This is why I love miles and points

I know a lot of people collect miles for aspirational trips (I do too) but the bulk of my earning are for flying my family to places on the cheap. Tonight I just booked three tickets to Kauai in July for $860. Without miles and points $3,210.

 

I've saved a total of around $7k this year booking using miles and points. Of course, I've also spent about $4k so far this year....

 

from where? UK?

-David

 

I'm totally with you...next February...my girlfrined and I go round trip in First Class DEN-SYD...for less than $300 in taxes. My next points and miles project....taking us and her 4 kids to Disney World!

 

Totally agreed. While I would love to, and will one day, splurge miles on international F award to somewhere exotic, for now, I have a family and we need to travel together. I just used some of my UA miles to book a couple of TATL tix to visit family for me and my son. Nothing fancy, just plain ol' coach. But the 120K mi + taxes/fees saved me almost $2700 that early-summer, month-out paid tickets would have cost. So, happy camper here.

 

I cannot wait until my very first experience in F.
And my US dividend miles are going to save me a motza

 

Let us know when this happens, it'd nice to read your fresh perspective on said experience.

 

Keep it up you never know when special deals come up!

 

I certainly will!

 

I should have said "my very first experience in international F.

 

It's always great to hear about people's redemptions.

I love miles and points because I was able to use miles to help offset the cost of a trip to Antarctica with my dad last October/November. On the flight from MCI-IAH-EZE all my dad could talk about was how the flight only cost $5. It's hard to say which he'll remember longer - the $5 international flight or actually stepping foot on Antarctica.

 

Not to jack this thread, but have you or would you consider writing something up about your Antarctica trip? It's the one travel goal I have (other than to see new places in general), but my very minimal initial research says it will be out of budget for me for some time, and you can't use points except to get close enough for the real trip to start. Just curious how you planned and how expensive it really is.

 

Yeah, I can do that. I can't say that it'll be super soon, but I'll put something together in the trip report forums, and I'll send you a message with a link when I've done that.

 

I'd love to read it also.

 

No rush...my trip report writing has consistently remained in the planning phase for my past trips.

 

Me three! Alas, due to the cost I probably won't be able to make it there anytime soon.