My experience (in London and Paris) is that better Hilton hotels go for 40,000 HHonors points per night, which would equate out to 200 AA miles per night. This quality of hotel is normally available on Priceline for around $100-120 per night. Therefore, if you do this (change your miles into Hilton points and use for hotel), you are getting a value of 0.5-0.6 cents/mile. I like to save my miles for cases where I can get at least 2 cents per mile.

Another way of saying the same thing: Say my wife and I are planning a trip to London. We will stay 10 nights. I have 200,000 miles in my AA account. My choices are:

1. I can convert these miles to Hilton, and get 10 nights in a nice Hilton hotel in London. I pay $1500 for two coach tickets to London. I earn 16,000 miles, my wife earns 10,000 miles on the trip. I now have 16,000 miles in my account, she has 10,000 miles.

2. I grab J awards to London for 180,000 miles, and get a comparable room through Priceline for $1200. I have 20,000 miles in my account and an extra $300 in my pocket. And I flew R/T in J. Of course, my wife doesn't have the 10,000 miles, but it isn't as useful over there in her account.

Of course, if in my example I purchased the J tickets for $4000 each, it would really be a slam dunk.