Originally Posted by
donotblink
I 100% agree with you, I personally value SWUs around $500--I'd buy them at $100 all day long if I could. That being said, I was responding to someone who IIRC said SWUs cost AA nothing, and I wanted to let them know that they do in fact have a book value to AA.
I'm not even convinced that they have book value to AA in the true accounting sense of the word. Just because there may be a transfer pricing mechanism to apply $100 to a segment on which a SWU is burned (i.e. charge AAdvantage $100 and move it to the JFK-LHR flight) this doesn't mean that there's any impact on AA's external profitability. This is different of course than award miles which do actually have accounting value and impact reported earnings.
Bottom line: moving $100 in funny money from one pocket to another via transfer pricing wouldn't impact AA's cash flow.
As for what I would
pay for an SWU? Different question entirely. Depends on one's willingness to travel in Y. If one is completely unwilling to fly in Y, then an SWU only has value to the passenger if it can be confirmed at time of booking.