Originally Posted by
roadtripman
Where on Earth did you get that errant idea from? Miles are valued at MUCH more than 1 cent per mile. The actual monetary value for buying miles on AA.com is 4 cents per mile ($1000 for 40,000 miles). However, the actual value of a mile is usually thought of as between 2 and 3 cents. I use 2.7 cents per mile as my baseline.
Your one cent per mile is almost impossible - no one will give you miles for that cheap, and if you find that out, let me know where you are looking.
Imagine, a Europe coach ticket for 40,000 miles only being worth $400 - No, sorry buddy.
I stand by my 1 cent per mile, it is not an errant observation and there are MANY supporting datapoints and many threads on this topic.
And, BTW, off season, which is when seats tend to be available from NYC to Europe, redemption values are usually 50,000 miles on most airlines, and tickets CAN be gotten for less than $500. ... Peak season is more expensive, but the cheap awards tend to be unavailable or highly restricted ... and remember, awards don't earn miles. So thank you, what you though was a counter-example has just provided one more proof point about the 1 cent/milevaluation.
No way do I buy 4 cents per mile as a valuation; that is an outlier, and purchased only by someone who needs to "top up" a balance to reach an award. It is not comparable to the MANY ways of buying miles that are closer to 1 cent, or no more than 2 cents.
And even if you think miles are worth 2.7 cents, God bless your willingness to pay retail, eRewards values them at 5 cents ... even you have to agree their "currency" is inflated, at double your high valuation!
The point is that the eRewards "dollar" is highly inflated. While it doesn't approach the inflated value of, say, the Zimbabwe dollar, it is far from equivalent to the U.S. Dollar.
Put this another way: I just received a "15 minute" survey that would credit me with "$5" assuming I pass all the hoops. Never mind that a "15 minute" survey takes 30 minutes if you actually read the questions and answer honestly.
But let's take 15-minute claim at face value. It means it takes 5 hours of your time to "earn" $100 in eRewards currency. You may think this values your time at $20 per hour. Which is certainly too low for most people. And if you evaluate this at the rate of 1 penny a mile, which is the MOST I would pay for a mile, it means you are earning $4 per hour. THIS IS BELOW THE MINIMUM WAGE. HARDLY AN INCENTIVE.
And when you really realize the absurdly inflated eRewards value, you just earned 2000 miles in 5 hours of your time. That is, if you can actually redeem the miles with the various Byzantine restrictions on frequency of redemption and expiration dates.
I'm happy for you that your time is worth that little, and that you have 5 hours to waste for a measly 2000 miles. Is your life really so worthless that you find working for an hour for a TOTAL compensation of 400 miles to be worth your while? I am so sad for you.
Add to that, the fact that many people who post on this board brag about lying on the surveys to "qualify" for the erewards, and to get through the survey faster. This means to me that the value to the SPONSOR of the surveys is compromised, and the net impact is that the person PAYING for the surveys is getting bogus data ... and the person DOING the surveys is getting compensated at a paltry rate.
I stand by my assertion: eRewards sucks, and deserves a miserable death.