The Problem with Miles
Riccardo loads up tons of frequent flyer miles for work. I also collect all the Airmiles I can on things like petrol and groceries and insurances. We like to think we will eventually spend the miles on travel - like fun travel, or money-saving on required travel... so far this is not the case.After over 3 years of saving up miles, we've yet to use any. Don't get me wrong, we have well enough to buy flights. But the more I investigate our options, the more irritated I become with the whole idea. It's such a scam!
Airlines want you to collect their miles, because once you start you might become more loyal in order to watch your balance grow. But there are few glitches in the system:
Lufthansa, which partners with AirCanada, Northwest and many more, sure allows you to clock up the miles, but they never offer international flights for you to spend them on. I've tried booking 6 months in advance, I've tried booking 16 months in advance (in fact, they only let you book 12 months in advance, and apparently only offer about 2 seat for the whole 12 month period) - no dice. Not to mention, if you do find a flight (which guarateed is on dates entirely wrong from what you needed), you will pay upwards of $800 in taxes and charges. I mean, this is a reduction from the full fare, but come on!
KLM, which partners with AirFrance and others, offer tons more flights and charges less for taxes and charges (still a weighty $500 average), but up until recently, wouldn't let you buy additional miles, so even if you were 30 miles short for a flight that required 60,000, you were screwed. What's more annoying with this though, is that for short-haul flights, like the ones I was looking into for Athens, for example, the taxes and charges are pretty much the same cost as simply booking a full fare. Honestly. Not to mention that it costs tens of thousands of miles to go anywhere. Why would I use 30,000 miles, plus spend 200 euros on a flight that would cost me 250 euros outright on Expedia?
Then there's the expiry dates. Nice one.
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