My logic is that I would fly J (a 30K Y vs a 50K J redemption is a no brainer for me) but why even pay East Coast West Coast when I can redeem BA for AA for 12.5K each way?

I just TXF 50K MR to BA for just flights like that - and the value per mile seems comparable to the numbers talked about in the Japan award.

I completely agree about the status issue. People get hooked on it. I don't care about upgrade because I fly internationally more than domestically these days. That being said, I never redeem my miles in Y. Instead I have become a sort of expert in finding the best fares and I fly between Europe and the US for around 500$ untricked on a regular basis.

The 40k to NRT vs $ isnt exactly a bad deal at the price youre paying. I wouldnt pay that, but would instead use miles or look for an affordable alternative.

It depends on the fare.

If the East Coast / West Coast r/t is in sub $300, I would gladly pay instead of using 25K miles. With even the lowest status at AA I could select exit row seats if available, I could earn 5K+ miles from the flights. Nobrainer for me to NOT use the miles for such cheap flights in coach when the 25K AA miles could be part of a 135K CX F to Asia, including the domestic portion and a stopover at gateways as well.

In short, it has to be 0.02 and up before I would redeem a domestic coach trip - situation such as emergency trip that there is no low-cost alternative - then it would be also a nobrainer to redeem 25K AA miles for a walk-up fare approaching $1000.

I'd always pay for airfare except for:

- Expensive short-haul flights with little competition.
- Long-haul F (I wish I could afford this in cash) and even C for personal trips.
- Awards on WN and such which I earned through random free point offers.
- Flying routings not normally possible on revenue tickets.

I agree about the fare - In my mind now I am forming some sort of $ fare range for suitable flights based on season and demand.

I truly believe that there is a formula here - simply because we have the following:

Fixed - Miles between Arr and Dept
Variable within Range - Cash Price of Flight; dependent on Season and Availability.
Variable within Range - Redemption price of Award flight

Regarding your example - I just plugged in a random date (same, 22nd May-29th May) into Kayak for a price of $302 on AA.

My BA came from MR at 50% bonus, so my miles used vs miles earned are:

25K BA for 16.6K MR 302/16.6= 1.8 Cents Per mile spent

Versus $302 for about 5200 AA Earned= 5.8 Cents per mile earned.

And - whilst you can certainly get less than $302 it can easily be around $400 for that flight (or more) so that reward is borderline for me.

Looking at NY-Bermuda or other short hauls using these BA miles makes even more sense.

I like that you put a price - 2 cents.. I think thats the key there should be a optimal price to spend them at, and earn them at... again whilst you are building up millions of them and have to choose.

The shorthaul but expensive flights are no doubt BA redemption candidates if you need one. It is pretty much how BA Avios are being used for these days since its Nov 2011 devaluation.

The 2 cents is for the minimum cut-off on Redemption, That is why the Transcon has to be up in the $500 zone before I would use miles for the r/t.

You cannot count the cost of earning for a flight you would need to take anyway. It is those flights people take just to earn miles, then the cpm becomes the important factor.

For earning the miles, I normally dont look at the cpm cost for a pay flight because we dont do flying just for the mile earning sake as we have no need to maintain status. Therefore our pay tickets would normally because there is a great sale / mistake fare, to a place we feel worth to visit.

There are other ways to earn miles at cost of 0.01 or below. The 50% bonus transfer MR to BA is one of those, as an example. That is where the cpm cost comes in play.

You are leaving out of this equation the value of lost miles that would be gained paying. On a trip to Asia this is a bunch of miles with, as you say, at least 1.5 cents per mile value.

I just try and get 2-3cpm with AA/UA. If its Delta I am just happy to get rid of them.

I've had good luck with AA/UA miles. Anywhere from 2.6-4cpm even.

Perhaps if one has enough points and miles to NEVER again pay for a ticket then status may not be helpful.

For most others, status is more than fun; it’s a money saver and experience enhancer. Elites usually don’t pay baggage fees, even on award tickets in coach. Elites usually have better and earlier choice of seats and can usually board earlier and thus secure valuable overhead space. Elites on some airlines can use lounges for free on any international flight, award or otherwise, in any class of service. Elites earn more miles per paid mile flown. I recently learned that when redeeming AA miles for hotels via https://www.useaamiles.com having elite status results in half the number of miles being required to book most hotels. There are many other perks and benefits of status.

Status is obviously important to many people, hence the MR forums that you’ve referred to.

Exactly. And when you haven’t got that amount, and have to pay for a ticket, status is helpful and very nice.

BTW, as others have mentioned, the comparable and relative values of tickets purchased as pure MRs versus tickets purchased to actually get somewhere when you need to or want to are different. For example, using JFK-LAX, many people interested in a MR would only be looking at airfares lower than $300. On the other hand, if one needed to fly that route for a wedding or something, many people would purchase a ticket even at a somewhat higher airfare.

I personally don't fly enough to get status other than through the AMEX transfer promos. For me the decision on whether to pay the fare or use points is a simple calculation. First you have to assign a value to your miles.

For example I value Skymiles at about $0.01 per mile. This is based on past redemptions and on aspirational awards I am planning for the future.

Last June Delta ran a one day sale to Hawaii. I wasnt planning on going, but at fares of only $339 AI for DEN-SLC-LAX-OGG-LAX-SLC-DEN, I decided to take my fiancee to Maui for her birthday.

In a situation like this where you have a long flight where you will earn many miles combined with a low fare, it made sense for me to pay cash for the ticket and earn the miles:

Purchase Ticket $339.00
Less Value of 8942 miles earned $89.42 (got a 25% bonus as a silver medallion earned from transferring 50k AMEX points)
Net Cost of Ticket $249.58

Now compare that with the value of the miles needed for an award ticket:
65K miles (assuming medium Economy) and the cost of the miles spent would have been $650.

This is generally how I think. We are casual flyers on AA. We are going to Hawaii and I got us tickets for a bit under $800 each (cheaper fare + Costco gift cards). My portion is tax deductible and with both of us Gold, we can try to burn our 500 mile upgrades on this itinerary. I wouldn't even bother to look for award tickets here. We are getting about 2.3 cpm for a trip to Naples this summer which is fine with me. Cash outlay would've been something like $1400 each but we've accumulated a lot miles in "earn" mode over the past few years (was going for 1 million but only got to 650K by the time the rules changed) so now we need to go into "burn" mode for a while. However, even with that said, we are young and willing to sit through coach to get the most flights out of our miles. I think I will stick with trying to get >2 cpm on AA coach tickets as my base rule. Even if we get J or F seats due to some amazing redemption rates, I would still calculate cpm by the price I would've paid for the trip in cash which mostly likely would've been coach.

As a general point, if you will always have the miles coming in, you might as well book with miles. But I get most of my miles with credit card bonuses. It's been a good deal, but will these continue forever? Will I be able to get new cards with these same companies forever? I don't know that, so I want to use my miles when I can get good value for them. I don't want to burn them on tickets that are relatively cheap for cash. In practice I have been using miles for most trips but it's not an automatic decision. The milewise.com website tries to help you think through the issues of cash vs. miles. Of course for it to be valid, you have to agree with their assumptions on what miles are worth, and many will have their own valuations. But it's one more thing you can consult when making the decision.

My gut would say pay for JFK - HNL with miles, but in fairness that is a 22.5K each way trip - 45K which at $800 which is only 1.8 Cents.

I like the valuation of 2 cents per mile (perhaps it requires further drilling down, but it seems to be a decent threshold for value).

So assuming I have 'enough cash' and 'enough points' I should pay for the flight in money if the redemption of the award is creating less than 2 Cents per mile value.

I can see with this in mind why the other posters brought up the point of future plans... as the highest value per mile does seem to be when redeeming First and Biz on long hauls..

Thanks for helping me out with this all.

Dont forget the $800 flight also earn you good miles JFK-HNL round trip.

That when added back the forfeited miles to the 45K, your cpm value achieved would go even lower.

It always a better redemption in J or F international longhaul - the added comfort when traveling in a flat bed or lie flat seat with lounge access at each airport, is well worth the extra miles needed from redeeming a coach award - unless of course you could not find the J/F award seats in your time frame and it is a daytime, 8 to 9 hours flight that you can endure without a flat bed... We did this type of redemption as well from Europe back to US East Coast one-way.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here (or maybe I missed it) is the benefit of at least one free stopover on an award ticket. On a cheap paid ticket, a stopover is either not allowed or costs extra. I try to save my miles for a trip where I can get an interesting stopover. I've seen some great ones that I haven't been able to take advantage of yet (a SYD stop on the way to China, for example!)