jkearns

I believe I searched "Value Mile" "Value AAdvantage Mile" and "Cash value mile" not one produced a meaningful result. Advanced search did not help. And, in all three cases got a search result notice saying:
And, now I just realized my mistake. I used the regular search talk. Putting "mile worth" in that box does NOT produce your result. However selecting Google Search does. I won't make that mistake again.
Sorry to inconvenience y'all

jkearns

So who do I send my $5 charitable contribution to? Travelers' Assistance ,makes sense to me...

FWAAA

Welcome to Flyertalk, Jim.

Always refreshing when someone who registered about a week ago decides to lecture the American forum on which new members to gently guide and which ones to flame. That's certainly something that's never been posted before.

dstan

The IB team is still trying to improve the new search. This is but one problem of many and I know it is frustrating. I've passed this info along to them - thanks!

/Moderator

britenbsas

Offering up the search terms I used and posting a link to the previous thread is not gentle steering? I fail to see where the scorn is hiding in my post?

broadwayblue

I value my AA miles at about $.03 to $.05 each. I generally use them for LGA-HNL or OGG, where 75k miles scores a ~$3,000 ticket in J. While I don't think I would ever pay $3,000 to fly up front on my own dime, I still consider it a good value for miles nonetheless.

bniu

AA is well known for being the easiest airline to book award tickets with. I had to clean out my mom's account which had 25k miles left in it and she doesn't fly with them much anymore so what I did was I held a reservation online, called in and the agent redeemed the miles for me, no questions asked. Another reason why I fly with AA on revenue tickets and not with United or Southwest. United's agents are all based in India, read off scripts, and are generally the most unhelpful of all. Southwest, I ain't gonna degrade myself by flying Southwest...j/k Southwest is great but their rewards program and their network doesn't meet my needs.

In general, I like to value miles at a minimum of 3 cents a piece. I recently booked an intl first ticket on United with miles from my dad's account (how can I say no to a free ticket, especially when it's in first class?). I spent 145K miles for a $25,000+ seat. I ended up with a mileage value of 17.7 cents per mile!!! Imagine if you're with Rewards network and earn 11 miles per dollar (10 miles on double reward days and extra mile from mileage credit card) then that is effectively a $1.95 reward for each $1 I spend, a 95% PROFIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bniu

that is essentially a long haul intl flight, well worth the miles. You'll be flying for about 13 hours combined plus a layover, plus having to go through customs at HNL since they are in a different customs zone. only thing you don't do is go through immigration...

Steve M

What are you talking about? LGA, HNL, and OGG are all in the same US Customs zone and no Customs inspection is required when traveling between them.

bniu

my bad, i was thinking guam, which is in a diff customs zone. no customs required but still, flight is still friggin' long...

onfo

Varies. I generally only used miles for domestic tickets and had a mental rule never to use 25k unless the ticket was going to cost over $500, but this summer, I used 70K on a SFO-PNP and SIN-SFO ticket even though cash it would have been $900. I value the added flexibility when using miles, so it is really circumstantial. If you are going to be switching dates, or there is a chance you may want to extend a trip, then think about using miles at a lower value per mile.

mvoight

I am missing something. If you booked a reservation online, why did you call an agent to ticket? That would add a $20 phone fee. Generally people call for things they can't book online. Additionally, the last time I redeemed someone else's miles for a ticket, I had to use a credit card that was in their name, to pay the fees.

JY1024

^ (Though I tend to use my miles for J/F international tix, not domestic tix - apparently AA wants me to actually FLY to keep my status )

This year, I've been seeing intl J/F intl prices drop significantly for the routes I fly most often. (East Coast-NRT/TPE used to price out at $12K-18K RT in F; now it can be had for about $5-8K RT.) But even with the price drop, I'm still going to burn miles for the exact reason you cited. If something comes up and the trip needs to be extended/shortened for some reason, I can usually find a nearby date with award availability. Plus, if the trip has to be cancelled unexpectedly, I can always "shift" the ticket out further until I have the new dates confirmed.

The flexibility of an AAward ticket also holds "peace of mind" value for me.

GUWonder

For some, an AA mile has less worth today than it had at the beginning of this month but that is because the elimination of stopovers at places besides a North American gateway on an international itinerary was one of the most valuable benefits of redeeming an AA award ticket.

plasticIQ

New to Flyertalk, just read this thread, very impressed and humbled by the expertise and the ability of folks to max out on point values. On my own site I'm blogging more for the "average joe" flyer, so I took a stab at estimating what the value of AA miles would be worth to such a 'civilian'. Here's my approach for what its worth:

The missing piece at this point of course would be the average ticket prices to each location. So for the "within US" component, I priced out flights between some of the larger airports in the US, including LAX-LGA, IAH-LGA, ORD-LAX, and several others. Again, economy class, and I priced them out 3 weeks and 3 months. The average RT price was $269. Based on a 25,000 mile redemption (economy), that works out to about $0.011 per mile.

I then took a similar approach for RT flights to Europe. I used LHR and CDG as 2 travel points in Europe, though I realize there is much room for expansion. I used LAX, LGA, IAH, ORD, ATL, and DEN as starting points. Again, 3 weeks and 3 months out. Average ticket price came to $718. Based on a 40K off-peak economy redemption, that works out to $0.018 per mile. On-peak redemption is 60K miles, which works out to $0.012 per mile.

So, the ending formula for calculating the value of an American Airlines mile would be (1/3 * $0.011) + (1/3 * $0.018) + (1/3 * $0.012) = $0.0137 per mile.

This seems to be in line with at least a few of the posts out there, though admittedly it falls far short of some of the $0.05 to $0.10 estimates I read about. That said, I *suspect* that for the average Joe who is far less edcuated about the ins and outs of flight travel than the folks on this thread, that this estimate may be reasonable. Thoughts?