When deciding whether to use 25,000 miles for a domestic award ticket, I seem to remember a "rule of thumb" that said if the same ticket can be purchased for $300 or less, buy it and save the miles for a more expensive ticket or for upgrades. Do most FT'ers still follow this rule?

There is no correct answer. Some say $300, some $500. It depends on what the typical airfare is and what the airfare for the dates you want to travel.

If you live in a low fare city, then you may want to use the award instead of paying $300. If you live in a high fare city, then you may seize the opportunity to buy a $300 ticket and use the award only for $500 tickets.

My guess is that San Diego is a moderate to low fare city but I don't know. SFO/OAK tends to be lower. Kansas City and Phoenix tend to be low fare cities. Montgomery, AL and Rochester, NY seem to be high fare cities. Sometimes, LaGuardia is a high fare airport.

i flew to australia from new york this past xmas in business class using 125K miles. the ticket was roughly $10K if i paid for it with currency.

judging from that very positive experience, i would only use miles if i thought the coach ticket was really out of line. otherwise, i would rather save the miles to take a long trip in business (like to cape town or australia again, for instance).

I too only use my miles for long trips in business -- or for last minute flights where no discounted fares are available. I believe that maximizes the value of your miles. Of course, if you have so many miles that you're having trouble using them, that fact would trade my equation.

Hey Fly Co, I assume you flew Quantas on a CO award? How was it? Did you get to take a peek into the F cabin - and regret not getting an F award?

I want to make this trip soon, but I think that I'll really want to go in first...

For me, it depends on the airline. On AA, I earn and burn a lot of miles. I would redeem 25K for a $300 ticket in a heartbeat. I have Gold status, so flying in coach on an award ticket would be a tolerable experience. If I want to fly biz to Europe a few months down the road, I know I have enough miles for that ticket, too.

On other airlines where I earn and burn slowly, my miles are most closely earmarked for certain trips - usually international business class. So I'd be less likely to jump at a domestic redemption if it set me back a year or two from a key mileage level.

I think the rule of thumb used to be higher. Pre 9/11, the most expensive common routes in the US domestic tickets were around $400 for coast to coast, but with the increase in discount fares cutting this substantially, IMHO 25,000 miles is worth $250 or less. This is based on me trying to trade RTFC (free round trip vouchers) for $200 vouchers on the same airline to no avail. However as some have pointed out, the value in miles to money is not linear. If you spend in excess of 80,000 miles for an award, usually flying comfortably over a large body of water, the value of the ticket is worth many, many times 3 US domestic awards.

My discussion on this on my web site below should be of use. Click on Value of Miles in the left menu.

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Free Frequent Flyer Miles

I thought a Business Class ticket on QANTAS was only 105,000 miles?

My bar for using 25K miles for an award is about $315. If I can purchase a ticket for less than that, I will buy it rather than use the miles.

I usually plan my leisure travel well in advance and search fares almost daily so paying more than about $280 for a domestic coach ticket almost never happens.

i actually flew cathay business for 125K. i hear that AAmericAAn got rid of this AAwAArd. not sure if that is true....

it was great. despite two 9+ hour flights, two 13 hour flights, and two 5'ish hour flights just to get to australia (through hong kong), it actually flew by pretty quickly. cathay is great and so is ambien.

Last April the wife and I flew round trip from Newark to Sydney on Quantas (business class) for 125,000 CO OnePass miles each. Yes, I peeked into First, and what I saw looked like something out of Star Trek, with futuristic sleeping pods. I was happy in business, though. We got on the plane, they fed us dinner, we slept for seven hours, they fed us a full late-night meal, we watched two movies (on our own individual screens with 18 channels), they fed us breakfast, we landed.

ClipperCFX

I save my miles for international upgrades (50,000 on AA from coach to Business) and tickets for the kids when they accompany me/us.

Also flew my Mother here last month on an award ticket.

Captain Mike: Hi! What's the average over-the-transom price of the tickets you would have to buy instead of use your miles?

That's how I go at it. We used miles last year to fly associates to Toronto (expensive city) from Pennsylvania and Kentucky. Not a lot of distance, but over $300 each to BUY the tickets, so miles seemed cool. Earlier in the year, flew the kids out to CVG from SAN and could have had the paid tickets for a little under $300.... miles seemed the best way to go there, too.

Cashing in for ourselves, we have a higher threshhold, unless we are already assured of top-tier status from purchased miles. Missing the top status after December 'cause we cashed in 50,000 miles in February seems kinda dumb. But if I already have my (eg, 75,000 NW miles) by October, I am more likely to believe that cashing in miles at the end of the year is worth it, no matter what the cost of the alternative tickets. That is, of course, unless I would owe more taxes otherwise. You see, it becomes terrifically complicated for some of us.

Also, miles tickets on many airlines are flexible, and can be changed. In that case, they may reasonably substitute for higher priced tickets if YOU KNOW YOU WILL NEED the flexibility. Otherwise, why pay for it?

We also preserve miles for last minute, unforeseen trips. If the airline ticket would have otherwise cost $2200, the miles are MUCHO MOLTO VALUABLE.

For you guys, I expect it should just come down to an evaluation of the cost of purchase vs. mileage tickets, {allowing for the likelihood of survival of the airline -- a necessary consideration these days -- uncashed, orphaned miles are worthless). Can you buy the equivalent tickets for XX $$?? Then hold the miles; otherwise, cash them.

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"It was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..."

My new miles strategy has been to redeem miles only for family and friends... makes you look good

aloha

p.s. Flying out of HNL, anything in F/J is what I usually book with my miles, if for myself.