Frequent flyer miles are funny things. At least for me, a sporadic traveler who really only flies for vacations and certain weddings. Over the past six or seven years, I've managed to accumulate just under 27,000 miles. The magic number was 25,000, the point at which I'd be eligible for a free trip. I reached that a couple of years ago and started dreaming of the free trip I'd take.

But then the decision: What to use it on? Where to go, what kind of trip? Do I use them for a frivilous pleasure excursion, or for a wedding or other (enjoyable) obligation that might come at a not-so-great time for a several-hundred-dollar plane ticket? Do I use them for a relatively short flight down the East Coast, or for a potentially more expensive cross-country journey?

The real dilemma lies in that choice because you are not eligible to earn miles when you use miles for a trip. (Interesting side note: I just discovered that "unpublished fares," like those from Priceline.com and Hotwire, are ineligible to receive miles on Continental. So if you use Priceline and get a Continental flight, you're not getting the miles. Maybe because you're not choosing to fly the airline, a computer is.) So do you use them on a short trip that might not be that expensive and you really won't miss 1,600 miles? Or do you use them on the more expensive longer trips but forfeit the 5,200 mileage windfall that comes with a New Jersey-to-Seattle round trip?

Because my good friend Matt's wedding and bachelor party in Seattle are things I wouldn't miss for anything, yet my recent necessary expenditures (four new tires on my car cost nearly as much as two round-trip tickets to Seattle; too bad I don't have the time to drive there) have come at a bad time. So after purchasing tickets for Casey and me to spend six nights/nearly seven days in the Northwest for the wedding (five days before, a day and a half after), Dave and I had to coordinate with Shawn, the best man, on when the bachelor party would be. It was time to cash in the miles.

It works out well, too: Dave and I fly out for the stag party at 5:20 p.m. on a Friday, landing in Seattle at 8 p.m. This way, I can work until about 3 and not have to take a vacation day. We return home at 3:55 p.m. two days later, landing just before midnight. This will allow us to sober up and work our way through the early hangover symptoms before climbing 35,000 feet into the air.

Now that's planning.