@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@bz386 wrote:
That is bad advice. Most miles (for example United) actually do expire while UR points don't. Also, miles are regularly devalued. Keeping the UR points gives you the flexibility to transfer them to a travel partner that gives you the best value. Still, it is recommended not to sit on any kind of point currency for too long.
Yes, both ideas (keep as URs, but not too long) lead to the "earn&burn" approach, i.e. frequently redeem for actual trips. While it's appealing to save up for the dream trip, the reality is that if it is too far away, you may never get there, as you will need more and more miles as the airlines devalue
Why would the airlines de-value the point if they are sitting in your UR account? I could imagine that may be the case if they are transferred over well before a trip, but not in the UR account. I guess I'm confused since I've never seen this phantom de-valuation that everyone is referring to.
-Cheers
The airline points are devalued as awards "cost" more, i.e. an award that used to take say 60K United miles now takes 80K. So the UR sitting in your account can still be exchanged 1 for 1 wiith United Miles, but the mile is now worth less. And as all partners eventually do this, it's reasonable to say that the UR is also worth less.
In the dim distant past, the only way to get frequent flier miles was to fly. Itn effect, this was similar to "Fly X flights and the next one is free". Miles were relatively scarce and thus had value. Then they slowly added other things (such as 500 miles for a hotel stay etc) but once credit cards with bonuses became common place, there are simply too many miles out there
Nothing phantom about it!
