onetess

I'm sure this varies by person so interested in opinions, but assuming that you can get a round trip economy ticket for 45k miles on AA with few fees - what is the cost of a paid ticket that would make you use the miles instead? Or - do you always save your miles for business/first class?

Look forward to hearing your input!

OskiBear

With fares as low as they have been,>$80 would be my threshold to start considering an economy ticket redemption. In general, I tend to save miles for business class or disproportionately expensive tickets/open-jaws/one-ways, etc.

SiempreBCNJFK

I value AA miles at about 1.1 cents a mile. So if the paid price is significantly more, I'll use miles.

Recent example, I needed to fly RT BCN-JFK during the summer. RT non stop was about €900. I was somehow able to get a RT saaver in economy for 60,000. That to me was good enough.

Normally RTs Hoove in the €400-500 range and I just pay in cash for those.

srallen

I would always pay and save the miles for business class tickets.

pbd456

I just did a 25k miles redemption in Y +80usd
BTV DCA JFK SKB SKB MIA PHL BTV

otherwise, i try to do business or first class asia to middle east. i must have done almost 20 tickets of those type

JDiver

We wanted to go to Iceland to catch our cruise from Keflavik to NYC. AA wanted a skosh over $10,000 for one way Business class, we used AAnytime (57.5k iirc) to go. With my wife’s health conditions and our age we’re not going to do an eight hour transatlantic redeye in coach, but we’re not going to pay over $20 k either. (We originally had Saga class seats on FI from the east coast, but they canceled these.)

GeezerCouple

As we get on in years (it happens), we just cannot fly economy for longer flights. Cross-country USA is now pushing the limit, although it depends in part on the actual seat/comfort.

So IF we are going to go further, it has to be J or F, and just as with JDiver, we just aren't going to pay well into 5 figures just to *get* someplace. The best use has been to Asia from East Coast, USA, on JL F or - especially - CX F... in terms of both wonderful comfort and also the "value" of those points, given the cost of those tickets. Of course, NO way would we have paid for F , but IF we were going to take such flights, we would have needed to pay for J, and those certainly add up, too.

We figure the cash value quite high, such that it would be well worthwhile to purchase points if we start running out.

GC

fotographer

Where are you leaving from and going too. Seen plenty of cheap fares to Europe

lowfareair

I save miles for biz if I can help it, but I will book in Y if the price is right - generally about 1.5 cents per mile compared to the best cash price I can get for decently-routed flights, after subtracting out taxes and fees.

Note that I mention the best cash price across all acceptable flight options, as I've seen many people struggle to find a good Saver seat and then try to compare the cash price of the roundtrip flight option they did book, even if each way was on different carriers, to the two one-way prices for tickets of those specific flights when there were better flight options available for a more realistic price point with cash.

cynicAAl

I generally use miles for long haul business class vacation destinations. Everything else I pay. LAX-SYD in business on Qantas for 62,500 miles was an especially good value. United charged 175,000 miles for the return.