Originally Posted by
cnlklink
What I do to value my miles is look at the cost of coach tickets to the next 10 locations I'd like to visit, divide each by the cost in miles and then take the average. At the moment this is coming out to 2.87cpm for me.
Are you taking into account the following:
1. Another airline might be cheaper.
2. Another airline might be more convenient
3. There might not be award seats available on the day you fly.
4. You would earn miles on the purchased ticket.
5. Have you factored in taxes?
Lets say I want to go to India. Oneworld ticket to India in coach is $1600. Cost of ticket is 80K miles, so yield is 2 cents? No.
Best price to India is $1300 on UA. UA and AA or BA are equal convenience. Also earn 18K miles so true cost of mileage is 98K miles. Also have to pay taxes of $130 so savings is only $1170. Also I realize there are limited award dates available so I subtract another 15% because I probably won't get the dates I want.
So my net savings is $995 for 98K miles or 1.02 cents per mile.
Running my calculations in this fashion, I have a tough time justifying more than 1.4 cents. And that 1.4 is only because of the stopover trip.