Originally Posted by
flyfarfar
I honestly think it is the best thing since sliced bread.
I can hop a flight to NYC for 7,500 or down to Miami for 4,500. And I only have to book a few hours in advance and pay about $2.50 in most cases.
There ARE non-FT and non-MP folks who read blogs. Most of those people have no idea why they should get a British Airways account and stock it up with "points" rather than keep their US based airline miles for short haul redemptions.
Originally Posted by
ma91pmh
i dont get why you are so hung up on this. i recently redeemed 170k dl for a family trip to: orlando. it was phenomenal. one of our most memorable and enjoyable trips. i also recently redeemed on lh and ba f. they were also great in their own way. get off your damn high horse about premium redemptions. you dont have to be travelling in f for 10k+ miles to be getting good value. there is value in a 250 miles crj flight and there is value in a 16 hour f adventure. your constant digs at bloggers for suggesting anything relating to the former is really tiresome
I don't buy this whole "points are worth as much as you want them to" concept that's used by the bloggers to justify poor redemptions. Points are worth the number of points spent divided by the exact revenue cost of the award redeemed, no more, no less. Any other way of "valuing" miles is just nonsense.
This doesn't mean that one's enjoyment on a trip is proportional to the value per mile, but that doesn't alter the redemption value in economic terms...
As for Avios, yes it sounds good in theory, but it has so many limitations that to put a blanket statement on all short-haul Avios awards is misleading at best. 4500 Avios is only valid for a one-segment short haul award- challenging if you don't live in a Oneworld hub. What if there's no award space on the dates you require? With any other normal program, one can simply find an alternate routing for the same price, Avios charges you more for the privilege of being inconvenienced. If you are travelling spoke-hub-hub-spoke, it will cost at least 27K Avios round trip, and that's if all your segments are under 650 miles. A typical east coast to west coast award, transiting at both an east coast hub and a west coast hub will set you back at least 50K miles round trip in coach- and 3x (!) that in first class.
Now I would rather spend my 150K miles to fly Lufthansa and Swiss first class to Asia, but I guess AA domestic first will be just as enjoyable. I mean, these points are worth as much as you want to be, right?
