Using airline miles

This can be rather specific to which airline you have miles on, especially when it comes to booking on partner airlines.

Look at “Points Guy” site. Lots of info. Also American runs “web specials” and Delta sometimes has Sky miles” sales. Some CC you can use on any airline…

Hard to say without specifics. I accumulate all my miles on American Express and avoid an airline’s sponsored card (e.g. Delta Amex, AAadvantage). When I owned my own business, I would charge any expense (business and personal) to accumulate miles that I could then transfer to any of their partner airlines. In the past 21 years I’ve used them for 20 international flights and 2 domestic flights. I only paid for 1 last minute trip to Paris and a few from south Florida to Montreal. One of the benefits of AMEX is that their partner airlines sometimes offer a 20% bonus on point transfers.

I only use mine for international travel preferring to accrue miles on domestic.

If you tell us what frequent flier program you have miles in and the types of trips that you like to take, you will get answers that may be more meaningful for your situation.

One general principal is that if you are unsure whether you might have to cancel or not, a frequent flier ticket can be a good option since cancellation usually means the points are redeposited and you are out nothing or possibly a small fee.

Thanks for all the replies! I have a Delta American Express credit card with over 250,000 miles accumulated. Hoping to get 2 tickets to Italy in 2023.

https://upgradedpoints.com/travel/airlines/how-to-redeem-delta-skymiles/

It takes some research and being willing to fly from different airports at times.
I have a lot of miles on American airlines and United airlines. But I don't use them for domestic travel.
I position myself at the departure airport for the international travel. Often this involves arriving the day before.
I just booked a one way return from Copenhagen in July, 74,000 business class. And just booked the return from Bologna to Charlotte, business class in May, 57,500 miles. I have found that for Italy flying in/out of Bologna is usually with less miles on American Airlines,if I can manage to pass through Madrid instead of London Heathrow I can avoid the fees with Heathrow which one has to pay even using miles.
So research and flexibility are important. I got a surprise upgrade to Business Class years ago flying from Vienna and decided that I would figure out how to fly Business class long haul,and all my trips to Europe since then have been Business class.
The next card I will get will be the 80.000 miles United Card, it has a high spend of $5000 but I time my application for the card so I pay property tax,homeowners insurance, flood insurance and pay my cable bill for a year in advance meets the requirement.

if you're Amex Plat they have a travel service for you, otherwise you need to do some googling and see your various options. The airlines have given out so many miles to so many people over the last few years they have become somewhat of a joke and rather useless. Current advice seems to be, burn them off as soon as possible and change over to cashback cards.

Moments ago I just booked my return from Blq Bologna to Dulles, Business class 57,500 vs 113,000 to 180,000 flying from Rome. So again flexibility and perseverance !

And speaking of cash back cards I love my Capitol One Venture X. The company is also opening some very nice lounges, now just in DFW and Denver but supposedly more to come.
I've been able to offset much of the cost for Airbnb 's to generate a credit back to my account.