Turn that stockpile of miles or points into a trip

livemint.com:

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. You’ve spent years amassing a trove of credit-card points and frequent-flier miles…for what, exactly? If you’re unsure how to use all those points, you’re hardly alone. Americans are sitting on a massive stockpile of unused travel rewards.

Cardholders earned more than $34 billion in credit-card points alone last year, according to reports from American Express, JPMorgan Chase and Capital One. The longer these points and miles go unused, the more value they lose as many airlines make it harder to find cheap award fares. “That’s basically money that’s not earning interest," says Bart Welch, co-founder and chief executive of rewards-travel website PointsYeah.com.

Instead of letting your rewards sit there, now is the time to put them to use. Before booking, do a quick inventory. Check all the rewards you have with credit-card companies, airlines and hotels.

See which account has the largest stash, and double-check if any of your points or miles might expire. Germán Ceballos, head of marketing at AwardFares, a site that monitors reward-flight availability, recommends doing this periodically. Checking every six months should be plenty.

Many people collect—and hold—so many points and miles because they dream of bucket-list trips. And it is possible to book that African safari or Tahitian getaway entirely on points. But that usually isn’t practical.

Unless you’re a road warrior or credit-card guru, it will take ages to earn enough points for such a trip, and the points you’ve earned could lose value while you wait. Frequent-flier pros recommend setting a variety of travel aspirations. Some can be long-term dream vacations, others more simple, like a weekend getaway or a family visit.