Would appreciate the advice of all of you miles guru's on this site. I need to book a specific flight over Thanksgiving (specific flight because this ticket is for a child who will be traveling with other family members who have already purchased their tix.)
My options are: 1)Pay $520 on my Citi PremierePass Elite, 2)Use 52,000-68,000 Citi ThankYou points (numbers were different on 2 different phone calls), plus (I think) the tax on the ticket of $54, or 3)Use 50,000 NWA WorldPerks miles.
I am leaning toward using the NWA WorldPerks miles because those are often difficult to redeem for a standard award level. I don't have oodles of points in any of the above programs.
What do you think, and thanks for the advice!

I'm not familiar with NWA miles but I think TY points can and should be redeemed at equal to or better than 1c/pt value.

using that many TY points for that dollar value is NOT a good deal. I just used 25,000 TY points for a $600 ticket.

Using 50,000 NW miles is a better choice, not the least because NW is in a precarious financial position and there is no reason to hoard their currency. Having said that, you're not getting a great value by using 50,000 miles for a $520 ticket - used aggressively, those miles could have gotten someone to Europe in peak season, and could have been worse closer to $1000.

Spending the dollars would be worthwhile in my opinion, if it would earn you status on your airline and you were confident that airline would be around to redeem those miles.

If I were in your position, I would probably reserve the NW ticket but keep my eyes open for a better price on the flight. If the price were to drop to $400 or less, you could redeposit the miles (for free if you are NW Plat, otherwise for $50) and still come out ahead. You could also hold your breath and see if a standard award would come up either way - it might cost you $50 to reticket, but it could save you 12,500 miles.

$500 around Thanksgiving seems to have become the norm these days...