Originally Posted by
PWMTrav
The bigger problem to me now is that it's very hard to book anything premium on points these days, particularly flights. Nobody, OMAAT or anyone else, is really writing about that much, because it'd discourage credit card signups. But at this point I'm sitting on a ton of points and am mostly flying on paid fares or staying home.
Originally Posted by
Speedscu
to be fair, Live and Lets Fly has discussed the gutting of his preferred plan (United) and Ben and Gary frequently discuss the massive devaluations from multiple carrier (and Marriott).
what isn’t talked about is how difficult the exact premium cabin flight you want is to get on points with out huge surcharges. I was able to get business to Frankfurt out of sea for 50k Alaska miles and 50 bucks this summer but have to leave out of a near by city. My return will be 35k virgin points (plus $850) and then a domestic flight to the west coast, couldn’t find a Europe to west coast flight in business anywhere near my needed return date
i glance at these miles blogs from time to time, omaat included. im skeptical because their blogs are their main source of income, hence you cannot expect them to be fully objective and honest
for me, the biggest problem is these blogs greatly overvalue points. you cannot calculate value of a point as (cost of the same ticket* - surcharges)/total points required. at the very least, it is (max price one is willing to pay for a similar ticket* - surcharges)/total points required. one should also consider the opportunity costs, other costs associated with redeeming an award booking, and the lack of availability as you pointed out. a vastly different valuation could change the entire proposition these points and credit cards
another thing i feel is sorely missing is that fact that these blogs seldom point out that while redeeming j or f can give outsized value, you maybe paying for more than you intended to for your trip. people sometimes do not think of these points as cash equivalent, but that fact is they are, and people would have made other choices otherwise. e.g. a RT US-Asia qsuites saver maybe 190k + $500. some travel portals allow you to redeem points at 1.5 cents each, meaning that qsuite flight is about $3.3k. yes that is great value, but not everyone is willing to pay $3.3k for award flights. yeah, and i dont need to mention about advantage fares, which 380k + $500, which is about $6k, and i can easily find a comparable j class for cheaper than that (e.g. jal for less than $5k)
lastly, none of these blogs talked about the sustainability of cc giving out so many points. most recently, VX biz is giving out 750k points for $200k spend. biz card can also run through a lot of spend, hence they will accrue a lot points. SUBs for personal cards are also trending upwards, so idk how all of these are sustainable. too many and ever increasing amount of points and a limited pool of award is just a devaluation waiting to happen. but nobody talks about this because it will affect their commission. a larger SUB and an artificially high valuation of a point means that they can say wow this is a great value. they will milk it until they cant
all of these brings the wrong crowd in, and many lose out because they do not fully understand how to play the game. and it also makes it worse for everyone else.
*same ticket refers to same airline and timing, while similar ticket means a similar travel route on a comparable airline