Economy MileSAAver Award vs Purchase
 

I was interested in flying from NYC-IAH one way but tickets is about $300. Is it worth spending $300 better then 12,500 miles? or the other way around?

personally, I'd spend the $300. You end up with a min of 1658 miles in your AA account for the flight LGA-ORD-IAH (and 1889 LGA-DFW-IAH). Rack up the miles and use them for a better redemption value than a domestic flight.

But, if you only fly domestice and won't even rack up miles for INTL, then its up to you to decide on the value. 12,500 miles for $300 is a value of 2.4 CPM. Not a horrible redemption rate, but alsonot one or the best.

In the end it comes down to how you value miles and your travel.

Miles. Its a good enough redemption. And if u have lots of miles. You really wont be earning that much miles if u buy it anyway. Unless you are saving ur miles for intl premium tix



QUOTE=arods3;17349495]I was interested in flying from NYC-IAH one way but tickets is about $300. Is it worth spending $300 better then 12,500 miles? or the other way around?[/QUOTE]

That depends.

1. Do you need the miles/segments for status qualification?
2. If you didn't use the 12500 miles for this trip, what would you use them (plus the lost miles if you had a paid ticket) for?

3. Would it be much less to fly another carrier?
For example, if you could get a $150 fare on aonther carrier, would you have a third option in this?

Similar question here.

I currently have an award itinerary on hold. its TPE-LAX and LAX-PVG and costs 70k miles. Just checked on kayak and the same itinerary only costs around $1100 (AA is the cheapest option according to kayak). The math tells me I'll only get 1.52 CPM..

Should I go ahead and buy the ticket since the CPM is so low?

Btw I am new FlyerTalk and the whole award travel thing, what's a "good" CPM? around 3 or 4?

TIA

its 1500 + mi @ ~ 20 cpm vs getting ~ 2.3 c for your aa mi....look in your wallet?

The answer is the same.
Do you need the EQMs, etc for status?
What about upgrades? (Need a paid ticket for SWUs, etc)

If you don't use the 70K mile for this trip, how else would you use the 70K plus the miles earned on the paid trip?
What does the $1100 mean to you?
Do you have a lot of miles that you have trouble finding ways to use?
Personally, I would pay the $1100.
GCM says this trip is 13283 miles in distance or over half the needed miles for Gold qualification.
For PLT/EXP, this trip would earn 26566 RDMs
This would make the mileage cost 96566 if you are PLT or EXP
Additionally, I would really like to use SWUs if traveling that far.
Also, if PLT, that earns over 5 Upgrades (4 per 10K)

This seems like a no-brainer, assuming the person paying has $1100 to spare

Miles no doubt - unless there are some other overriding factors. A bit off topic, bit situations like this is why I love programs like Citi Thank You.

arod....you get 1x eqm, 2x rdm, &, if before dec 2x rdm toward the mm count....or $300 [less fees] in your pocket....

I'd personally pay $300 - because I value miles for international business class or first travel.

have you tried milewise? - they're got an innovative approach to valuing miles vs. cash - for me, it determined that one AA mile is worth 3.68 cents. So in this case, the net mileage cost (12,500 plus the 1659 RDM) would be $521 - clearly a lot higher than the $300 cost.

+1.
Unless you have so many miles that you don't know what to do with them.
I NEVER spend miles for any domestic flights. They are relatively cheap and short duration.
I save them for those very expensive CX J/F, QF J/F and now EY J/F awards for loooooong and overnight flights to far corners of the world.
YMMV.

A question about milewise.
I was not familiar with them so I decided to check them out.
I will be flying from SFO to YVR next Sept – so I plugged it in.
Milewise was recommending buying ticket with Alaska even though using miles with Alaska (I have AA miles) or UA miles scored that 100 out of 100 and buying ticket only 94 out of 100. Quote:
You should book on Alaska for $249. Why?

This is their reasoning for using miles:

This price scored 100 out of 100, so you should definitely consider it.
This flight costs 12,500 miles worth about $176.
The airline charges an additional $5 in taxes.
So you're really paying about $181 in cash and miles for this flight.

Buying the ticket on Alaska scored only 94:

This price scored 94 out of 100, so you should consider it.
This flight costs $249, including $37 in taxes.
However, you earn 798 miles worth about $11.
So, this is like paying $238 for this flight.

So how come they recommend buying the ticket but give it only 94 and give 100 to using points?
First of all – how do they get the value of 12.5K AA miles to be $176. For me to get 12.5K AA miles I have to do one of the following (other than CC promotions):
• Fly 6.25K miles as Plat to get 12.5K miles
• Spend $12.5K on my CC
• Buy 13K miles on AA.com for $375.50 + tax or $30
All of the above are a LOT more than $176. Not to mention that milewise does not take into account that to fly AS or AA requires 1 stop and a regional Jet on second segment. There is no way in H*ll that I will spend 12.5K miles to fly with one stop + reg jet when I can do it direct in half the time.
Besides, as I said before, I value my miles way too much to waste them on domestic Y. What am I missing?
YMMV

also, you cant get a sticker ug on an award ticket....

And who the hell would tolerate sitting in coach without the chance to upgrade?

Thanks mvoight!

I do have $1100 to spare so I am leaning towards buying the ticket instead.

Also, since I don't have any status with AA right now, I should do the challenge too right? Flying a N ticket will yield me around 6.5k MQP, more than enough for the gold challenge. Looked into a B ticket too, but it's $2800.. so I wont be going for the PLT.

Thanks!!