37 rental cars - 2 days - 185,000 miles
Sep 11, 2015, 1:21 am
#62
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 4
Thanks for all the encouraging replies!
Well, some of the miles have arrived, but far from all. I guess I'll have a hard time claiming the missing ones since I won't know which ones posted and which didn't.
To answer a few questions. Where to go with the miles? EuroBonus has some interesting zone definitions, with North/central Africa & Middle East for example including countries as distant from each other as Azerbaijan and Iran to Mozambique and Zambia. Flights between those are (at least in theory) available for only 15k/25k miles ow/rt in Y or 30k/50k in C. As far as I can tell, no other program flies those routes for so few miles.
If I don't fly from Azerbaijan to Mozambique, I will likely just wait for the next EuroBonus "point bargain", when they discount awards on SAS tickets with up to 50%, which makes for some amazing deals.
I did sign up for Avis Preferred, as far as I can tell that only helped speeding up the initial registration process at the rental office, I have not heard of any Avis points or free rentals coming from that?
Well, some of the miles have arrived, but far from all. I guess I'll have a hard time claiming the missing ones since I won't know which ones posted and which didn't.
To answer a few questions. Where to go with the miles? EuroBonus has some interesting zone definitions, with North/central Africa & Middle East for example including countries as distant from each other as Azerbaijan and Iran to Mozambique and Zambia. Flights between those are (at least in theory) available for only 15k/25k miles ow/rt in Y or 30k/50k in C. As far as I can tell, no other program flies those routes for so few miles.
If I don't fly from Azerbaijan to Mozambique, I will likely just wait for the next EuroBonus "point bargain", when they discount awards on SAS tickets with up to 50%, which makes for some amazing deals.
I did sign up for Avis Preferred, as far as I can tell that only helped speeding up the initial registration process at the rental office, I have not heard of any Avis points or free rentals coming from that?
Sep 12, 2015, 8:31 pm
#64
Join Date: Jun 2014
Posts: 66
I really like your story. However, just wondering, why you set the value of Eurobonus points so high? Unless you redeem them for premium class tickets that you would have bought anyway, and can't see them being worth the time and cash.
How do you intend to spend them?
How do you intend to spend them?
Sep 13, 2015, 11:18 pm
#66
Original Poster
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 4
Hmm. I wrote a reply above which took a few days to appear here. I'll stop posting images from now on.
This is a very subjective question of course. I try to look at it from a strictly economic point of view: I only redeem miles for tickets that I would buy regardless (which means Y airfare). When I want to buy a flight ticket, I find the cheapest possible cash fare regardless of airline, and divide that by the number of miles it would cost me. This is the value at which I would be selling my miles. (In reality I use a slightly more complicated formula, which takes miles earned from flights and credit card into consideration.) If this value is less than around 1.75 euro-cents per mile, I pay cash. Otherwise I use miles.
Example: I recently decided to fly ARN - KRN - ARN. The cheapest flights were with Norwegian one way and return with SAS. Total price €385.70. I would earn ~2% bonus with Norwegian and 500 miles through SAS. I value those two at €15.31. I would earn 438 miles through my credit card, valued at €9.64. Paying with miles, it was 10k miles and €22.43 (a purchase that would earn me 25 miles valued at €0.55). In other words, I have the option of selling 10k miles for €(385.70 - 15.31 - 9.64 - 22.43 + 0.55) = €338.87, or 3.39 cpm.
So far, my average "sell" price for EuroBonus miles is 3.55 euro-cents per mile. I don't expect to keep this up in the long run though. I think 2.2 cpm is more realistic.
Example: I recently decided to fly ARN - KRN - ARN. The cheapest flights were with Norwegian one way and return with SAS. Total price €385.70. I would earn ~2% bonus with Norwegian and 500 miles through SAS. I value those two at €15.31. I would earn 438 miles through my credit card, valued at €9.64. Paying with miles, it was 10k miles and €22.43 (a purchase that would earn me 25 miles valued at €0.55). In other words, I have the option of selling 10k miles for €(385.70 - 15.31 - 9.64 - 22.43 + 0.55) = €338.87, or 3.39 cpm.
So far, my average "sell" price for EuroBonus miles is 3.55 euro-cents per mile. I don't expect to keep this up in the long run though. I think 2.2 cpm is more realistic.
Sep 14, 2015, 9:58 pm
#72
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: ORD
Programs: status free since 2017
Posts: 2,188
Sep 15, 2015, 6:57 am
#75
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: London
Posts: 17,007
38 rentals? 
Welcome to FlyerTalk COYBIG. Even if you don't make a big entrance,we welcome new members here. Please get stuck in and we look forward to your first trip report. ^
Welcome to FlyerTalk COYBIG. Even if you don't make a big entrance,we welcome new members here. Please get stuck in and we look forward to your first trip report. ^