I suppose most folks here would say that just about anything valued at less than a penny per mile would be a bad use of miles. But I have repeatedly used AAdvantage miles to book ground-only packages at Disney World deluxe resorts. No chance we could have affored to pay for those trips. To me, the value of those miles is considerably more than a penny -- infinity, in fact, because the trips were priceless.
BTW, if anyone else plans to book a package at aavacations, be sure to do so through the 10% Citi discount, which applies just as well to paying with miles as it does to paying with cash. http://aavacations.com/jp_citidiscount.asp?ref=citi

 

How about worst ever use of a hotel certificate? I have a funny feeling that I'm going to end up blowing a Marriott Cat 1-5 Free Night cert on a Scarefield Inn during an upcoming roadtrip to Minnesota.

We're staying in a cabin once we're there and I have no other possible use for the cert before it expires. It's one of the electronic certs from the Marriott Visa - nontransferable. I can't even give it to a friend.

Some motel along I-35 in Northern Iowa is probably going to end up getting this thing...

 

With most hotels, you can book a reservation in your name, then call to add any name to it saying that this person will arrive first.

 

My worst redemption was having to spend the 70k UA miles I had earmarked for our 1 year anniversary in Hawaii to visit the in-laws in North Carolina. Delayed 8-hours each way, which made my wife never want to fly UA again. So then we each had 14k useless miles left each (I argued on the phone for 4k miles compensation on the way out, and they ended up putting us on DL on the way back). She ended up donating to her miles to Make-a-Wish. All this instead of a trip to Hawaii.

At least I was able to use 10k UA miles to get two round-trip Island Air tickets that saved us $175, when we finally made it to the Islands. Only used it one way and it was still an effective use of miles. Too bad that's gone now.

My Mom and Sister had to burn all of my Dad's AA miles to get to the UK quick after my Dad's last parent passed away. We didn't have the cash to cover all of us, until my Dad went through Grandad's bank records and found that he had tens of thousands of pounds he had never told anyone about. The whole family then came to celebrate his life.

 

--I agree, and I hate that my tightening budget has forced me to book a flight domestically (although it was an open-jaw and not too bad at ~$0.04/mile redemption rate), as a couple of other posters have implied they had to do. Another problem I have had is that most of my miles are Aeroplan and they do not have upgrading with miles as an option.

 

40k miles to renew RCC membership. I thought I jump in before the price increase, but so far this year all but 1 out of 30 segments had been international segments.

I don't know how DL program works but on UA US-CAN flight can be quite good. I burn 75,000 miles for 3 tickets for my parents and my niece for flight between ORD-YVR, which at the time if I have to pay for it is $680 each. I also love to use it for intra Asia flights, those SIN-NRT, BKK-HKG/TPE, NRT-BKK at 20k each in Y is quite handy.

 

Worst ever? That would have to be a one-way mileage upgrade on AA from SFO-LAX. 15,000 (before the $50 fee imposed) just for a little over an hour. Shame on me. I'd had a bad day and did not want to risk getting squished into a seat or reclined into. So there, I've said it. Please don't judge.

 

I won't judge. In fact, I appreciate your post. It makes me feel a lot better about having burned 25K AA miles for a one-way first-class domestic ticket. (Admittely, this ticket would have cost $1263 if I bought it, but I never would have...I would have spent $125 and gone in coach!)

 

This is key to best/worst use of miles. Basing the use on $.01 +/- per mile doesn't make sense. I used miles to travel to Argentina in J a couple years ago, I think it worked out to $0.025 per mile. Would I ever pay cash for a J or F ticket, never. How much extra is the premium service, well I guess it depends on who I am with, how long the flight ect.

The last minute 50k domestic coach award to see a dieing family member is a far better value then the 120k J ticket to China. I am planning a cross country Amtrak trip in a deluxe private room for next summer (don't laugh) It will work about to about $.125 per mile. But would I ever shell out the cash for such a trip, no.

You can only make the case that your miles are worth $X if you would have paid $$$ to book the ticket if you wouldn't have used miles.

 

I wasted my GoldPoints on a $50 Hertz Gift certificate that was nearly impossible to use and eventually expired. I guess I blew that one. I will never do that one again. The cert had to be used on a special rate plan and did not redeem for FF miles. What a waste and a misleading term.. Gift Certificate... Whatever.....

 

Exactly my thoughts. A dollar value for the miles makes sense only if one was otherwise going to spend that money on the ticket/upgrade/item purchased using miles. Otherwise the dollar value only serves the purpose of giving bragging rights.
Though in general I think the miles are almost invaluable in the sense that they let you experience things which otherwise are out of your reach.
I recently used my miles for a US$18K ticket for a 15.5c/mile value (this is the bragging part :-). But to me those miles were invaluable as I would have never spent that kind of money on a single ticket (hopefully someday I will be able to), but it gave me a chance to experience the best in commercial flights today which I can only dream of.

But I digress since this thread is about the worst use of miles. I would say the worst use would be, irrespective of the dollar value obtained, when after using the miles you feel they were wasted. Fortunately this hasn't happened with me yet.

 

I'm bumping this one after a phone call from my Mother today. She had to go to Washington from RDU for a conference. As she was planning the conference, she could pick the dates. She looked at AA RDU-DCA for a few days in March and when she saw the fares were high, she cashed in 37,500 miles on the round trip ticket. She didn't:
- Look at IAD or BWI
- Look at any other airlines
- Look at other dates.

When she called me and I said "why didn't you look at another airline?" she said, after a long pause, "I didn't think of that".

She has five college degrees too

 

had 23,046 miles left in my United account. Relocated last year to ATL so the chances of my ever flying on UA again are...zip. Went shopping at the UA Merchandise Mart, and a few hours later decided on an Ipod nano and some orchids. I was horrified at how hard it was to find something I wanted/needed.

 

Last year I got one of those lovely emails from UA M+ telling me my points were going to expire soon if I did not do anything with them. I figured... I haven't flown on united in over two years and only had 24k miles, 1k short of an award ticket. I figured I would just find something I could blow them on. Of course to my dismay 24k doesn't get you very far. Somehow I got the idea it would be nice to have some Restaurant.com gift certs and bought a set of 4 ($25) each for 2000 miles. I figured I might as well give some to a friend of mine so I bought another set for 2000 more. Figured they are going to waste, $200 (really only valued at $10 each or $80 total) in certs for 4000 miles cant be so bad right. HA two days later I get an email from Restaurant.com saying they are having a huge sale! $25 certificates for only $1 each! Shortly followed by an email from UA saying that since I did something with my miles they are active for another 18 months.

Thats right, 4000 miles spent on $8 worth of merchandise. And I am now flying 4 trips in the next year on united... ah if only I had read the fine print and saved my miles.

 

28000 LH M&M for FRA-CDG, flying next day and returning following morning just to spend a night with a girl