Originally Posted by
CMTinPHL
I’ve paid $ for J on AA, CX, JL…. But would never pay $ for F. My point being that I assign an incredibly high value to AA miles - I’ve used them for 6 JL F legs and 2 J legs all in the last 30 months. But is that a realistic valuation? I don’t know. For me it is; for others, perhaps not.
of course it is, because you are still getting the F product. it doesnt matter if you would have paid in cash for that F seat, thats a different calculation entirely. There is no reason why money saved booking with miles has to equal value of an award ticket in cpm.... And even in your case, you wont use cash to buy in F, but you will use points - that can save you cash for J seats. so you WILL pay for F seats. it's just that AA miles are being used as a substitute for cash. You could book only J seats and spend less miles, and get more J seats in the long run.
and to answer the OP, I used to regularly find award fares valued at 4-5 cents per mile with ease.