Originally Posted by
indufan
37,000 miles seems a little high to me. I see dates as low as 10,000 R/T on that route. But I assume that the cash price was higher since it was short notice. I am pretty spoiled, my markets aren't all that punitive on less than a week's notice. I went from IND to LGB a couple of weeks ago on five days notice and it was only around 35,000 and I am looking at Florida this weekend or next week for 15,000 to 27,500. But as others have pointed out it's all relative to the purchase price and what is your cash availability is.
Looks like flights were likely purchased a couple weeks out and cash price was likely $417 instead of 37K miles. With no advance purchase, fares go for $837 or 76K miles roundtrip. These are without Amex 15% discount. Pretty typical redemption values and you will find similar on international bookings to/from US/Canada (so no real reason to avoid international award bookings over domestic ones).
There is a 72 hour award sale to EU going on right now, but it looks limited to BE/Main and travel must be completed by March 31st. Award values look to be in 1.5 - 1.6 CPM range with Amex discount. So a bit better than normal, but nothing really spectacular (and weather is not so great in March for most of EU -- plus a number of seasonal DL metal destinations aren't being flown in March, hence no Amex discount).
Here is an example of flash sale awards (with Amex discount) in Main Cabin. 49.3K vs $808 is roughly 1.6 CPM.
