Ultimate Rewards Points Value
 

I've been seeing a bunch of valuations online with the top valuation being around 2 cents per point. This seems low to me, at least in the way I use it where I generally transfer points to United to buy last minute domestic flights for 12.5k miles, some of which go for $600. What do you guys think the points are worth?

I'm not sure that is going to continue being the norm going forward with United going to dynamic award pricing.

Both prior responses are spot-on.

First, what they're worth depends entirely what you think they're worth. There is an entire industry (literally) built upon nonsense claims of such-and-such points being "valued" at so-and-so. That is pure, unmitigated nonsense, perpetuated by idiot bloggers and others who have a direct financial stake in getting fools to sign up for credit cards using their links (they make a lot of money off such fools, by the way). It's complete BS targeted at suckers. Don't be one. I might get very lucky and snag a nice award flight (harder and harder to do every day, you will notice) that would have cost an outrageous amount if purchased in cash. Does that mean my points are worth that ticket price? Of course not. Only an idiot (or someone very wealthy, usually a person traveling on someone else's money) would pay that much for an airline seat. I would never in a million years pay that much, but if I can snag a nice seat, that's great. It doesn't mean I would assign a "value" to my points based on what it MIGHT cost.

Second, United is in the midst of it's greatest devaluation in history. It's already started, many redemptions now cost 2X-3X what they did just a few months ago (and they force you to endure miserable routings with horrible layovers) but the fun has just started: in November they move to "dynamic pricing" where there will no longer be "saver" awards (what I call "the real price"), you are going to regularly see award costs north of half a million points. Imagine the value you will get when you cash in that stash of points!

I'd say the only concrete evidence is the *minimum* value of UR points vs the max or combination thereof that TPG and OMAAT use.

For example:
If you have the CSP alone, then the min. value is like what, $0.0125 per point (you redeem for cash).
If you have the CSR then it's $0.015 per point if redeemed for cash.
The above is for redeeming through Chase UR portal for travel, not cash. My mistake. Sometimes Chase UR Portal doesn't give the best price either.

UR gets fuzzy with the 5% and other % categories, thus affecting the cash-back numbers (ie, I spend $1,500 on my Chase Freedom on a 5% "cashback" category it gets me 1,575 UR points, but if I have a CSR and combine the points to that card, then even though the redemption rate is still 1.5%/point, I have to factor in the original 5% bonus).

My math may be wrong, but hopefully I'm getting the point across.

Things like FF miles/points are all varying, especially with dynamic pricing (UA, DL, and probably AA soon). To a lesser extent, NW and B6 (in terms of variation).
And then there's the partner awards (ie, rack up a ton of UR points and transfer to KrisFlyer for redemption on SQ Suites in F).
And that's probably why everyone says they're worth depending on how *you* use/value them.

For *me* I use the "min" value, but if I have a goal in mind (saving up for say SQ Suites or something), then I know I'll "max" my value (well within reason due to constant devaluation of miles).

For example, AA miles are "valued" at like $0.014 by some bloggers. I racked up 140,000 miles and redeemed for one-way on Etihad Apartment (a $14,000 cash ticket equivalent). But I had a specific goal/redemption in mind.

Ultimate Rewards "cash" redemption value is $0.01/point. The higher values ($0.0125 and $0.0150) are for "travel" booked through Chase's portal. To the extent that the portal does not always have the lowest prices those redemption values are inflated.

Oh crud, you are correct.
AUGH

Sorry about that, but thanks for catching it!