Originally Posted by
Unterwegs
Converting into airline miles sounds attractive to me.
Instead of spending 50.000 points for a 250 US$ hotel room (where you get more points and possibly RA status for the next year when paid with cash) has a value of less than 0.5 cents per point.
If you can get a first class award ticket which costs 10.000 US$ for around 150.000-200.000 miles or 750.000 to 1M miles then this sounds tempting.
Being European based we are in the fortunate position that we can literally "print" LH airmiles via a certain CC system. Besides that, I fortunately would never pay 10000 USD for a first class ticket, so this is always a bit of a fake calculation. The days tickets are as expensive as10k you normally will not find award space. I had four F/C long distance flights this year I had to pay for myself: JFK on BA for 3200 EUR, JNB on LX for 2200 EUR, Key West on LH/LX for 4000 EUR, SYD on QF for 6000 EUR. None of this was available as award flights the days I required it. Hotel points are by far more valuable for me as I can convert them into real cash via the IHG Mastercards on business travel.