My respect for Consumer Reports Travel Letter just went WA-A-A-AY down. The article says they consider using miles for tickets that would cost at least 1.4¢/mi. to be "very good value." I consider that to be a waste of miles unless I'm getting some other benefit like the pleasure of giving an award ticket to a family member. I've hit 8¢/mi. more than once. Another thread here indicated that I'm far from unusual in this regard.