My sister lives in Helena, Montana (HLN) the capital of the Big Sky State. The population of Helena is less than 30,000 people.
The airport there is really tiny. Long-term parking is $15 per week; you leave your payment in the drop box when you exit.
There are only about six flights per day out of HLN. The flights are not only scarce, they are also expensive.
My sister wanted to come east for our Mom’s 90th birthday and our Uncle’s 95th, so I offered to buy her a ticket.
Well there was no way she was going to let me buy a ticket.
But she would allow me to pay for her ticket with frequent flyer miles — miles that I had accrued largely through credit card sign-up bonuses.
That’s the reason I collect miles and points!
Extreme Travel Hacking for the Sandwich Generation
When I attended my first frequent flyer meet-up a few years ago, one of the old timers informed me that frequent flier miles should not be used for domestic flights. Excuse me?
I was told that I could get a much higher value if I redeemed points for international first class travel.
Over the past several years, I have redeemed hundreds of thousands of miles for flights — and all of these flights were economy class domestic travel.
Most people think of family travel as traveling with children. Our family travel is traveling to see family, or flying family members in for a visit. To me, that is maximizing the value of frequent flyer miles!
I don’t care whether I have to spend 25,000 miles or 50,000 miles for a roundtrip ticket. The “point” is that we use the miles to get where we need to go.
