What’s better: a million dollars or a million air miles?
Boarding passes and luggage tags from airlines. Photo: Julia P. / Flickr
What would you rather have: a million dollars or a million frequent-flyer miles? Airline miles have almost become a new currency. They can be exchanged for hotel stays, car rentals, gift cards, and merchandise. The movie “Up in the Air” with George Clooney brought mainstream attention to “travel hacking.” This is how people use their ingenuity to build up as many frequent flyer miles as possible.
The Los Angeles Times had an article titled The frequent flyers who flew too much. It’s about how American Airlines offered to sell tickets for unlimited first-class travel. This excerpt reveals how these airpass holders acted:
Passes in hand, Rothstein and Vroom flew for business. They flew for pleasure. They flew just because they liked being on planes. They bypassed long lines, booked backup itineraries in case the weather turned, and never worried about cancellation fees. Flight crews memorized their names and favorite meals.
It’s fun to imagine what you’d do you if you fly anywhere, anytime and not worry about the cost. Going to another country becomes as easy as taking a bus. However, all good things must come to an end. The airline changed the terms of the deal.
What happened next is up for debate. Did the airpass holders take advantage of their privileges to the extreme? Or did the airline renege on the offer?
Have you earned free flights? How did you do it? Please share your tips in the comments.
June 5th, 2012 at 7:52 am
I’d absolutely rather have dollars! Frequent flyer miles are a joke! Either that or I have no idea how to use them. I’ve been carrying around 110,000 US Airways miles for several years and have never been able to use them. Maybe one day I’ll cash them in for a really good trip, but they’ve been pretty worthless to me.
June 5th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
In the USA we have decided a long time ago that the law and contracts are the way we want to settle arguments. In this case the airline or company made a contract with the person (not a very good one it seems). The airline got something and the person got something. What I find funny is how the company seems to be able to use the law to get out of bad contracts and the person is left with nothing. Sure the person is maybe using the the situation to its full advantage but that is capitalism. You make a product and people buy it. If I bought an apple at a store and for some reason that apple was a magical apple and it keeps producing apple for free out of thin air. And I started giving those apples away to everyone for free. I don’t owe that store the price of every apple I give away. That is just bad luck on the part of the store. Next time check your produce better.
June 8th, 2012 at 9:32 am
Hi, I would rather have the $1m dollars, that way I can spend $1m and also clock up 1m reward points/miles too – best of both worlds.
Thats
With those miles, I can have the freedom to fly to any destination and airport just to explore, rather than focus on the popular destinations which the regular travel deals are promoted to.
Asa – 110k points, dust them off and use them, you can fly business class to Asia for 90k, or to Aust for 110k points, a bargain holiday awaits – trust me, they are valuable.
October 22nd, 2012 at 6:55 am
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