Originally Posted by
stant
you get to pick two. if you go for the charitable contribution thats 500 clams, 400 after tax deduction.
but you can also go for 60k points. thats half of a saver international j award. the cost basis for that has GOT to be well over $400. Heck even if you dont ascribe more fuel burn to premium seats, just the jet A costs more than that for a seat, let alone staff, equipment depreciation, etc.
The costs you list do have something in common: they're 99+% the same whether the seat gets filled or not. The marginal cost of an extra body and their baggage across the Atlantic is low-/mid-three figure dollars (that's basically what airlines sell/barter partner one-way J awards to each other for... this accounting of having the FF programs buy awards at not much more the marginal cost also creates the fictional facts/factual fictions about the relative profitability of the metal tubes business vs. the bank customer acquisition business (the God's honest truth: it ain't that simple)).