Two whole weeks since my last update. Wow. I guess my mileage-run from hell really did leave me in bad shape. Nah, in fact, I’ve been really busy with the little man, traveling to Savannah and BAcon in Vegas, as well as working like a beast. September/October is usually a work-heavy time of year for me.
Speaking of, I originally had plans to leave Vegas on Monday morning after the BoardingArea conference wrapped up on Sunday afternoon. I’ve had a pretty consistent driving gig on a new pilot, so I pretty much have to make myself available at moment’s notice (though usually I try to get a pretty good idea of what the advance schedule looks like ahead of time). I was confident I was in the clear to make BAcon work.
While I just put my bags down after checking in to my Vegas room, I received a call telling me I am needed Monday morning. At 530 am. There goes that red-eye possibility.
Good thing for having a diversified points and miles collection with healthy balances – I thought I could easily redeem 12,500 miles (more than my original 8,000 Rapid Rewards points ticket I originally had), but since virtually everyone in the world was in Vegas that weekend, I wasn’t so lucky. All that was available were 25,000 mile standard awards. First, let me tell you that I have never redeemed 25,000 miles for a domestic ticket before. Ever. But it was either that or spending $1,037 for a nonstop from LAS to EWR (!!!).
What made this redemption even more painful was the fact that I had my +1 with me, Mr. Points Traveler. I could have had him stay and take the original flight home, but since we came together, it was only right for us to leave together.
So there, my most embarrassing redemption of the century – 50,000 United miles for two one way domestic tickets. My tail is between my legs.
Have you ever had a moment where you were faced with the same dilemma? If so, feel free to share!
There is no such thing as a bad reward when it gets you from A to B when you need to.
Whilst its not an effective use of miles per-say, it did the job.
You’ll just have to earn more miles :)
I agree with this 100%. I had a situation earlier this year when I inadvertently booked the return date on a round-trip a FULL MONTH after I meant to return (e.g. March 4th instead of Feb. 4th) and didn’t realize it until I showed up to my destination. Rebooking on the same airline for the correct date was impossible–there were no seats (it was a holiday weekend!). Used the various mileage plans to find the 1 seat available on a United flight; didn’t blink on using 25,000 miles to get home on time :-)
If you have the miles, then it’s perfectly ok! If you only had 25k miles, though, then I presume your hubby would have remained in Las Vegas? Or would you actually have spent $1k so both of you can fly home together?
Though it hurts spending 25k for a domestic one way, it did its job and saved you over $1k a pop. Think of it that way.
You should probably do another mileage run to get those miles back :)
I have used standard awards to book one way flights on holiday weekends when they were more than $1K. No shame. I saw it more as enabling us to have a good weekend & sometimes you would rather just use miles.
It seems as if Vegas is a culprit. I’ve had to redeem an Aeroplan “Market Rate Miles” award which luckily was only about 17500 vs the normal 12500. What sucked more though was the fact that saver award space became available the very next day after I booked and no refunds of the miles difference is given. :(
50,000 American miles PLUS &75 fee for roundtrip DC-Miami. For a friend I really wanted to do something nice for, and she would never have let me buy the ticket, although I would have greatly preferred to do so!
Sounds like you got a good redemption considering the costs and the necessity of getting where you needed to be at a very specific time.
I booked two UA saver awards on the non-stop EWR/SAV in 2012. It killed me, but my wife wanted a non-stop, and this flight offered the best timing. A waste of 50,000 UA miles. The good news, I ‘saved’ almost $500 total (insert a groan or rolleyes here).
Nothing stings like redeeming a standard award. I had to redeem a one-way economy AAnytime award to London for my sister recently. I hated doing it, especially since that same award is just 18k in the off-season. Not to mention, it cost about the same as a business class award. Ultimately, I was consoled by the knowledge that it saved us over $1400. I had to remind myself that this is what miles are for and that we’re lucky we have the miles to get to where we need to be.
I have a wife and 2 kids, and we always try and get away during the Feb and April school breaks. Those are popular times to travel, as it seems that everyone with kids are traveling during those weeks. Last April, I had to spend 100k AA miles to fly one way for the 4 of us to go from NYC to LAX. It bothered me, as it was only 50k return on United. I would do it again, as the benefit of the non stop flight at a time of the day that worked for us far out weighed the other options. I’ll spend the miles when necessary, as I’m going to keep collecting more miles!