Pinniped - I don't understand your comment regarding the value of hotel points for rooms compared to airline miles. When I say the Hilton GLON award rooms I received are valued at $1,500-2,000 per week, I base that on the fact that the cheapest room available at the hotel is about $200/night for a room. If I don't have $200 or loyalty points I can't stay there - in any room. I can value my points at $200/night, though I tend to use something closer to the Priceline rate I could get in the city, with a factor added to account for breakfast and room upgrades.


When I get a First Class airline ticket to Europe for 100,000 miles I don't think of that as a $10,000 ticket, even if it is listed for that on the airline website. The difference between buying a $500 airline ticket and redeeming miles for a $10,000 airline ticket isn't really comparable to paying $100/night using Priceline without breakfast, lounge access, or upgrades, or paying $175 for a loyalty brand room and getting upgraded to a $300 room, or using hotel points and getting an upgraded room. The range of prices for hotel rooms is so much smaller than the price range for airline tickets.

While my wife and I couldn't consider buying two $10,000 airline tickets, we can cash in miles and fly first class at an affordable cost or we can just buy economy for a small fraction of the first class. On the other hand, we can stay a paid week in a hotel and as a paying loyalty member, we can expect to get a decent upgrade for a room that might go for double what we paid. Hotel upgrades in terms of fair market value typically work on a factor of about 1.5 to 3 (example: $100 standard room, $175 junior suite; $250 suite). Airline's value their upgrades at a factor around 6 to 16 (example: $500 economy class price; $3,500 business class; $7,000 First Class).