I have flown in coach many, many times, and in recent years, have also flown in premium cabins (F and J domestic and international) a handful of times. For me, coach is the practical and economical choice.

I agree with other posters that vacation starts when you leave for your trip - not just when you arrive at the destination. However, I personally place a slightly higher value (and will pay a premium) to make sure that we pick a place central to the areas we want to visit, rather than a premium for a few hours on the plane.

That said, I'm often not the only person in my traveling party and unfortunately, not everyone has the best health. For that reason alone, I always look for shortest time/connections for long haul flights (so much for maximizing miles earned for paid flights!) as well as premium cabins to make sure they arrive at the destination as well-rested as possible. That is critical to me. We were willing to part with significant amount of miles we earned over the years to book into premium cabins for our trip down under. Everyone was comfortable and well rested upon arrival at our destination after a long flight, and I honestly couldn't have asked for a better vacation.

I think there is often too much emphasis placed on the best use of miles or the its valuation. I think that the best use of miles is the value it creates for the person - whether that means saving the $ you would otherwise spend, getting to go on a vacation, or getting to sit in premium cabins, etc.

Completely agree.

For me, the Headaches start the moment I step out my door (with kid, wife and luggage in hand). And the trip (vacation) actually start the moment we check into hotel and dump off the luggage.--strictly my POV.

AGREED. I'm miserable until the moment i walk into the hotel room and drop my stuff off. That's when the good stuff starts.

I have to disagree. I try to make "getting there" as enjoyable as possible. I am bringing a small group of people on a trip this summer. I have secured lounge passes for example to help with the journey. I try to book seats on the flight that make for a more enjoyable trip (premium seats, maybe seats with a seat next to me free, maybe first class if possible, etc). If I am spending hours just on the journey, I don't want to arrive at my vacation destination already wiped out and need to take hours/days to "recover" from the journey. That defeats much of the purpose for me. I make a conscious effort to avoid being "miserable" or having "headaches" during the journey. Just my POV.

Using miles coach vs business (or first)
 

My work is 100% travel so when taking vacation I just do biz or first unless its less than 2 hrs flight. I don't really look at the valuation of using miles vs paying since I always have more miles than I can use.
I met more interesting people in coach than biz or first.

This is the correct way to do this calculation IMO. Value the incremental benefit and the incremental cost.

I flew a $20k first class ticket for 70k miles. So what? I certainly don't value that at 29 cents per mile because I would never pay that much for the ticket. That price was pure fiction. If I paid cash, I would have been willing to pay perhaps $900 for that ticket, so I value it at 1.3cpm.

For most flights, I'd pay $10-15/hour more for business and another $10-15/hour more for first. I value miles at a over 1cm, so I generally don't upgrade. The exception for me is world class lounges, (BKK, FRA, MUC,) where I would upgrade just to be able to chill in an awesome first class lounge.

Here's a thought experiment for readers who prefer to use the cash fare to value international F redemptions. Imagine that your favorite airline decides to enhance its program by quadrupling international F cash fares and doubling the miles needed to redeem international F awards. The airline keeps it Y and J fares and redemption levels unchanged.

Do you rush to redeem for international F awards at double the former price because you are now getting twice the value per mile? Or are you reluctantly settle for J award redemption? Did the value of your miles for international F redemption double or was it cut in half?

Mrs jacknyoc and I always look with envy at the Biz and First Class sections and the passengers as we make our way to E (or most likely E+ depending on the airline) enjoying the fact that we'll be crunched a bit seat-wise on two trips for what we would have spent for one up front. it's a trade-off we've discussed a lot and are willing to make...quantity vs quality for us is the key.

In addition, the true joy of the trip for me, at least, starts with the planning...where should we go, when should be go, how can we snag our FF seats, what should we do when we get there, etc...I really like that part of it and the excitement of the planning. We obviously love the actual trips and experiences...and I for one love the flying part of it as well...but I can do without the security lines and all that brings.

That's because in coach you're closer to thy seatmate and aren't distracted by the choice of meal:D

+1

The other thing that people frequently forget is that the F and J fares that we see on an airline's website are not the fares that most paying passengers see when a typical corporate discount is applied.

Most corporate discounts have three or four tiers of discounting, with the highest tier being full J/F coded tickets. Slightly lower discount for B, Y, and maybe some restricted premium cabin codes. Lowest discount for the lower coach fares. Sometimes separate tiers for international vs. domestic.

I can distinctly recall querying in our system a TATL J seat and seeing about a 38% discount vs. the fare seen on United.com. $9k seat in the $5.5k range.

But still, that's not how I tend to value my miles. My math is something like this: I was once offered a kiosk upgrade on a TATL flight for $400 and I accepted it. I've routinely seen opportunities to upgrade for about $700-800 worth of miles and cash and I *don't* take it. (Each of these was one-way, of course.) So I figure my value for a J seat on TATL is maybe about a grand round-trip.

Applying it to regular cash seats, it's similar. I value a TATL coach round-trip at about $800 R/T, maybe $1,200 if I want to fly peak summer dates. If I saw a J seat available for $3k, I wouldn't buy it. If I saw it for $2k, I'd buy it. (Oddly enough, I occasionally receive promo emails from UA or AA for a $3k R/T J seat on off-peak dates, but never a $2k one!!)

So I roughly have this $500 each way figure in mind, which actually does make those mileage awards look rather good. My valuation for F over J doesn't change much...unless there's an awesome lounge involved.

I fly Y on short trips (<2 hours) and C/F on longer flights. If I get close to running out of miles I'll switch to all Y. But with all the good credit card bonuses out there that won't happen for a long time. :)

The longer the flight, the more I value being able to fly in a premium class. A two hour domestic in Y isn't too much different from a two hour flight in F for me. But a 16 hour TPAC flight is a whole other story. Better food and service is nice, but it's really the ability to get rest versus being stuck in a cramped seat, and be at least relatively comfortable is what makes it worth it to me (I'm 5'11"). So for me it's not so much the luxury of it.

I don't get too caught up in getting maximum value for miles, but the reality is it does save a lot when using miles for international business/first awards. So often it just makes better sense to pay for domestic flights and redeem for international flights, even if it means having to buy a few miles.

My wife and I feel that when we travel international J or F that the trip startes when we get to the airport. Adding the travel time to the trip on a solid airline makes burning the extra miles worth it.