Determine the best use of frequent flier miles

Are you sitting with a ton of frequent-flier miles and can't figure out how to best use them? Several new websites will help you make that call.

The default position for people with their miles has often been domestic upgrades to first class. But as a general rule, the best use of frequent-flier miles is for front of the plane travel overseas. That often means Asia (if you're flying from the Eastern half of the United States) and Europe (from the Western United States,) plus the Southern hemisphere (from anywhere in the country.)

Of course, those are just general guidelines. Scott McCartney's Wall Street Journal  column names several websites that take a scalpel to your frequent-flier account to tell you the best use of your miles for a particular airline:

• MileWise.com
• GoMiles.com
• AwardWallet.com

You give these sites access to your loyalty accounts and they alert you to deals, warn you if any miles are expiring and tell you about the best uses of miles at that moment. It's a great way to leverage the value in those miles, though not every site participates with every airline's loyalty program.

Both American Airlines and Southwest Airlines are hostile to the idea of people using these sites because they claim, among other things, that they own the frequent-flier mile account passwords. "Southwest argues the third-party sites threaten security of passenger information," McCartney writes. "American doesn't want outsiders 'scraping' data off its website."

The hardest major airline to redeem miles on is US Airways, followed by Delta. You have about a one in nine chance of being able to redeem as you wish with those airlines, which is pathetic. Ironically enough, you have the best redemption possibility of anybody with Southwest.