It is interesting to see how people treat frequent flyer miles. Some people are hoarders and have impressively large balances, while some earn and burn as they go. One thing is true, these people always know their airline miles balance.
Pleasingly these can be used for redemption flights, hotel bookings, and a whole host of other products. You could probably furnish a house with the points in some programmes!
The Airline Miles Balance
I am a minnow in the vast ocean of frequent flyers, mainly because I don’t travel for work. People who are on the road rack up serious account balances over time.
My highest total was something like 180,000 Avios and I thought that was the bees knees! Of course, I used that for reward flights as that is the only thing I use my points on.
Some people have balances of 2 million miles and above. Word on the street has it that the savers tend to be keeping them for use during retirement. Others fly so much that they just don’t want to be flying again on their time off.
Overall Thoughts
When it comes to your airline miles balance, what was your highest total and what did you do with it? Perhaps you’re currently saving towards a big around the world reward trip, or maybe keeping them for a rainy day.
So many points are awash in the system that some airlines have allocated entire flights for frequent flyers to redeem their points on. An interesting concept that I am curious to see whether it will be replicated in future.
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
To never miss a post, follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
All my flight and lounge reviews are indexed here so check them out!
I’m sitting on 400,000 Alaska miles right now. My highest ever balance was around 5 years ago with about 600,000 miles with American. My wife and I flew first class to Seoul on AA with the miles, while my niece and her friend flew business. In retrospect, all of us flying AA business would have been a much better value, but live and learn.
My philosophy is to try to have enough miles in the major programs I use to fly 2 people business class round trip to Asia or Europe. I’m fortunate enough to earn about 50,000 miles and mile equivalents (Diners Club points, MR, UR, etc.) per month, mostly through my business. This allows for 2-3 trips per year. What more can you ask?
Alaska miles are quite valuable because they have a really decent selection of airline partners. Great that you were able to take international first class with American. That is a class people aspire to, partly because it’s so expensive with cash and partly because not many airlines still offer first class.
Really handy to have card points coming in. It’s the one thing that I really miss out on as all mine are gained from flying. Well, most anyway. Some are from hotels using Kaligo or Rocketmiles. Looks like you’re onto a good thing there! Thanks for the comment!
I’m probably the low man on the totem pole with just a tad over 60k JMB miles which about half were going to expire soon so I spent it on a RT PY > Business class upgrade with JAL to drain the account and gave me time to rethink my mileage earning strategy.
I would have used them for the same thing. I have upgraded from Premium Economy to Business on several occasions as it’s a really good use of miles. I don’t like programmes where the miles expire. It’s okay when it’s a “expires if there are three years with no activity” because I would earn miles much more frequently than that, but other expiry dates that are arbitrary annoy me. Good luck in the future with it – at least you put your miles to good use!
1.2 million Delta SkyMiles 5 years ago, accumulated over 2 years by aggressive credit card signups and manufactured spend.
Used it all for family of 4 to fly “walkabout” summer trip.
First leg in Virgin Atlantic Upper Class SFO-LHR, that was cheapish at 65K each.
Rest used for economy one-way segments literally on the fly, never more than a week in advance. Did I get best economy seat miles value? No, but we had awesome freedom of action spending this “Monopoly money” to go where we wanted, exactly when we wanted.
Got a little scrutiny a few times from customs people like we’d arrive in Italy, and they’d ask what our next travel plans were. I’d say “I’m not sure, I’ll see where my miles can take us next.” Decided Paris next, OK off we go although that segment was EasyJet paid. Last point outside US was Iceland. From Iceland I worked out a Delta flight to Boston. From Boston worked our way home.
What a memorable trip! All thanks to points and miles!
200000 SAS eurobonus miles accumulated over the last year mainly flying europe to china and back. Those were used for my wife and me on a holiday in New York Flying SAS Business (not bad) and the Hotel mainly paid by Hyatt Points.
Very nice indeed, that’s what you want, to use them for a decent flight in business class as a treat. Sounds like a nice trip – especially considering the travel and accommodations were essentially free. Thanks for the comment!
Wow, that’s a crazy amount of miles really and you really committed to do that over such a length of time. I think you have the right idea when it comes to booking what you want when you want. There’s a certain freedom to be able to go wherever, whenever with miles since it’s not really “costing” you anything. That sounds pretty cool all round really. I like your style – thanks for sharing that! Nice one!