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As mentioned several times above, it does depend on your situation, but I will add this.

No matter how dirt cheap a ticket might be, if you have accumulated reward points that are sitting stale that you have no plans or intentions of ever using, its a good idea to use those points, even at poor redemption value, then to never use them at all.

However, if you can get better value for your points in the next couple years and can get an inexpensive ticket now and save the points for a better value later, it should make sense to purchase the inexpensive ticket.

Now if you have to spend more to purchase points to get an award ticket than to simply purchase a ticket, it probably makes more sense just to purchase the ticket.

Clear as mud?