Originally Posted by
Adelphos
2) I was just questioning the concept that 75,000 AA miles should be valued at $4,000 to $5,000 (the standard one-way cost for a flight to Asia). Unless you are ready, willing and able to spend that in cash regularly for such flights, that’s not the real value. You should probably value those miles at whatever cost you regularly buy business class flights for in cash.
Other than a couple of those $1,500 BA sales, I've never once had to pay actual cash for business class (for leisure purposes). Yet I've now taken probably ~50 different flights globally in business. And had zero "extra cash" (like buying miles) outflow to do so.
Of course I could pay for them whenever I wanted too - but that's not the point. Ergo, I value those 75K miles at $4K-$5K redemption.