Originally Posted by flytastic

Background:
16,736 BE points current balance
2,477 BE points are expiring at end of 2018
I am AA EXP with 25,158 EQD an 131,522 EQM for 2018
Over 2 million lifetime miles. Over 1 million award miles left to spend

Scenario:
4 of us going to Hawaii in March 2019
I have 4 confirmed seats DFW-OGG 20,000 AA miles x 4 people = 80,000 miles going and 4 confirmed seats OGG-DFW 20,000 AA miles x 4 people = 80,000 miles returning = 160,000 miles total for all 4 of us. I worked very hard over a long period of time to research and find and book these. You know how hard that is for Spring Break to Hawaii.
BX2A PlanAhead NorthAmerica & Hawaii is 3,000 points per person x 4 people = 12,000 points

Decision:
keep Door #1 : spend the 160,000 miles as these are cheap 40k miles roundtrip per person
or go for Door #2 : spend the 12,000 points for DFW-OGG roundtrip. BE desk and EXP desk said no problem returning 160k miles to me and BE desk can convert to BE award. ( I know there is discussion below about them not being or being in the same buckets but these two agents agree it was doable, but that is not the discussion )

Discussion:
I say keep door #1 . These are 40k per person roundtrip. If these were 80k or 120k or 180k per person roundtrip, then that would be a different story. 40k is much less valuable then 3,000 BE points
BE currency is MUCH more valuable than AA miles currency

Your thoughts?