Originally Posted by
TXbizman
Ok, let me put it another way. I have a need for a new Bose headset that costs $299. UA shop has it at 39,000 miles. Which would be a better purchase?
39,000 miles definitely is worth a lot more than $299. You could easily redeem 25,000 miles for an US domestic roundtrip flight that costs more than $300.
Originally Posted by
PursuedAdventures
Manneca has a great point. It's all up to how much you personally value your miles. For me, I would never use my miles to purchase goods from the UA shop. I just booked a 27,000 miles trip from Los Angeles to Shanghai, by way of Europe on both the outbound and return, in First and Business class for 140,000 miles and $144 in taxes and fees. That trip easily would cost over $10,000. I'm not good at math but I'm pretty sure that's at least 37 cents per mile (10,000 divided by 27,000 = .3703).
But would you really choose to pay $10,000 for this flight? I still argue the redemption value of an United mile is around ~2 cents. An "average" person might choose to pay $3,000 for this trip, and not $10,000.