Airline Miles - how to use?

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NYCaviator
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Airline Miles - how to use?

Post by NYCaviator »

Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by Jack FFR1846 »

I gave up on freebie flights decades ago. Too many restrictions, especially when 4 of us want to go together. What we've done is bought the coach tickets and used miles to upgrade to first class.
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bob60014
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by bob60014 »

Only my SWA miles are providing decent deals at this time.
rtt22
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by rtt22 »

Buying with miles (or points) gives you this advantage over paying with cash: you can cancel or change your flight and get back the miles or points and they don't expire. When paying with cash and cancelling a flight, you'll get a travel voucher which would expire in 12 months.
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jeffyscott
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by jeffyscott »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 amIs anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time.
We have not flown for about 18 months and will likely not do so for another year, but how can that be, whatever the amount of miles needed, it's not like they have value for anything else. I guess you can trade them in for merchandise, but are flight awards really of less value than, say, 13,000 miles for a box of 100 colored pencils, to give one example.
...the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price.
What does that even mean?
I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between.
Not necessarily, business travel is where they made their money, so it may depend on what happens with that. Perhaps they have a greater need for cash from leisure travelers now then they will have when/if more businesses are paying high fares to fly people around again?
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jeffyscott
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by jeffyscott »

rtt22 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:56 am Buying with miles (or points) gives you this advantage over paying with cash: you can cancel or change your flight and get back the miles or points and they don't expire. When paying with cash and cancelling a flight, you'll get a travel voucher which would expire in 12 months.
Isn't that only with Southwest? But, I always thought that odd that as a freeloader, I got better treatment than people paying with actual money.
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lthenderson
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by lthenderson »

We don't fly often enough or live near a hub where we can fly a particular airline enough to get enough points to do anything with. So our solution is to just sign up with all the airline mile programs (that we can fly on) and then later redeem those miles for things like gift certificates to restaurants we like.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by seawolf21 »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
diy60
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by diy60 »

jeffyscott wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:08 am Isn't that only with Southwest?
No, most airlines allow you to cancel and redeposit the miles.
Jags4186
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by Jags4186 »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
I’m unsure of what this means. Unless I missed it, airline miles are worth $0.00 in cash, so how can the miles required for an award ticket cost way more than cash price?

If your concern is that you require lots and lots of miles for inexpensive cash fares (say 25,000 miles for a $125 flight) then that is a consequence of an industry that has bled cash for 12 months. Dissuade folks from redeeming points by discounting tickets to drive up revenue is a viable strategy.

On the flip side, the much maligned Delta Skymiles can be redeemed at a rate of $0.01/pt towards Delta flights if you hold a Delta co-branded credit card (no annual fee Blue Delta AMEX is a good option if you’re fee adverse). A $200 ticket will cost no more than 20,000 Skymiles.
Last edited by Jags4186 on Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
hunoraut
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by hunoraut »

the golden era of miles accumulation and spending was about 10 years ago. there seems to have been an across-the-board devaluation of miles and rewards from that point forward.

the absolute best value are redemption for long-haul premium cabins. i like to spend them on family e.g. parents who arent frequent flyers.
rich126
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by rich126 »

Right now it can be hard to use due to:
1. Lack of flights (lots of cut backs on # of flights)
2. Travel restrictions

Usually the best value for miles are international premium cabins or last minute expensive flights.

It also helps to have a flexible schedule.

And yeah, some travel stuff right now is cheaper for obvious reasons. Certainly not all, especially car rentals.

Under normal times, often using miles with partner airlines result in better values. Using United miles on United flights may be worse than using on one of the partner airlines.

I do agree times were better years ago but hard to predict the future especially with all of the travel issues going on right now. Some airports are not crowded but ones I've been in seem to be pretty busy with security lines and fairly full flights.
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dbr
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by dbr »

Before the Covid pandemic began we had made reservations for an excellent redemption on a European trip. Those flights were cancelled, access to Europe was blocked, and our reservation was cancelled and miles and fees were redeposited. These were Avios points FWIW.

Since that time I have not even bothered to investigate any possibilities for mileage redemption as it is unlikely we will plan any travel before fall and no international travel before summer of 2022. I have no reason to believe the route we had reserved will even be served again.

FWIW any US travel we might undertake would be on SWA and it is possible the cash price on want-to-get-away fares is very low relative to the points cost, but I am not actively researching that.
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ResearchMed
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by ResearchMed »

rich126 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:33 pm Under normal times, often using miles with partner airlines result in better values. Using United miles on United flights may be worse than using on one of the partner airlines.
[emphasis added]

There are partner networks that can often be far more valuable than using the awards on the carrier that issued the awards.
There are also airline partners of American Express, even though that isn't an airline itself. Between Amex and our American Airlines CitiCard, one would have access to most airlines. I assume it's the same for other carriers.

And as mentioned, using awards for international premium air travel (J/business or F/first) gets the best "value". And that value is especially useful as a metric if one would have traveled in J (or F) anyway.
We've found that the difference in points between J and B tickets is sometimes relatively small, so when that's available, we fly F. (F class is disappearing, but J is often getting quite comfy itself.)

It's often not a particularly good use of points to fly domestic, vs. just using the points as cash.

There are services that can be very effective in helping one to find awards availability for premium seats on international flights. FlyerTalk.com has some discussion of this.

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We'll See
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by We'll See »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
I just used all 200,000 plus United miles I had for a family trip to Hawaii. However I reserved in January and just got back from the trip late March. It was a decent deal versus cash but my goal was to use all the miles because they seem to have less and less value each year.

The miles are worth so little in comparison to what they were worth 10 plus years ago.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by jeffyscott »

diy60 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:53 am
jeffyscott wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 9:08 am Isn't that only with Southwest?
No, most airlines allow you to cancel and redeposit the miles.
I guess it's changed, there used to be a hefty fee to do that with most.

I think with american you could only reschedule for free with same locations. United didn't even allow that.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by NYCaviator »

Jags4186 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 12:22 pm
NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
I’m unsure of what this means. Unless I missed it, airline miles are worth $0.00 in cash, so how can the miles required for an award ticket cost way more than cash price?

If your concern is that you require lots and lots of miles for inexpensive cash fares (say 25,000 miles for a $125 flight) then that is a consequence of an industry that has bled cash for 12 months. Dissuade folks from redeeming points by discounting tickets to drive up revenue is a viable strategy.

On the flip side, the much maligned Delta Skymiles can be redeemed at a rate of $0.01/pt towards Delta flights if you hold a Delta co-branded credit card (no annual fee Blue Delta AMEX is a good option if you’re fee adverse). A $200 ticket will cost no more than 20,000 Skymiles.
By miles being more than cash, I mean that the "cents per point" value of the miles is less than 1. So your example of a flight costing 25,000 miles or $125 in cash seems to be the norm now, at least with United. There's some good earning potential with points and miles cards, but that doesn't matter when the redemptions are terrible.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by NYCaviator »

seawolf21 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:49 am
NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
Don't the F/J awards often require enormous amounts of miles, especially if you are trying to book a roundtrip flight at a convenient time with minimal stops? I've read articles on the travel blogs where they find these one-off fares that sound great, until you realize they are one-way.
SlowMovingInvestor
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by SlowMovingInvestor »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:10 pm
seawolf21 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:49 am IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
Don't the F/J awards often require enormous amounts of miles, especially if you are trying to book a roundtrip flight at a convenient time with minimal stops? I've read articles on the travel blogs where they find these one-off fares that sound great, until you realize they are one-way.
I'm not sure how COVID has changed things, but international biz class (and presumably first class) on long haul flights is a great use of miles.

For international travel, they require a fair number of miles, but still much cheaper than actually paying cash. 70K miles one way for a ticket that would cost maybe 2-3K is a great value. Also, more flexible change policies with miles, and none of the nonsensical one way price > round trip that you see on cash bookings.

Domestic biz/first is pretty lame unless it's an international flight with a domestic segment. Although it might be worth it for trips to Hawaii.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by NYCaviator »

SlowMovingInvestor wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:24 pm
NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:10 pm
seawolf21 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:49 am IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
Don't the F/J awards often require enormous amounts of miles, especially if you are trying to book a roundtrip flight at a convenient time with minimal stops? I've read articles on the travel blogs where they find these one-off fares that sound great, until you realize they are one-way.
I'm not sure how COVID has changed things, but international biz class (and presumably first class) on long haul flights is a great use of miles.

For international travel, they require a fair number of miles, but still much cheaper than actually paying cash. 70K miles one way for a ticket that would cost maybe 2-3K is a great value. Also, more flexible change policies with miles, and none of the nonsensical one way price > round trip that you see on cash bookings.

Domestic biz/first is pretty lame unless it's an international flight with a domestic segment. Although it might be worth it for trips to Hawaii.
I agree that domestic first class is awful!

If its 140k round trip per person, that 280k for a couple in international first. That's a LOT of miles. Short of churning sign-up bonuses or spending a ton of money through a business, how can you possibly accrue that many miles in a year? That's a lot of spending.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by Jags4186 »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:30 pm
SlowMovingInvestor wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:24 pm
NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:10 pm
seawolf21 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:49 am IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
Don't the F/J awards often require enormous amounts of miles, especially if you are trying to book a roundtrip flight at a convenient time with minimal stops? I've read articles on the travel blogs where they find these one-off fares that sound great, until you realize they are one-way.
I'm not sure how COVID has changed things, but international biz class (and presumably first class) on long haul flights is a great use of miles.

For international travel, they require a fair number of miles, but still much cheaper than actually paying cash. 70K miles one way for a ticket that would cost maybe 2-3K is a great value. Also, more flexible change policies with miles, and none of the nonsensical one way price > round trip that you see on cash bookings.

Domestic biz/first is pretty lame unless it's an international flight with a domestic segment. Although it might be worth it for trips to Hawaii.
I agree that domestic first class is awful!

If its 140k round trip per person, that 280k for a couple in international first. That's a LOT of miles. Short of churning sign-up bonuses or spending a ton of money through a business, how can you possibly accrue that many miles in a year? That's a lot of spending.
You likely can’t accrue that many miles in a year through spending unless you are a big spender.

If you made all of your spend in 5x categories you’d need to spend $56,000 annually to earn 280k points.

Of course, if you get creative, utilize transfer bonuses, learn foreign airlines award charts, you can do better. For example, it’s 126,000 miles round trip business class NA to Europe using Avianca Lifemiles (an AMEX transfer partner). Somewhat frequently AMEX will have a 20% bonus. So instead of 140,000 MileagePlus miles to fly United you could use 105,000 AMEX Membership Rewards.
SlowMovingInvestor
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by SlowMovingInvestor »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:30 pm If its 140k round trip per person, that 280k for a couple in international first. That's a LOT of miles. Short of churning sign-up bonuses or spending a ton of money through a business, how can you possibly accrue that many miles in a year? That's a lot of spending.
280K is typically international biz to Asia/South Asia. Europe international biz is maybe 220K for 2 round trips. [ First class is higher, of course]

Yes, you have to do some sign up bonuses, and use a combination of credit cards and transferrable points, and each person has to do it separately. Plus, there are places like Bask Bank, which will give you 12K AA miles monthly per 10K deposit, so you can keep your emergency fund there. Or switching utility providers and then switching back after the minimum period.

And you have to be flexible on airlines and airports. In the NYC area, not just JFK and Newark, but also the few international flights that come in to LGA (via Canada) and even going as far as Philly if necessary.

One biz class flight/year is certainly doable even with credit card providers being stingy.
Seasonal
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by Seasonal »

We used to travel a lot on miles, almost always international J, which is where we usually found the most value. Then it become more difficult to find decent flights - nonstop flights to preferred destinations essentially disappeared, greatly reducing the value of miles to us. An exception was our last flight pre-covid, which was to Japan in JAL first class.

Credit card sign-up bonuses and credit card spend were major sources of miles.

How to use? Study what's available on your preferred airlines and their partners and read flyertalk.com. Alternatively, some bloggers and others will help you find flights with the miles you have for a fee.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by seawolf21 »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:10 pm
seawolf21 wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 11:49 am
NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 8:37 am Is anyone getting good deals on frequent flyer flights these days? It seems like paying cash for a ticket is a far better deal most of the time. I (unfortunately) fly out of a United hub, and used to find some good deals to Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Europe, but now the miles required for a rewards ticket are often way more than the cash price. I've see some OK deals here and there, but most of them are for inconvenient red-eye flights or flights with multiple connections.

I'm guessing once travel picks back up the good deals will be even fewer and far between. Have the airlines completely ruined miles or are there good deals still to be had? If so, where?
IMO, it's only a good deal if you are redeeming for F/J awards.
Don't the F/J awards often require enormous amounts of miles, especially if you are trying to book a roundtrip flight at a convenient time with minimal stops? I've read articles on the travel blogs where they find these one-off fares that sound great, until you realize they are one-way.
Yes it does but that is really where the $/mile value is. If you redeem for economy, you’ll be luck to get $0.02 per mile which is what fido visa can get you.

F/J is really the only way to go. I redeemed 90K round trip for J to Maui on a lie flat wide body. Fare is $2,200 so it is about $0.025/mile. Miles go even further on an international F award. International F to Asia for $10k or 220K miles is around $0.045 a mile.

If you are redeeming for economy, don’t go out of the way to earn those miles.
Last edited by seawolf21 on Fri Apr 09, 2021 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
THY4373
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by THY4373 »

NYCaviator wrote: Fri Apr 09, 2021 5:30 pm That's a LOT of miles. Short of churning sign-up bonuses or spending a ton of money through a business, how can you possibly accrue that many miles in a year? That's a lot of spending.
Manufactured spend allows me to generate a lot of points fairly easily. In fact last year for three glorious months I could do it from the comfort of my own sofa.
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by PaulieLilly »

I'm mainly with Delta Skymiles. I find it takes some work, but I can generally get better deals (less miles for a given reward ticket). As an example, we take a Hawaiian vacation each year (2 travelers). In this case I have a specific non-stop flight and first class requirements. I use a flexible date option to access reward calendars to understand what the least & most mile requirements are for a route. This can also provide guidance as to what days of the week typically offer the lowest miles for both outbound & return flights. Based on this I'll book our one-way outbound flight and our one-way return flight, along with our condo accommodations since they tend to fill up and are a fixed price in my case. While I can likely book our flights at some level of discounted miles, the specific mileage requirements for my flights will fluctuate over time. I will recheck the mileage requirements periodically to see if they drop. Booking one-way reservations does not "cost" anymore than a roundtrip reservation, but it increases our chances of picking off a mileage drop on one of the flights. Checking the first class seating map also gives a clue to potential, future mileage reductions. If I see an opportunity to book our two seats for less, I book it on the spot, then I cancel the two seats we had (no penalty). As an example, our last trip the standard/highest reward was 160k miles (1 person / 1 way). I booked at 110k and was ultimately able to reduce down to 71k outbound and 52k return over a period of ~8 months. Obviously there are a lot of ifs here which includes having enough miles to "momentarily" hold two bookings and being in a mileage program which offers no-penalty cancellations. Depending on the route, there's also a chance the mileage requirement may not drop which is why it's important to use the fare calendar to pick your best dates (lowest miles) upfront. Sorry for all the words ... I honestly didn't think it would be this hard for me to explain ...
theplayer11
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Re: Arline Miles - how to use?

Post by theplayer11 »

Bos, NY, MIA, CHI to Madrid in business class off peak only 64k avios points round trip on Iberia. Great value.
From Madrid, Ryan Air to your selected European city.
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Re: Airline Miles - how to use?

Post by gerntz »

Airline points may have been a good deal at some point in the past. Now they're a losing prop as airlines devalue them whenever by increasing points needed to get anywhere. Net, no longer get snookered into their gamesmanship.
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