Again, after reading the other strings on this from a few months ago, I think a moderator should go ahead and close this with reference.

One parting shot... I strongly feel that you can only place a value on your points that's up to the amount you WOULD HAVE OTHERWISE PAID, not the value the airline would have charged you. In coach class, these are roughly the same as long as you weren't willing to take some off-the-wall cheap alternative to get a lower price than the airline would have charge. But when people talk about getting 8 cents per mile for their FC tickets to Europe or for their upgrade to Hong Kong because the airline would have charged $8,000 for those seats otherwise, I have to ask... If you had no miles and wanted to take that trip, would you have gone in FC or Coach? If the answer is Coach, then the value you got for your miles is the airline's Coach rate plus whatever the difference between Coach and First is worth to you personally. That makes your $8,000 more like $1,000 - $2,000, which is more like the 1 to 2 cents per mile that Coach travellers get.

I also support the response that the airlines don't lose money on this for a similar reason. It's only a loss if they actually would have sold that seat for that amount and wound up flying with the aircraft full and a paying customer left behind.

Thanks!