Know when to hold em, know when to fold them

Not my cards, but my frequent flyer miles.

I'm trying to get my aunt here from London, we're marginally flexible on dates and now that she has decided when she wants to come here and where she wishes to land, I can work with the Mileage Plan to get something that will work. I hope.

I very rarely use miles for myself. I do some brain addled calculations to figure out the cost per mile using real dollars and then what the ticket would cost me in ff dollars, which are half or a third of that. I sometimes use miles for upgrades, especially on hard to upgrade flights like out of JFK. I usually clear the upgrade list, but with TH who is one tier behind me, its better to just use miles. I never use miles for free tickets for myself, I would rather earn than burn in most cases unless its a god given emergency.

So, using 90 to 125K miles to fly British Airways in Club or First with a stopover which would be a $12,000 ticket seems like good use of miles to me. To squander that same amount on four tickets to Vegas or San Diego when the tickets can be had for $238 bucks, is bad use of miles.

Cross your fingers they can get me what she needs.

nm