Originally Posted by fsa_ea
Unless I'm missing something, this sounds like a great deal!
As long as you are buying a ticket for under $500, the 75% discount for 20,000 points is the same rate of discount as a 100% discount (ie, award ticket) for 26,667 points. That is merely 6.7% more than a SkySaver ticket and a whopping 46.7% less than a SkyGouger ticket. Plus, if you are GM or PM, you would earn a minimum of 2,000 SkyMiles per round trip, which would more than offset the extra 1,667 points required over a SkySaver award....
Can't understand your calculation. The way I see it is: with award tickets I get a ticket for free, regardless of its price. With SkyPoints, I have to pay at least 25% of the ticket price, more if the ticket is above $500.
Two examples:
Domestic ticket priced $420. With SkyPoints, I need 20000SP+$105. With SkyMiles, it is 25000SM. It is true that to obtain those SkyMiles I have spent 5000 more dollars, but I got merchandise/services in return for those.
International ticket at $1000. SP: 20000SP+$625. SM: 50000SM.
Don't know, it seems to me that SP's have a maximum value of $0.01875 (in fact, they are worth $0.01575 in the "domestic" example above). SM's have comparable values ($0.0168 and $0.02, in the two examples), but they can be worth substantially more by using them for expensive tickets.
If we bring in F and Biz tickets, then the value of SkyMiles soars, while SkyPoints stay the same.