tripaddict

Mileage follows the rules of elasticity vs inelasticity. If someone is rich and willing to fork out $10k for an international flight in F, then 100k miles really are worth $10,000 ($0.10/mile) and I should be able to, theoretically, sell miles to that rich person at, or just less than, that rate. However, if I'm incredibly poor, but really really really want to go to Africa from Europe, then I'd have to take the cost for the cheapest economy flight (on any airline) I can find and divide it by the number of miles for an economy flight.

Applying it to my trip below, it would be $1100 on Emirates/60k AA miles = $0.0183/mile.

I recently redeemed 100k (AA) miles for CDG-CPT one-way and NAI-CDG one-way on BA in F. This would have cost $9905.

However, I would have never spent this much of my own money for luxury, so I value the miles usage based on what I would personally be willing to pay, which might be around $2000, or $0.02/mile for a comparable flight. In other words, if I had bought economy tickets for $1100 and the agent offered an upgrade to longhaul F, I would probably shell out $450 each way for luxury pods vs stuffy coach when traveling long haul for pleasure with my wife.

You could also factor in the opportunity cost of what you would have earned (how many miles) if you were to pay for the flight. The die hard would also factor in the potential risk factor that you wouldn't hit status by booking a long haul award flight.