In many instances PBM is cheaper than an award ticket. Orlando-NYC has $200 fares galore, so that is self explanatory. Also, I have seen very cheap European fares in the $500-$800 price range where the award ticket is 100k miles.


Now we did a MCO-BKK,SIN-MCO 3 week trip earlier this year where the ticket price was $1300, but the cheapest reward we could find(on this routing) was 150k miles. I paid 100k miles on the wifes ticket, and then paid $300. My wife was credited a month after our trip ended with 22k mqm. We never asked for it. We never complained.