Delta Skymiles - kinda useless?

[everything]

I have seemingly a lot of skymiles but not enough to have "status".

What do I do with these seemingly useless skymiles? Getting a free flight seems super expensive but I don't want magazines, etc., etc.

[origami_itto]

I used to use mine for first class upgrades. If you fly a lot, totally worth it

[everything]

Yeah I no longer fly that often. I don't have enough miles for status to compete for the occasional free upgrade but I'll have to look into spending these miles for upgrades. Seems stupid for me not to use them for some kind of flying benefit. Really, since I'm only posting this on RSF, I should use them to go to the IMA events people keep listing! Ah... not enough days in the year for all the stuff I want/need to do.

[Peacedog]

Sometimes you can purchase additional miles and when added to the ones you already have end up with enough to upgrade. But you need to do the math on your end to see if it is worth it.

Over the last several years as ticket prices have dropped due to better competition most of the US airlines have gotten a lot less generous with the benefits unless you are truly a high mileage user. And the fact that some high profile users of airline miles, care of some pretty sophisticated software, have taken real advantage of the system has led to some pretty big cut backs as well.

Also keep in mind that airmiles tend to expire a lot sooner than they used to as well. So, smoke'm while you've got em!

[Ian C. Kuzushi]

Ticket prices have dramatically increased over the past ten years in a fairly steady trend. This is due to many factors, but there has been a massive reduction in competition. This is the case both domestically and for international travel. Tickets to Asia doubled about ten years ago and never went back down. The same trend holds for Europe and Africa.

Nice try, though.

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs ... e-airfare/

http://fortune.com/2016/01/06/airfares-airlines-prices/

Anyway, I'm with Itto on the upgrades. You still need to fly quite a bit, but it's much easier than getting free flights. That is usually only attainable for people who fly very often for work.

[Peacedog]

Yeah. No.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... ed/273506/