What would you pay for a ff mile?
 

I know this subject has been discussed in different ways before. However, I would like to pose the question as “ what would you pay for a mile”. This is an airline mile not a “starpoint” or other convertible award . This question is not what it is “worth”, but what you would pay for it. Assume you do not need the miles immediately and recognize that the miles may be devalued before you use them. For me, I would gladly pay $0.0025 per mile but would not pay $0.025 per mile. From time to time there are chances to “buy miles”, as paying your taxes with a credit card for a fee. Are these opportunities worthwhile? Assume you are only accumulating miles, you do not have a particular award as an objective.

Being admittedly new to the whole 'get every mile you can' thing, heres my stand on all that. Now the $0.0025 per mile I think anybody would gladly jump at. Status mile or not.

I've seen people look at 84,000(or something like that) status miles for $1,700 or so... so thats about $0.0202 per mile, and thats status (but once in a while find). I've seen upto 2.3cents ($0.023) per mile as acceptable. 1cent per mile (or less) is a good deal too. If you have one for 0.0025/mile, share with the class :D

Hope that helped. As for conversion, I think *wood is the best for that since thats one of the few programs I've seen that do a 1:1 transfer.

Gagan

According to pudding guy (one of the all-time greats :) ), his threshold is about a half-cent per mile. At that or below, he goes for it. Above that, he has to think about it.

I take a combination of the per-mile cost and my total opportunities to get miles. If it's a dry spell, I try to get as many as I can, still keeping in mind that at about a penny/mile or above it's still not that attractive.

In those cases where I'm going to have to pay something anyhow (like when I put in a new furnace last fall), I went out of the way to get them to take my credit card. No extra cash, a bit of work, and another few thousand miles.

I wouldn't pay for them, if they are offered for something I'm purchasing fine, but I wouldn't purchase something because they had miles attached to them if I wasn't getting it anyways, nor would I pay a premium just to get miles.

One cent...
 

If I could buy miles, one cent is my threshold. For United M+, that adds up to $250 for a domestic Coach ticket, $1,000 for a First Class ticket to Europe. Since I'd never pay for International First out of my own pocket, miles are the only way I get to enjoy this luxury.

One cent is a useful benchmark to figure out how much my various mileage schemes are really worth. For instance, paying $60 a year for a credit card that yields 25,000 miles per year is a good deal. Paying $350 for a DEN-ORD ticket that yields 4,552 miles (air miles + 1P bonus + booking bonus) is not.

That is a point that many of the miles junkies tend to leave out of the equation. Yes, I can "afford" a First Class ticket internationally (meaning I can come up with the money) but I won't actually do it because I have my money earmarked for other things, like food, mortgage, etc. :)

Like you, that's the only way I can practically enjoy that luxury.

Lori_Q:
But you'd certainly pay $1000 for and F ticket to Europe out of your pocket, wouldn't you.
Would you pay $1250?

Scho

I wouldn't pay $1,000 if coach was hanging out at $300 or so, I would still buy coach.

I would probably only really purchase the miles if I really needed them badly (i.e. upgrade/free ticket) etc.

You may be interested in my discussion of this subject on my website below. Click on Value of Miles in the left menu.

I guess the bottom line is that this is such a subjective matter. With where I'm at in life and how much money I have, I wouldn't pay anything more than a cent per mile. With an F award ticket to Europe on AA at 125,000, that would make it cost $1,250. That, to me, would be worth it. But I have the money. Other people may be willing to pay more or less, depending on where they're at in life and how much money they have.

I think these discussions are interesting to have once in a while. But in the end it always remains the same, everyone is different, and will value miles differently depending on their situation.

At one time five or more years ago I valued these at $0.015/mi. About 2 years ago it became $0.01/mi. Anymore these are possibly worth $0.005/mi because of the crappy conditions of use, the very real difficulty of redeeming them at the "standard" rate (ie not the sleazy 2X rate) and the nicely lowered fares offered by almost all the airlines.

Note I said "valued". Actually I never did nor would I ever buy these. Actually itsa game to get them without direct payment.

MisterNice

playing on their own ineptness and corruption
 

I think the value of miles is ZERO and they should be as free as you can make them!

I still like gigs like the gift card, the ebay AA thing and such. Anything we can do to offset the bad pricing, overly fee-ladened payment systems, and really convoluted unfair backassed regulations currently in place of most of these corrupt and poorly managed airlines will suit me! Their marketing, while sometimes set forth with some tiny bits of good intent, is never up to speed with what really happens (look at targeted promo abuse and unclear bonus posting timeframes for us) and their own staff or reservations people hate that within their own company (gee, and everyone on WallStreet wonders why there's descent). The airlines pass the buck of other responsibilities onto personnel like their own flight attendants or other lower staff members when the chips are down and this bad attitude has to change. Also, they as a whole have had no idea how to handle the onslought of the "new customer" with new found wealth occuring in areas it never existed before. They need to wake up: now it's not just rich jetsetters of the 60s who fly anymore. It's EVERYONE from mom and pop to grandma to students to people with weird long names from Muslim countries who just want to do business but get hassled when they come to this country now. But the majors still think in terms of the old school ways and this is bad.

So for me, I stick it to 'em whenever I can. Sure, doing something that seems knowingly wrong is not supposed to be the correct way to set it right, but I am one man who has seen enough of this crap and the airlines aint listening to people like me right now anyway. But they will eventually. So as long as I can get my miles by both legit and half-arsed means, I shall. Like the stock market of the 1920s, there is no fair regulation and order (like the vague value on these miles themselves). therefore, I think those "in the know" who are savvy to the ways things really play out are those who are reaping, and yes, I plan to remain one of these types of crafty thinkers until they fix their own problems and I have no choice but to conform to it. And if it is done correctly and with all things thought through the way they should be planned, I will certainly conform! Til then, no way!

For now, I will run towards ALL opportunities that pounce on holes in their systems, write letters of complaints when I know it could yeild bonuses or rewards, and do any scheme that makes me miles or points when their systems they actually pay people to set up fails misserably because they have no idea how people really think and act in the average day world!

I am not really like this anywhere else in life with anything else (although I did go to a party college in the 80s so I guess it's always there brewing) but with miles and the stinky airlines, I will grab at anything that makes it as free or easy as possible! Sometimes, just to say I did it! (When on the plane, however, I treat EVERY employee with respect because maybe it's not THEIR fault it's like this)

Finally, I am still among the belief that it was the airlines who KNEW 911 was more likely to happen than not, and they did nothing to even kind of hint to us or anyone else that we should maybe be a bit more on the defensive during that time just prior to it. The result? Now we are all in debt much more than we would have been if everyone sort of stepped back just a tiny bit and had taken a little educational look at the pending issues of being almost attacked say, earlier on in 2001. Seriously, if someone were to tell me I was about to be attacked, I might carry on as usual, but I'd still warn my people a bit and pay a bit more to prepare for what COULD happen. No one did in that industry and I maintain the airline industry did know more than they let on. For this alone, I think I should almost have the right to reap whatever I can from them til they also come clean on these sorts of misgivings. I may be getting into a heated area here and I do not mean to go off topic, but to me, the value of a mile is whatever I can do to make it be as close to possible to ZERO.

So go get as many free or close to free miles you can, share how you did it, be much kinder and more helpful than any CSR from airline X ever was when you approached them in a bind, always fly free or next to nothing, and help everyone you can do the exact same thing every single day.

if anyone wants to discuss the heated parts maybe that should be reserved for PM or email.

that's that.

At one time, I was willing to go on MR's, in effect, paying for miles. Since the airlines aren't trustworthy anymore, I still collect miles but do not pay for them. The value of miles have gone down. When you can't get an award seat, the value of miles is zero. FF programs still have some value as the airlines sell miles to companies and they do influence my choosing a flight.

I think I'm pretty good at getting the deals and there are only two times I can think of at the moment that I have picked up miles at $.0025 per mile.

1. Healthy Choice Pudding in 1999 with the double coupon bonus (the infamous Pudding Guy deal)

2. LatinPass 1,000,000 mile bonus in 2000. The actual cost of tickets and qualifying activities for miles was that low (under $2,500), but it was extra money for the incidentals of travel.

I didn't do ValuMags so I don't recall if that was that low. I also recall the ClickRewards deal in 2000, for a donation to the non-profit (what was it?) like the World Wildlife Fund which had a great return on value, but I don't remember if that was as low as $.0025/mile.

Anyone else recall an opportunity for miles at .0025/mile in the past 5 years? That means you are getting a 100,000 miles for $250 which is a really cheap First Class ticket to Europe. Looking at the recent response to the IcelandAir deal I think that any offer that good these days would be quite costly to the sponsor. Flyertalk has really expanded the network of participants on the lucrative deals.

If you can come up with an offer for miles at something around $75 for 10,000 miles, then you have a great deal. They come up on a frequent enough basis to spend several thousand dollars a year.

There are opportunities with phone deals and probably some of the NW promos for 10,000 to 20,000 miles, but unless I can get enough miles for a good business class or first class award then the offer has limited usefulness. It took about four years to build up 100,000 miles in my NW account with all their little promos without flying on paid tickets.