Real world: How I used points to fly in 2025

In 2024, several of my favorite luxury flights were booked with AA miles (see: My AAdvantage love affair continues). And, if memory serves, I think I relied heavily on Air France / KLM Flying Blue miles that year as well. This year was very different. I didn’t spend any Flying Blue miles, and I used AA miles only for a few boring domestic flights. So, which miles did I use for my interesting flights this year? I combed through my accounts to find out. Here are the highlights…

Alaska Atmos for the Win

Last year, while it was possible to transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines with a 20% bonus, I went big and transferred a million miles in the hopes that they would convert 1 to 1 to Alaska miles (they did). Later, when it looked like the ability to transfer Amex points to Hawaiian would soon end, I transferred even more points. I’m now sitting on over 2 million Alaska miles. And they’re already paying off. I used 190K miles to book my son and a friend on Hawaiian Airlines business class to Japan. And I made excellent use of an incredible sweet spot award, which costs only 45,000 miles per person to fly American Airlines business class between Detroit and London (with a stop in Chicago). My wife and I flew this outbound to London on one trip, and my wife, son, and I flew it on a return from London on another trip. We were lucky to fly with the new American Airlines 787 Flagship Suites each time.

Related posts:

• My big bet on Hawaiian Alaska Mileage Plan
• American Airlines 787 Flagship Suite Review: Chicago to London
• American Airlines 787 Flagship Preferred Suite Review

Virgin flies in second

I used Virgin points to good effect for three different flights this year:

• Air France Business Class: Washington DC (IAD) to Paris (CDG) for 48,500 miles per person.
• Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy: London (LHR) to New York (JFK). By starting with a short KLM flight from Amsterdam to London, I was able to decrease the cash surcharges. The entire journey (Amsterdam to New York via London) cost me 14,500 points plus $270 per person.
• Delta short-distance economy: I flew from Detroit (DTW) to Washington, DC (DCA) for only 7,500 Virgin points. Delta would have charged much more.

Related posts:

• Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy Sweet-Spot & Review
• Best uses for Virgin Points (Sweet Spot Spotlight)

Burning expiring Singapore miles

Singapore miles expire after around three years, with no good way to extend their life indefinitely. I hate it when account activity doesn’t reset the expiration date! My ~170K miles were about to expire early this year. Rather than let them disappear, I had paid miles to extend the expiration date by six months. Then, finally, I had the opportunity to use the remaining miles. For my son’s trip to Japan with a friend, I booked their return flight in premium economy on Singapore Airlines. This used up all but a few thousand of my remaining miles. I donated the remainder to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The flight didn’t offer particularly great value for my miles, but since the miles would otherwise have expired unused, I was thrilled with this outcome.

Cathay serves its purpose

My wife and I flew British Airways’ first class on the daytime flight from Boston to London. We had a great flight! In general, I love taking daytime flights to Europe. Plus, the in-flight service was terrific.

I used Cathay Asia miles to book the trip for two reasons: 1) I had a bunch of Asia Miles that had been sitting around since cancelling a big trip due to the pandemic; and 2) Cathay charges far less in surcharges for east-coast to London British Airways flights. Here were my options:

• British Airways Avios: 68000 Avios + $ 1,183
• Alaska Mileage Plan: 67,500 points + $996
• American Airlines AAdvantage: 85,000 miles + $737
• Cathay Pacific Asia Miles: 100,000 miles + $216

Compared to booking the flight with AA miles, I paid 15,000 additional miles and saved $521 in cash… per person.

Related post:

• Flying First Class on British Airways Boeing 777-200 ER Boston to London

Emirates first class, under the wire

For a return flight from Milan with my wife, I booked Emirates business class for 87,000 Emirates miles per person, plus modest surcharges (thankfully, I booked well before they drastically raised surcharges on these flights). At the airport, I was able to upgrade to first class for 39,000 miles per person! This was another great flight. I was also lucky that I had transferred all of the miles needed for this flight before the transferable points programs started dropping Emirates or reducing the transfer ratio to Emirates.

See: Emirates first class Milan to New York review.

Many placeholder flights with AA, Alaska, Delta, and JetBlue

This year, I booked many flights that I later cancelled. In some cases, I cancelled because plans changed. In most cases, though, I had booked flights prospectively based on trips I knew we might or might not actually take. I used miles from AA, Alaska, Delta, and JetBlue for all of these “book and cancel” trips. All of these airlines let you cancel with no penalty.

No United awards

I was surprised to find that I hadn’t booked any flights with United miles this year. United is another airline that allows free cancellations, so I’ve often used it for placeholder flight bookings in the past. This year, for some reason, United didn’t make the cut.

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