Well, this February I got the call that the police had to break into my mothers apartment because she had not opened the door for two days. Thanks to UA MP I was on the next LH flight to India. The revenue ticket would have been 2000€ one way and LH M&M told me they couldn't issue the mileage ticket that fast. The 75$ close in fee was relatively minor at that point.

In 2009 I took my FIL to see NYC and due to various reasons reached too late to JFK. DL/NW basically told me to go suck an egg, partially because I intended to fly JFK-DTW(-PIT) with a 60$ hidden city ticket. So I splurged for two F tickets using my DL Skypesos and we left in style one hour later. Anything else would have costs me an arm and a leg.

I booked a ticket an hour ago for a departure 4 hours hence. A $430 walk-up fare was 7,500 points. Call it 5.5cpm if you want. Or don't. But it was a good value to me and that's a coach seat for a 200 mile trip. But the bus and train options sucked, either price, time or both.

This is spot on.

If I base the latter, the best value ATM is Turkish Airlines long hauls Business Class. Often the cheapest when you search yet its values are above competitors which may cost twice as much.

I think the miles are dependant on program, and status. If you have no status, they're harder to use, no doubt.

But with Aeroplan for instance, one stopover is free. Have you ever looked at the price of YVR-BOS-BUF-YVR? It's insane. Or YVR-PIT-YYZ-YVR. Or YVR-SCL-MDE-YVR. I've booked those on points because the stopover only costs me whatever that airport fees/taxes are. I've managed to go to multiple canucks road games on 2 game trips because of this feature. Those trips on paid tickets would be otherwise prohibitively expensive. The other option would be to fly YVR-BOS one way, figure out a way to BUF, then buy BUF-YVR on the way home. Been there, tried that, SOMETIMES it works out using a few diff airlines, but often it doesn't.

So sure, using the miles on an F trip you otherwise wouldn't pay for is great. But for me, even once my status dries up, using them even for just pricey Y trips is great, especially because I won't blow all my miles in 1 shot.

LH has good close-in availability.

I still felt it was a poor use of my miles when I booked a last-minute transcontinental in Y. Sure, it would cost $800 and was only 25k miles, but cpm still isn't that great.

The reason I collect miles is to redeem on aspirational flights. Otherwise I could just collect cashback (or for hotels to splurge, instead of staying in a standard mid-range hotel using points on vacation). Because I wouldn't otherwise spend that money on a first-class flight or fancy hotel, but now I would cause it is just points and I'm getting great value!

It is all a mindset.

Keep in mind your title of this thread seems overblown to me, but perhaps it's because "first class' is not a consistent term. What domestic two-class flights call "first class", all international two-class flights call "business class". (The same AA plane whose front cabin is called "first class" when it flies domestically has that cabin instantly renamed "business class" if the route it flies goes even just a few miles across the border into Canada, for example.)

So did you really mean that's there's no value in business class for miles, or was it just that you meant "up front" (whatever it's called on a given airline) by "first class"?

To many destinations overseas, there simply is no first class; business class is the highest class available. Many airlines are greatly reducing which international destinations they fly planes with both business class and "true" first class.

In other words, many people who save miles for "up front" agree that coach (especially domestic or short-haul international) is usually worth just paying cash for, and "up front" seats that are on a really good sale might be worth paying for in cash in some cases, but those "up front" seats (no matter what they're called) that aren't particularly "on sale" are what it's worth using miles for (especially if not all your miles have to be earned just on 1x credit card spend).

I don't know if I fly "aspirational" flights or not. It's simply that (a) I'm tall and (b) I don't sleep well sitting up, so for flights I need to sleep on, I want at least angled lie-flat (I'm not prejudiced against angled). But I only need business class, not "true" first class for that. And I'd rather save my miles by only redeeming for business class. And in hotels, I don't need luxury. I don't want a fleabag hotel, but I'm not going to use 70000 points for a "fancy" hotel when a decent "ordinary" hotel in a decent location can be had for 20000 points. I'd rather stretch out my airline miles and my hotel points over more trips, than use more per each trip than really necessary.

AS miles are still great if you don't particularly care about flying routes where DXB is the most logical connecting point.

Some people love doing USA-DXB-Europe-DXB-USA because OMG showers and EK bling. I'd be considerably more "meh" about it. If I really really really REALLY want the shower and bling BKK-HKG-BKK in EK F is often less than $1000 USD.

FWIW, I was looking and seeing TONS of AA J availability for Europe in the spring via AA on the AS website. Yeah, I could probably fly ex-DUB or some BA sale for $1500-2000 or so, maybe. Of course I have to GET to DUB first, and dropping thousands of dollars on business class fares when I'm funding my own domestic travel with a couple thou a year doesn't strike me as awesome value. I'd rather spend the $2000 on domestic and then get the Europe/Asia longhaul premium travel as a once in 12 month bonus.

Oh, and I can still spend $120 on SEA-LAX on AS and get almost 2000 RDMs. Plus elite bonuses.