Every mileage redemption isn’t about a trip to some island with views of really blue water….though I wish they were. By the time you read this, I’ll be comfortably ensconced in my day-job office back in Atlanta, and back from a short notice trip to Dallas. Opportunities sometimes present themselves, and here’s what happened. A very good friend of mine is going through some stuff, and I’ve been talking about flying out to DFW to visit, buy beers, and generally have a good time. Late Friday afternoon, a window of opportunity opened for the next day. I shopped for flights and the results were about what I expected.

I don't see myself paying nearly $1,000 to fly to Dallas. In fact, if I HAD to go, I'd probably just buy the Y-Up and be done with it.

I don’t see myself paying nearly $1,000 to fly to Dallas. In fact, if I HAD to go, I’d probably just buy the Y-Up and be done with it.

My thoughts immediately turned to using miles. In little situations like this, short notice….domestic and sometimes international, SkyMiles can actually come through. And they did. I had two choices, I could leave early, connect in Detroit and fly back nonstop for 32,500 miles, or nonstop both directions for 40,000 miles. I have plenty of miles, and I had some things I needed to do on Saturday morning so I went with the latter option. Better yet, I confirmed into First Class both ways immediately upon ticketing, a benefit for Gold, Platinum, and Diamond Medallion members on award travel.

I’m not a guy who sits around and calculates every single redemption to the penny. Sometimes they feel right, and sometimes they don’t. This one felt right. As much as I like flying Delta, I’m not going to pretend that the SkyMiles program doesn’t face its issues on the redemption side. However, SkyMiles can be useful at times. In this case, SkyMiles worked for me. YMMV.