Originally Posted by
BAHumbug
But surely the value depends on how easy it is to earn the miles in the first place ?
If you have to fly half as far on BA to get 85k miles as you do to get 80k miles on CO then the miles are much less valuable (or more valuable, depending on how you look at it).
You need to look at the earn rate as well as the burn rate.
BAH
I tend to calculate my own internal value for miles based on their utility for flights on which I'd otherwise have to buy with cash. So for me, that tends to be short-haul coach flights. When I burn a bunch of miles for long-haul J/F, I just ask myself if the trip is worth at least that internal value times the miles spent. 85k award...20 hours in a premium cabin...yes, that's worth $1400-1700 to me.
I actually try not to allow the cost of acquiring the miles influence my decision too much. The
first 205,000 BA miles I earned had a very low cost associated with them - about $190 total, give or take. But I still want to get $3-4k in value out of those miles.
The only time "ease of earning" really comes into play for me is if I'm about to fully drain all of my miles in one alliance. Then I start to think about whether I can get similar value out of the other alliance to maintain future diversity. But I'm not going to overthink that one too much right now, knowing that my biggest stash is US Airways and who knows what alliance they'll be in 1 year from now.