<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MileKing:
Pinniped, I'm not sure I understand your valuation methodology. If I read things correctly from your post, it seems you have multiple valuations based on whether you are talking about a Priceline city, or whether the travel is international. Having a dual valuation seems to be a highly suspect approach. Why not establish a single value for your points (in each program) and then make award/pay decisions based on that?</font>
I concur with the dual valuation method.
I do not have sufficient business travel (or choice) to limit myself to one chain, and I attempt to use priceline for leisure travel whenever possible. As a result, my points are spread out over several programs and are not sufficient to redeem multiple night awards.
So the key question is: What is the value of a single night at a Category 6 Hilton, Starwood, Hyatt or Marriott? (No reason to use points at lower value hotels which usually have cheap rates anyway).
Since I can often obtain a 4* priceline room for <$100 in most major cities (see
http://biddingfortravel.com), that would be the low end valuation. However, there have been times when priceline bidding is unsuccessful or unavailable for a particular location. In those instances, the value of one night (particularly in Europe) can easily exceed $200.
So in sum, I would value the one night awards at $75-$200 - about the same as a transcon upgrade. The upgrade is actually more valuable -- assuming you don't have unlimited upgrades -- as you still get the miles for your trip (vs. no points for free hotel stays).
I don't think a per point valuation is particularly meaningful for airline or hotel points. A business class ticket is far more valuable than an economy ticket on a per mile basis. The same logic applies to hotel rooms, i.e. a top-category room in Venice or Maui is far more valuable than San Francisco (much less LA) where 4* priceline rooms are in abundant supply.