Originally Posted by
Xandrios
These values per mile are much much higher than what I would rate them.
For instance, KL/AF Flying Blue. I try to fly business class whenever I can. Roundtrips within Europe are usually between 350 and 500 euro all-in. Lets assume the 'best case' scenario where one-way flights in Business are 20K miles with FB, 30 euro taxes one-way, and you will be missing out on about 4K miles (~40 euro value). That means that the 40K miles needed for a roundtrip equal a value of (500-30-30-40) 400 Euro, or, exactly 1 cent per mile.
It's very tempting to look at a transcontinental first class award for 150K miles and compare that to its cash price of 8000 euro. While that would be about 5 cents per mile value, that only holds true if you would otherwise have booked the 8000 euro cash fare. If otherwise you'd have booked a 2000 euro Business class fare, you'd again be looking at about a 1 cent per mile value. Even if you would then fly in that First class seat. The money saved was 2000 euro, not 8000, so thats the actual value of the mile. At least that's how I look at it.
Having said (all of) that, 0.5 cent per mile is abysmal. Much too low for a 'regular' award flight. However it is reasonably on-par compared to other cash+miles offerings. Most airlines use a very low mile value for these cash+miles offers.
Update:
For example, Lufthansa offers the same 0.5 cent per mile value when doing cash+miles bookings. Details
here.
When i said FCO-LAX for € 4.000 what i was meaning was not one way, was round trip FCO-LAX-FCO and i said ticket category "I" for Alitalia direct flight. On the last years (2018-2021) in august for alitalia flight was never under 3.000 euro, usually was closer to 4.000 than 3.000, anyway this mean 3.75 cent per mile. i dont like doing intercontinental flight, specially to west coast with a stop somewhere in europe because make me feel very dizzy when i land, not to count the usually at least 3-4 more hours since depart from Rome, to landing on LAX or MIA. I did once FCO-FRA-SFO and i didnt even remember my name when i arrived on san francisco airport.
Only once i got round trip to new-york on 2015 for less than 2.500 euro for business class cat. I.
As of now the value of any point of volare it is 0.5 cents far cry from any other company on same market.
On my humble opinion spend miles for 2-3 hour flights intra europe it is a no sense for many reasons since what you save it is very little money
Im sorry for my terrible english, it is not my natural language, i hope that who read this can still understand.
Update.
For what i know ITA Airways Volare program have only Cash and Miles system (even if you use only miles and no cash), and as i said round trip FCO-LAX-FCO it is about 8-10 times worst than old MilleMiglia.
Before with alitalia you needed 80.000 miles for round trip in business class for a 3000 euro value ticket that it is the cheapest fare on catetgory I (business) on high season (august), now with ITA Airways Volare you need 600000 points for the same seating.