Originally Posted by
DKNYSprt95
I had just redeemed 30k asia miles (almost expired due to me not flying CX these years) from TPE to BKK. Was kind of jolted (but not entirely surprised) at the airport/fuel surcharge that I had to pay....
Nitty Gritty: I redeemed 30k Asia Miles (my cost ~$360 USD) + $155 USD Fuel Charge = $515 USD cash cost of award flight.
Normally, this flight can be had for arond $400. Even though I lost a little more than $100 to do this flight + extra time to connect thru HKG, it was certainly better than expiring 30k miles altogether.
Was just curious on the general consensus on best way to redeeming CX miles... Is it better to redeem award tickets, or book economy fares and upgrade to J?
The problem here isn't the fuel charge at all...it's that you are burning miles in a scenario where it's not mathematically advantageous to do so. I'm not sure what you mean by the ~$360, but generally you want to be "selling" (aka, redeeming) miles at the highest retail value possible per mile (after subtracting cash costs like fuel/taxes, and adding back miles earned for that segment). I can't remember who but someone had a very good analysis of how to calculate it a while back. I recall from back of the envelope #s that there are (J/F) award situations you can be redeeming miles to make them worth in excess of 5 cents USD/mile, which would obviously be superior to redeeming 30k on a TPE route that normally sells for $300 USD before taxes/fuel surcharges (implying you're selling your miles much more cheaply).