SAN-DTW First R/T

80,000 Skymiles + $5
Cash price: $915
Hassle: $40 (Delta's award search is awful)
Subjective Price: $700 (coach was around $450)
Objective Skymile Value 0.011
Subjective Value 0.008

Not that great of a booking, but my stock of miles is getting pretty high.

Another good illustration that Chase UR cards are often better than airline cards for actual spending since they are worth .0125 for airline tickets.

First class is only worth $500 to you for a three segment trip across the USA then the Pacific? I have a lower value for F than most FTers, but you sir are a true Stoic.

In my mind I go back and forth on this question. On one hand, $500 saved is $500 earned (tax free!) for a mere ~20 hours of mild discomfort. On the other hand, scheduling a vacation can be tough, and arriving in Asia well rested and well fed is almost like an extra day of vacation.

Why? I prefer not to be a slave to a spreadsheet.

Not saying you should be! But valuing an award seat "infinitely"? This would mean you would not be dislodged from your ultra-comfortable F seat even if someone offered you enough money to personally solve poverty and preventable diseases worldwide, with enough money left over to build your dream mansion on your own private island and a private jet to fly there as often as you wanted, plus the ability to help your family and friends achieve whatever goals they have, put your young relatives through college debt free, pay off everyone's mortgages so everyone holds their homes free and clear, etc., etc. That would not even start to make a dent in your infinite valuation of the comfort and convenience of your F seat on a single long-haul flight? Isn't it enough to say you value it more than anything else you could buy with the same number of miles?

No, it just means that my life is not defined by maximizing some sort of imaginary monetary value.

Who says my awards are in F (or long-haul for that matter)? Most of them are Coach seats, like the ones I'm using to go to my stepson's wedding or a party given by a friend I haven't seen in a couple of years.

No, it's only sufficient to say that my values are different from yours.

Ok, my fault on F, I was conflating your comment with those of others. Sorry about that. I am glad you enjoy the award bookings, I really am. I am not sure what you are assuming about my values. I do not favor measuring awards by monetary value either, not at all, but rather by how much happiness they bring. Is there anything else imaginable on earth that would bring more happiness than a single award flight (let's say in coach)? Sure, and that was my only point. But the award doesn't have to beat all those imaginary things, just all other uses of the miles you actually have available to spend.

I see no need to measure things that way. Everything I do (including this discussion and even the many mistakes I've made over the years) is part of who I am, and that makes it all of infinite value to me.

On the other hand, scheduling a vacation can be tough, and arriving in Asia well rested and well fed is almost like an extra day of vacation.

A lot of people say this but is this really accurate?

This is only true if you're landing in the morning. You can schedule your economy class flights such that they land in the evening - so that you just get some dinner and go to bed, well rested starting next day.

And do you really value 1 extra day of vacation at several hundred dollars? If yes, just take an extra day of vacation unpaid leave.


While redeeming award miles for premium cabins is awesome - there's lots of hidden opportunity costs. For the same number of miles you could do multiple economy trips, the hassle factor in finding first-class at your preferred route is much larger than finding economy class etc.

To me, first-class redemption really is a 1-2 times lifetime thing - all the rest awards are economical. Otherwise the main purpose of award flights (saving money) is lost.

Here is one of mine from 2014:

UA 270k for 2pp SFO-NRT and KIX-SFO in F/C nonstop. This is currently pricing @$13.8k for ANA codeshare (UA metal) and $21k on UA. No value to lost RDM because I wouldn't have taken this trip unless it was free. Using the cheaper price (which I think was close to the cash price at the time) brings a respectable value of .051 per mile.[

And one from 2012:

BA 120k +$2000 for 2pp SFO-LHR-FCO-LHR-SFO in C/F (using Chase 241). The advance purchase pricing would have been @ $10k so the value was roughly .066 per mile.

+1 :cool:

I agree that the math is somewhat nonsensical, as I would never pay $13000 cash for 2 tickets. But I think it does make sense to assign a value for the purpose of deciding whether to use miles when cash is an option (i.e. Hawaii). In my example it wasn't.

This is clearly a YMMV debate. Personally I would never spend miles to fly economy for 10+ hours - at my age the toll on my body is too high. :D For me the best use is to fly C/F. The extra cost (RT @50-60k pp?) does not matter to me as I currently accumulate more miles than I can use for saver awards (limited vacation options, school schedules etc.) Vacation days are precious and I prefer not to waste them on stopovers, jetlag, etc.

With sufficient advance planning and flexibility, I find it much easier to redeem for TATL and TPAC saver awards in C/F than I do for "multiple economy trips." Because my economy trips generally fall during peak travel times to popular destinations, i.e. Mexico, Hawaii, etc. - its a huge hassle to find saver award tix for these trips, often a roll of the dice (do I pay cash now or risk a price increase by waiting to see if award space is released?)

For me, using miles for TATL or TPAC travel C/F seats is something I try to do every 2-3 years. And that's probably low compared with many here on FT. For me "economical" is flying my family 3-5 hours in E+ (or WN :eek:) assuming I can't upgrade us. :)

I agree.

There are people in China who take a 19 hour standing-room only train ride.

And to the people who say, "I'm old, so I need biz class." There's lots of old people in China standing up in 19-hour train ride.

That is a silly argument. Have you asked any of the old people standing for 19 hours would they have preferred a lie flat seat for the same price?

Unless you have purchased the maximum permitted number of miles and hotel points that can be transferred into a given program, no mile is worth more than it would cost to buy it directly from the airline or hotel program. If you want a business class seat that has a price tag of $10K which can be booked with miles that have a price tag of $2K, that's a $2K ticket.

List your specific value for miles bookings
 

The vast majority of my miles are essentially free because they come from actual flying not CC churning. Does that mean they have no value since I didn't buy any??

Let's face it there is no standard for valuing miles. I think op's idea to compare notes is a good one - it may help some people decide whether to use miles or cash. That is a decision I have to make for every leisure ticket I book.

The best example is booking award nights at hotels in Munich over Oktoberfest, when rooms start around $250 and easily hit $400 for nice places.

Early this month I redeemed 42.5 KF on SQ Suites valued at SGD 3.8k. I paid taxes SGD 230 for SIN-PEK.

Here my travel report:
http://rondztk.blogspot.com.au/2014/...sing-gold.html