So, I ended up NOT using my AA miles for Prague & Vienna (we got some special fares on Lufthansa's "We Fly Home" webpage plus are going to redeem one free ticket. So, total cost for both of us will be $800).

So, I am planning to use 60,000 miles total for two roundtrip tickets to Mexico City for a family wedding in November. Dates and times are ideal, actually, and total cost for both of us is $112. Buying tickets outright will cost $1400; tickets with similar dates on times on other airlines are $1100 or more.

I remember one of you saying that you should try to redeem your FF miles in a manner that nets you better than 2 cents per mile. My $1000 ticket to Prague would also cost $112 (+$20 ticketing fee that I do not have to pay for the Mexico ticket). Not a good use of miles. These two tickets are sort of the same except that our TOTAL cost is going to be $112 (had we redeemed one AA ticket for Prague/Vienna at 60K, then we would still have to pay $1000 for the other ticket + 112 in fees + 20 to book).

The only wrinke is that we like Continental a lot and we are close to earning "elite" status (25K miles) this year. Currently, we have 19,330 miles. We are flying to Prague and Vienna on Lufthansa, however, and will earn 50% of the miles for that trip, which will be somewhere around 5K miles, leaving us just short of elite status.

So I can 1) redeem the miles and hope nothing goes awry in Dallas Fort Worh (we have had bad luck going to Mexico through that airport) 2) hope there is no schedule change between now and November (doubtful). On the other hand, I doubt that the fares are going to go down anytime soon. Because Thu Nov 11 is a holiday, it will be like a vacation weekend for many.

I have a reservation on AA and have to book by June 2.

Thoughts???

The alternative is this:

Buy two tickets on Continental for $1000 (plus, sign up for the Continental card, get the first year's fee waived, plus get 25K miles for the first purchase) AND save the AA miles for something else. Result: We will get a "50K elite" status on Continental good for the next year. Then again, who knows what will happen on Continetal/United in the next year. It might be nice to have 50K status though.

See, the "free" ticket on AA seems like the best deal, but in the long run it may not be. We love to go to Asia and could happily redeem those AA miles to Japan (we have done so twice before). Plus, if I redeem my 60K miles, I will have only 17K - not good for anything anytime soon and AA is not our preferred airline (inconvenient connections to Mexico, which is our most common destination).

I'm very much in the Use-Em-Now school of mile redemption. It might be true that using the AA miles for a Japan ticket would yield a higher dollar value then using the miles for Mexico. But the Mexico trip is definite, the Japan trip is speculative, and there are any number of unknowns between now and when you might want Japan tickets. By cashing in the miles now, you're sure to get reasonable value for them.

DFW is a red herring (any airport can be problematic, esp when international travel is involved), and Nov 11 will be one of the lighter travel weekends of the year. While it may be a holiday for some, not many people who would be traveling on T'giving would also be flying off somewhere 2 wks earlier.

If you're that close to elte status on CO, you could consider a Mileage Run -- that's a trip that you take exclusively to get miles. If you need just a few hundred miles, a cheap flight to Newark could give a day in NYC.

Aren't the credit card bonus miles redeemable miles and not elite qualification miles?

What is your route for Mexico City? I always pay way less than $700 per ticket, from Vancouver or Seattle.

Patty - good question and thanks for the tip. I am not going to take that route so I will not investigate further.

WillTravel- the cheapest fares from Boston to Mexico City are hovering around $550-700. We usually pay around $400 so this is annoying to us!

I think we are going to redeem the AA miles for this trip and then do a short flight (maybe to NYC).

First, I think you should check the numbers - my read is that it takes 35,000 AA miles for US < > Mexico round trip. You're flying out of Boston, right?

Not knowing your dates, I plugged in some arbitrary ones and found $526 on Continental via Houston; the same days AA was closer to $700 via DFW.

BOS-IAH-MEX and v.v. is right around 4870 miles, so if you'd only be short 5000 miles for Continental Silver status after the Europe trip, this would get you really close, or close enough where you should really do the math and see if adding a stop, e.g. Boston - Newark - Houston - Mexico, would hit the 5K mark.

My reason for suggesting this is twofold - first, if you get to CO Silver, you will undoubtedly be grandfathered as United 2P (Premier) status (UA's equivalent.) From that point onward you'll receive a couple of very important perks - you'll get 25% bonus miles on future trips, and baggage fees will be waived. When you look at baggage fees, you have to add $100 or so per trip per ticket; it really can add up.

So my recommendation would be to suck it up and go for the elite status if you can possibly afford it - it's worth way more than the 1.6c per mile in equivalent value you'd get for redeeming 35K miles plus taxes for a trip that would cost $550 out of pocket all in with CO.

If you can't afford it, fine - don't skip a trip because of some artificial "value" FF wonks place on your miles. (Guilty as charged.)

Actually it could be as low as 25,000 if the dates are all off peak (return by Nov 14). My guess is OP is mixing off peak outbound with peak return.

http://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/f...ward-chart.jsp

Yep, my mistake - looking at the wrong chart.

12.5 outbound with a 17.5K return = 30K miles.

Our dates are Nov 11 to Nov 15.

We may redeem the FF tickets and give them to our parents and buy our tickets to get Continental miles.

Fares in the low $500s are possible on US Airways or Continental for those dates, for BOS-MEX.

I noticed! The AA miles do not expire - so we may hang on to them...

I admire decisiveness.

<i>The AA miles do not expire - so we may hang on to them...</i>

You just need activity every 18 months.

Yeah, and we can redeem miles for family to visit us (and earn miles when WE travel)...