I have different valuations depending on if I have to buy the miles such as a USDM or Avianca 100% deal or if I get them for free by signing up for credit cards or directing my normal spend to one card vs another, or other free things such as E-Rewards, E-Miles. I don't value the time I spend doing the surveys because I do them while watching tv (I'm a good multi-tasker) so I am not wasting time I would otherwise be using more profitably.

The 100% buy miles deals, I only use them in moderation to cross the threshold if I am close to a redemption level.

If I have to put a dollar value on my redemptions, I use whatever the lowest cost to get from A to B is, because I would never spend cash on a full fare J or F seat.

I also take into account how difficult it is to get the miles or points vs how easy it is to redeem them. I find more value in miles such as AA and UA which can be redeemed for one-ways than others like US and DL where you have to book a return ticket. I take into account if you can book it yourself online vs having to call the airline to book.

But no, I don't put a $x.xx per mile cost on my valuations because in my case it's either use the miles or I can't afford the ticket at all.

(a) Worth vs Value.

A 25000 miles award ticket is WORTH only the COST incurred in
accruing / aquiring those miles.

VALUE on the other hand is like beauty.. ie in the eye of the beholder.

The difference is that one is an Accounting entity (worth). While the
other is a goodwill entity (Value). The difference between the two can
be astronomical (eg water front properties, first class air travel, etc).

As far as humans are concerned, VALUE is the actual "benefit" enjoyed
by this animal.. WORTH means nothing.

Purchase until 2 cents for an immediate need. But miles can turn rancid as airlines periodically devalue them. So big stockpiles of miles that will not be depleted in a year should be accumulated at about the free to 1 cent range IMHO.

This is always entertaining to read FTer's opinions on pontificating what their view is. I always use what is the cash price at the time of the redemption, period. That is your Cent Per Point/Mile redemption value. If you don't have the cash or miles you don't get to enjoy that seat/room etc. Thus the point/mile is what the cash outlay is at time of redemption. Now for the 20 sharks in the water who will surely jump on this once again like blood chum in the water, waiting to give their obtuse view and justification. Enjoy.

I struggle with the concept of "value" when it comes to item that one cannot otherwise afford. I had as a target 400k UA miles for a family trip. I could have purchased them for 2.1 cents per mile, which means about $8300 (because I would earn 8300 miles on the purchase).

But I can't afford $8300. My acquisition cost was about $920 in the form of gift card fees and credit card annual fees. If one assumes 2% I also gave up the chance to earn about $1k on a cashback card with the spend I generated. So $2k give or take.

I wouldn't pay $8300 for the miles. I wouldn't pay half that. I can't afford it. I can only do this trip by getting the miles cheaply. So I guess that's one way to look at value.

But then I ask myself a second question. How much would I sell my miles for? Obviously, I would sell them for $8300 plus a few bucks for the effort, because then I could just re-buy them for that. But nobody is offering and it's not permitted anyway. It's a mental exercise. How much would I take to cancel my tickets? If I couldn't repurchase miles, it's a high number. I can generate lots of miles, but don't have sufficient spend to generate unlimited miles.

Is it irrational to not sell an asset for the same amount you would pay for it? I'm not sure. It seems like it isn't if you can't afford it. People give me sports tickets for example. I wouldn't buy them for more than, say $50. At that point, it would be irrational for me not to sell them for $50. But if it is a Superbowl ticket that I can't afford, it feels different. Perhaps the ebay market value of a superbowl ticket is $2500. I can't pay that. But if I got one for free, I might not sell it.

I have a joke: What's the value of a FF mile? One? Who wants one mile? I won't pay anything for a mile. Now, if you've got 150,000 let's talk.

One problem with this particular upper limit on mile value that you mention is that you generally can't buy unlimited (or even significant) amounts of miles from a particular program. If I could outright buy 135,000 miles from AA every year, you're right, I really couldn't value them at the list price of an F ticket to Asia. But I can't outright buy that many miles. So does that still mean that the most 135,000 AA miles are worth is 135,000 * $0.035? I'm not so sure.

All of the distinctions people are attempting to make between "worth" and "value" really obscure the issue in my view. It boils down to this....if you are faced with buying a ticket, what is the LOWEST $/mile at which you would choose to redeem miles for the transaction instead of paying cash.

I agree. This has been very effective for stopping redemptions for us.
Or simply put, we fly and upgrade with miles, kids fly only on miles.
If I am to keep my "elite"ness I have to fly on paid tickets.

Luckily the hotels all changed to any stay.
Can you imagine if UA / AA did that ?
I would be quadruple EXP in a heart beat just from redeeming.

DL and now UA have understood that even the paying elite needs value in redemptions and so they now allow upgrades for elites (with cards or without) on award travel.

I find that most hotel bookings make no sense to redeem as the spend is paid by employer and I do not see much value in a bigger room at night when asleep.
For the coach seat, it is all I can do at times not to call the airline and say "I will do anything, please upgrade me!"

well depending on the value you can get for the points. For example Starwood is a very nice card mainly because you can get a lot for each point.

$120+ a night Sheraton Category 2 hotels which are very nice imo can be had for 4,000 points. Value is 3 cents per point.



where most points are valued at around 1 cent a piece like Ultimate rewards points with cash back would be 1600 points would mean $16

but if you use points and pay with Starwood 1600 points + $30 to book a Cat 2 Sheraton in Nha Trang, Vietnam the cost is 3,870,000 dong (vietnamese currency) or $185.61

Since your $30 charged could equal 3x Starpoints = 90 points so it's really 1510 points + $30. Although with the Foreign Transaction fees would lower the benefit, the 3% would still make the Starpoints lucrative imo.

You would still get 90 starwood points for paying the $30 with 3% foreign transaction fee it's $30.90
(FTF is probably why it's $30 cash instead of most $35 in the States)

So for this hotel $185.61 - $30.90 = $154.71

Since you get 3x points for spending Starwood in a Sheraton that's 90 points. So technically your only paying 1510 points + $30.90

Starpoint in this case would get you 10.34 cent per point. In this case even buying Starpoints for a full 3.5 cents a piece x 4000 points straight would cost you $140.00 saving you $45.61 for booking a room here.

This is one of the reasons why people love Starwood points =) it's all in how you spend it, and if it's ideal for you. If you have a Starwood hotel in access to where you want to go.







this is the view from Cat2 hotel in Nha Trang Vietnam which I plan to stay in the summer, very nice view and nice hotel, I've stayed there before without the Starwood card =(

Yes, this is the issue. I think that some of the posts discussing the
hypothetical buying and selling of miles are trying to address this issue
but some of them are not.

The answer may be different for everyone, but some of the collective
wisdom on flyertalk is always useful in helping people make that
judgement for themselves, and there have been many threads.

If someone is saving their miles only for that trip-of-a-lifetime that they could never afford, this issue does not arise. Someone who gets all of their miles from work and can only use miles for upgrades has a different issue.

One thing that I find when considering whether to pay for a ticket or use miles, is that as I get more miles, and no more opportunities to use them, they are worth less (but not worthless).

I believe that you can buy all the miles you want on AS, and sometimes at a discount. I suspect that you get a high value per mile by trading the miles for a first class ticket on a partner airline, such as Cathay Pacific, subject to availability of course.

just curious if you sat in the lobby much to enjoy this view or not?

nice hotel, but I don't get the hype of this if you don't sit around and enjoy the atmosphere.

I value AA miles at .03; I fly around 50k which doubles to 100k and do around a 40k Starwood spend which transfers at 1.25. My goal is 2 F/J tickets to Europe every other year or so, I usually have to scramble with the Citi sign up bonus to get us over the top.

I know many members of this community would ask would we go if we had to pay $3000 per ticket? I don't know the answer and luckly don't have to make that decision.

This is true, and something I did cash in in the past. Back in 2009/2010, my wife and I were planning our first trip to Thailand/Bali. This was before the CC thing became huge, so we were agonizing for quite awhile over how we were going to get there. I really didn't want to do Y. In the spring of 2010, my friend pointed out that AS was selling their miles at a 30% discount. I looked at the fine print and realized AS didn't have a purchase limit (although there is a transaction limit). I was able to get two CX J tickets from JFK-HKG-BKK/DPS-HKG-JFK for $2300/ea. I thought that was a bargain.

I know there needs to be some form of calculation in order to determine when to use points and miles but my take it very different. I'll be 65 in one month and will probably retire about 5 years or so from now. Until then, I can generate lots of points paying office expenses with my credit card.

Those points enable me to experience a level of luxury that is far above my what my finances could pay for. To wit, in less than two weeks we will fly RT in First on Cathay Pacific from JFK to BKK. 135,000 American miles each versus an insane ticket price of $26,000 each! I really don't care how anyone calculates my return because to me, it's all the memories I will be creating. Flights, hotels, suite upgrades - we can work the numbers any way we want. In the end, you figure out why you play this game and act accordingly.

Here's a link to a thread I wrote years ago on point value that got the best feedback of anything thread I ever started. I pretty much stand by everything I said back then;

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/starw...int-value.html