, it’s a huge dilemma.
I gave this considerable thought
and reached the following conclusion for my own purpose – I can do a bit of
both. I have BA miles to burn, but they charge huge surcharge on their
redemption tickets, specially the one’s flying out of LHR. So why not use my BA
miles, when I fly BA on a paid fare, and use it to upgrade myself to business
class. On the other hand, United miles, the best of the miles out there have
little surcharge on them, so should use them to buy coach tickets for a
vacation. So what if I am in coach for a vacation. Won’t be my first time in
coach and won’t be my last for sure. The idea is to use them as fast as I earn
them. With the speed at which miles are being devalued, they are best spent now
than later. And it takes a lot more time to earn miles for 2 people flying
to-fro in business class than coach class. And isn’t that the whole point of
earning miles – using them up and not saving them for that flight of fantasy
that might never happen.
But what works for you? How do you prefer spending your miles?
I agree - you should definitely use your miles instead of saving them for the unknown in the future. I've redeemed miles for both business and coach (and likely will do both in the future). I think it's worth trying a premium cabin at least once and then deciding afterwards if its worth it to you.
ReplyDeleteRightly put Becky.. I have tried the business class product of multiple airlines as well the coach seats of maaaannnnyyyy airlines.. the business class is always very good, but not always the best value for our miles..
ReplyDelete