Originally Posted by
orca15
The problem with this, for me, is that while using 125K miles for a US-Europe $3750 J ticket would appear to be 3 cpm, and thus a better value, to me the upgrade (depending on the flight) might really be worth only $1000 over my $1000/60K coach ticket, thus the true value to me is still about 1.67 cpm.
When I say "worth to me" I mean "how much I would pay in cash, which I believe is the real value. I'm a cheapskate and would never pay triple the fare to ride up front. I'd rather suffer for 6 hours and buy a set (or two) of tires.
Some people don't get that different people have different circumstances. If your goal is to get the most value out of the SMs compared to the dollar value, J makes sense. If your goal is to get from Point A to Point B for free, Y is the better value. I can do 2 or 3 trips to Asia in Y for the price of one J SM redemption, making that the better value.
There are so many variables, including the rate in which you earn points, the rate at which you use points, how much discretionary income you want to devote to flights, etc. The best thing to do is write down your pros and cons.
FWIW, I have no problem flying coach to Europe, but I've gotten to the age where I need to fly biz to Asia, at least for the longest legs of the journey. Recently, I redeemed ATL-ICN-BKK Biz/Coach, but was able to swap out the second leg for Biz at the same redemption closer to my date of travel. For the return, BKK-ICN-SEA-ATL, it's Coach/Biz/Coach. The first leg has no availability on Biz, so I'm stuck, but I'm hoping for an UG on the third leg.
BTW, lowering the domestic leg to Y netted a 30k SM refund from the original price of the ticket.
Also, we must drive different cars. Twice in the past year I've had to replace a tire, and the difference between coach and biz fares won't come close to covering a set of my performance run-flats.