Originally Posted by
WaytoomuchEurope
Well stated, Cow. You’ve pegged one of my big frustrations with the new program. I’m one of the idiots that uses points largely for domestic travel for myself and family/friends but I actually don’t think I’ll do it anymore. I literally haven’t seen a single domestic reward that made me think “oh that’s good value”. And I’ve looked at 4 or 5 dozen options at this point.
I agree that reward pricing within NA is distinctly unimpressive - especially when it comes to NA PLH J awards. And based on the several hours of searching I have done, AC's claim that the mileage cost will only exceed the published bands <10% of the time seems like complete bogus. And finding NA J award availability at the "saver level" definitely seems much harder.
However, it's not that hard to find some attractive awards.
E.g. I just did a quick search for May 5 and figured I'd try the furthest destination (YYT).
YVR-YUL-YYT (incl. widebody flight YVR-YUL): 35000 miles o/w in J
with SE status and a co-branded credit card: probably closer to 30000 miles
apply a 50% priority award: ~15000 miles
That's not bad at all IMO.
But yeah, a SE who mainly used to redeem miles for travel within NA (whether Y or J), the old IKK system was MUCH better.