And now that BlondeBomber has reminded us about the current points for sale promo, here's my same post with the "costs" revised to 2.9c/point, and this time including GST and PST (arbitrarily set to 7%+8%):

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If you can get the same "2 segments for $169" deal 6 times over then you're looking at $507 (+ taxes and fees, I presume) to pick up an addtional 35K points. But apparently the "fees" alone are $56 return, with more taxes yet. It looks like the "landed" cost is $288, or $144 each way. That would make the ywg-yqt route cost $1728 to earn $1167 worth of points.

8 segments for $500 twice would get you more segments than you need, earning an addtional 35K bonus + 2K (for actual flying). That's worth $1234 for $1000 cost, which means the time it takes to do the 16 segments has to be worth less than $234, or even less if the $500 fare does not include taxes.

The more I look at mileage runs for raw points the more I think mileage runs or only good value for status mile runs.