For me, a week at the Hilton on the BI and a 5 nights at the Jalousie in St. Lucia.

So far, nowhere. Got an enterntainment book for points once - useless for a single traveler. Kept hitting black-out dates on Amtrak. Ordered a magazine through TripRewards, never got it (points deducted). Don't feel like fighting with them. Oh, well, they are free anyway!

SF to London 3 times via Virgin on American Express points.

Hawaii, Australia, and several trips to British Columbia.

Paris twice and Kauai twice using United points.

From Australia, with United Mileage Plus - to Alaska, twice. Wonderful!
The first time, they also let us go to New York on the same ticket, but only agreed to Los Angeles as well as Anchorage, the second time. And I've got a trip to New Zealand left over!

In the last 3 years, I've used my Delta Skymiles to visit South America
(into Rio de Janiero and out of Buenos Aires), LA-so I could connect to Australia, and to Phoenix, AZ to visit friends during high season when the fares pricey.

The Caribbean, Skiing in Utah, California, Washington State, Alaska
all on Delta Skymiles.
Numerous hotel stays with Marriott rewards.

Using frequent flier miles: Hawaii (5 people), Alaska (5 people), St. Thomas (inc. Marriott points for hotel), Grand Cayman (5 people), London, Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, Denver, Phoenix, Baltimore. Gave 2 free tickets to parents to go to Hawaii. Will use 2 free tickets in March to go to Aruba.

Arizona and California separately on American Airlines( family of 4 from the east coast). Japan for two in 2005 on Continental affiliate, Northwest, and Starwood points for Sheratons and Westins in Yokohama and Kyoto. A wk at the Phoenician on Starwood points. NY on Starwood points at the St Regis and Essex House. On and on. Love those points.

In the olden days TWA had the best FF program. For only 50,000 miles you got a free first class ticket to europe - and your companion payed the cheapest coach fare - then about $600 or so - and got a free upgrade to first.

I traveled a lot on business at that point and would do at least 100,000 miles a year on TWA - so we would do this once or twice every year - and continued doing it for several years after I left that job.

Now, for 50,000 miles you get practically nothing - and the hotels I want to use points at never seem to have rooms available.

Hawaii twice, San Diego, Denver, Orlando, going to St. Kitts in November.

We use our United Mileage Plus points to upgrade to business class - Thailand, Bali, Costa Rica and next February India.

Ya wanna to courier a tip for Travel_Gal to Bombay while you are in India to make her Delta problem go away?

Sorry, I'm crossing into mean now. My apologies.

gracieb - had to read that entire Delta post to try to find out what you were talking about. Still not sure - maybe I'll just stick to the Asia board.

Good idea!

I'm VERY jealous of the Thailand trip. Be sure to give a trip report. I traveled to Costa Rica on business and got to play a bit. LOVED the country - and the people!

Did the Thailand trip in 2000 but did not post a trip report (sorry) - I've posted reports on my more recent trips though and will do one on India when I return.

Maui and St John, USVI (technically we flew into St Thomas since there is no airport on St John, but that was our final destination via ferry). We're saving miles now so we can take our kids back to St John with us in a few years when they are old enough to snorkle!!

All on Delta SkyMiles:

Flights to Rome for both of us in 2002 and 2004
Flights to Alaska for husband, son, and son-in-law
Assorted flights to various cities for family weddings, etc.

We had a "buy one ticket-get one free" certificate which our daughter and I used last month to fly to Austin for a wedding.

Don't we all feel smart when we get something for nothing (?) !

Byrd

With NW Frequent Flyer Points: Business Class to London, Business Class to Paris, Business Class to Hong Kong/Bangkok, Business Class to Bangkok,
BizFirst to Hawaii (2 of us), coach to Hawaii (2 adult kids).