Originally Posted by
MileKing
...It boils down to this....if you are faced with buying a ticket, what is the LOWEST $/mile at which you would choose to redeem miles for the transaction instead of paying cash.
Yes, this is the issue. I think that some of the posts discussing the
hypothetical buying and selling of miles are trying to address this issue
but some of them are not.
The answer may be different for everyone, but some of the collective
wisdom on flyertalk is always useful in helping people make that
judgement for themselves, and there have been many threads.
If someone is saving their miles only for that trip-of-a-lifetime that they could never afford, this issue does not arise. Someone who gets all of their miles from work and can only use miles for upgrades has a different issue.
One thing that I find when considering whether to pay for a ticket or use miles, is that as I get more miles, and no more opportunities to use them, they are worth less (but not worthless).