My father told me today that the travel agent he called said his 155K Starwood points can save him $1000.00 on a cruise ticket. YIKES! :-) That is .6/10th of a cent per point. I wonder how many people have no clue the correct way to use miles and points and when they finally do redeem end up cleaning out their accounts. In a way that makes the programs even more lucrative as when people finally accumulate a decent amount of points, they end up wasting them on a poor redemption. I tried to tell him the true value of Starwood points which I value at 2-5 cents each. The absolute worst case is 1.25 cents each standard transfers to airlines and getting standard economy domestic seats. Its like somebody telling you they did great spending 50K miles for a common standard coach ticket and thinking it was a hot deal. He said that he wanted to ask me first if it was a good deal.

Rob