Redeeming Miles- Do you calculate cpm?
 

Hi!

Between my college-age kids doing study in Europe, my parents needing to come home from their "snowbird" condo and my wife now thinking that her time to explore the world (with me, of course, on my business trips) has arrived, I am seriously redeeming the miles that I have accumulated. I'm wondering how many FTers make these decisions on cost per mile (CPM) or on cost of relationships (CPR). How do you calculate the value of your use of miles?

Personally, I don't try to calculate the cost in these ways. I determine the cost of the award ticket (in miles plus associated charges), find what it would cost to purchase the ticket in $, and judge whether I wish to apply my available miles in this fashion.

Spending of miles is something that has to be decided personally.
I would speak out against crazy uses, but there are countless ranges of frivolity, between being a mileage miser or spending as if there was not tomorrow..... giving the number of mergers, I predict values will decrease.
It is nice there are often last minute milesaver opportunities, BUT I think most people would rather have the ability to plan aahead. When I have tried to do this, the availability is not as good as it was in the past, and I am noticing more and more last minute availability. The same is true with upgrades. If planned in advance, the opportunities seemed almost limitedless. My recent 77W flight from LAX-LHR bears this out. There were no upgrades when I looked days before the flight and the choice MCE seats had been taken. Hours before the flight, a bunch of these seats became available. In fact, row 16 had 4 people and I snagged 16J (the aisle seat in the starboard section). I assume the seats had been held by last minute upgraders, as the agent at the counter offered to sell me an upgrade (25K +$350). As I now had the exit row, with an empty seat next to me, I declined.

If I am sitting on the plane and I say to myself "I could never have afforded this", then I deem it a good use of miles.

^

all i would look at is the value of the first class award
(or possibly award for really expensive economy ticket)

I do. I've assigned a target value for each of the airline and hotel currencies I accumulate, and compare that with the cash price when deciding whether to pay cash or redeem. If the two are close, it's sometimes a toss-up as to what I do, but often the cpm calculation will reveal an obvious best answer, one way or the other.

If I'm going to make a calculation, this is exactly what I do. I tend to not even bother doing that for long haul business/first class redemptions.

It's usually more of a gut call for me; I don't calculate cpms. However, the respect in which I make a de facto cpm decision is that I almost never use miles for domestic award tickets (except for a thankfully rare emergency situation or occasionally getting a ticket for someone I'm close to), instead using them for international J and F tix (generally for vacations with my wife) because they have much better cpm value (and I would never be able to afford most such trips paying $$). I do sometimes use miles for domestic upgrades for trips greater than two hours, but that's because I have a lot of miles to spare and really don't like flying coach in terms of both comfort and getting work done.

Or to get back to the way you framed the choice, I definitely opt for relationships, though I'd put it not in terms of cost but in terms of VOR (value of relationships ;)).

I do a lot more bean-counting on the earn side than the burn side, with the latter a bit more emotionally driven. Award flights are often a chance to get to someplace otherwise overpriced on paid tickets, but that place must have some appeal. Last year I used KE miles dating all the way back to 1992 for an ICN-ULN trip to go see Naadam in Mongolia as part of a wider Asia trip. Also went around all the CO Micronesia places except Chuuk on awards, as well as a chunk of the South Pacific on NZ with UA miles (acquired during the great Amtrak transfer of the early oughts...I still get occasional mail from Amtrak thanks to that).

Alaska in September at 25K also is a bit of a fixture, and with Spirit you can do very well on free trips IF you have the credit card and IF you can travel in spring and fall and do it very lightly.

Sometimes the toughest calls are positioning flights. I spent 35K DL miles on a MEX RT to position to a LA deal for IPC and an SCL stopover at just over $500. Was upgraded in both directions to MEX.

Agree with this. I log all earn and burn in Excel, and CPM is calculated on both sides, but I am generally more concerned with the earn cost. Granted, I have moderate flexibility and have always redeemed for saver level awards, so I know my redemption CPM is always decent.

The only time I look at it is after I have chosen my destination, but not my dates. from there I review the cost of the flight, if I'm willing to pay that OOP, or if I want to use miles, then check availability for dates (assuming I have a selection of dates I CAN go).

Long ago I stopped looking for optimal usage and started focusing on I just want to be there and enjoy as much as I can". so Europe, its almost always OOP because by the time I can plan it, the free ones are gone. For anything south (carib, south America) or most domestic, its miles because just sitting in my account instantly devalues them, so they need to be spent as I earn them.

I cant remember the last time I sat with more than 200k miles at any one time, the programs screw up the rules to quickly to rely on them being a value anyway.

I use miles for everyday travel on non-UA travel and sponsor a lot of family travel
I have minimum cpm below which I never redeem.
Also have to factor in how long it will take me to regenerate what I use, and if I have something else more important that I wont be able to use the miles for in the immediate future.

I do. At least it is a consideration.

Probably a larger consideration is that I will buy a ticket in preference to using miles that require an itinerary that doesn't make sense. About the time miles needs two connections and a non-stop is available for money, the miles stay in the account.

Using miles has a lot to do with searching out effective ways to use them. Sometimes it isn't worth trying to force it.