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.

1 cent per mile - hahahahahahahaha.... I pass
0.80 cent per mile - I would buy enough to get to the next 25K threshold if earning opportunites were low
0.60 cent per mile - I would buy enough to get to the next 50K threshold unless my account is close to zero
0.50 cent per mile - Buy enough for the next vacation for the whole family.

Well, spring 2003 there was one where you could get 20000 miles for whatever it cost you to get to a Jaguar dealership (to do a test drive, which is what you got the 20k BA miles for). In major cities, that would have been close to nothing, but if you lived far from a Jaguar dealership and had to travel out of your way just to get to one, then it might have cost something non-trivial.

Oh, and that was 20k for EACH test drive. Somehow it was possible to have every member (human or not! :) ) of your family get credited for one test drive each (don't ask me how it worked with pets, I wasn't a BA EC member yet then and missed out on it, plus I don't have any pets), and I know some people on FT got about 100k miles JUST out of that promo!

You know some people on FT who got 100K just out of that promo?

I don't recall anyone posting about making a 100K score from that promo. Sure it was an opportunity for 10,000 miles on a test drive, but go back and read the threads. I remember plenty of aggro over that Jaguar fiasco.

Wow - are miles really worth that little!
 

For me, I will go for anything enabling me to earn miles at 1 to 1.5 cents per mile - depending on the airline and what their redemption rates are for the awards I normally use.

I am actually quite surprised how little all you previous posters would be willing to pay. I guess you probably don't have many necessary trips that would be good uses for your miles.

One of the reasons I am surprised is because a significant number of people (but certainly not the majority of FTers) purchased large numbers of IF mags to earn miles in the major programs at 2 cents per mile. Yes - I know many FTers only transfered to Qantas or Qualiflyer for the 1:2 transfer rate - but many others did transfer to AA, DL etc - so were paying 2 cents/mile. And the many more who transfered at 1:2 were still paying 1 cent per mile - far greater than the .0025 or .005 cents/mile posters claim above.

For the traveller who needs to go to a diverse number of places I think FF miles are still worth more than many FTers attribute to them. Surely anyone who is self-employed (in a business requireing travel) or employed by a business willing to partially reimburse for mileage tickets redeemed from your account can find good uses for FF miles.

I realize this discussion is not about what FF are worth - but I suggest anyone would way their worth for their travel needs when deciding how much they are willing to pay for them.

As one who has earned about 900,000 miles over the past year - and redeemed about 900,000 miles over the past year (in a few different programs) - I haven't felt the sting of miles devaluations. (In fact, my favorite award now costs less miles on my favorite airline than a year ago!) My mileage ticket redemptions are usually for tickets that were needed - if miles weren't an option I or the person travelling (family or friend) would have paid for it with cash. I only use miles when miles vs. ticket cost gives me over 2 cents per mile redeemed - its usually about 2.5 cents per mile. Most of my redemptions are for economy tickets, often ticketed months in advance (although sometimes last minute), including both the 25K domestic and various international awards (usually Africa though). Maybe its just the routes I use miles for - but they are worth a lot to me.

Considering the value I receive from mileage redemptions and the fact that I can always find someone I know who can use them well if I can't, I will gladly pay 1 to 1.5 cents per mile. I won't pay the 2 to 2.5 cents I get in value when redeeming them because this is money spent now for a future return involving hastle and a little uncertainty (award levels change). But I would be foolish to not invest in miles at 1 cent each given my travel needs.

Those of you who are posting such a low amount you would be willing to pay:
1) Do you use miles for trips you would have otherwise purchased with real $$$, or only for additional discretionary travel?
2) Do your travel needs require expensive tickets (where miles would be a good value)?

These questions help determine the value of miles to you - which logically I think should be the primary factor in deciding when you would be willing to invest in more miles and at what cost.

Whoa MM! How can you say miles are worth 0?
 

MM - I fail to see how the value of miles is zero if you need tickets where miles could be used in place of cash. How much these miles are worth would be the the $$$ cost of tickets you need minus whatever value you place on the time and hastle required to redeem an award verses the number of miles needed to not pay those $$$. I am using need meaning you would pay $$$ for the ticket if miles were not an option. If you are using miles on a business ticket and would only pay economy, then the appropriate figure would be the cost of an economy ticket, not business even though that is what you will be flying, plus whatever additional you would pay for a business seat instead if the airline were to sell you a business seat cheap.

I think we agree we should attempt to acquire as many miles as possible for as little cost (time and $$$ spent) as possible. Why? Because miles do have value. If they didn't, why accumulate them?

However, opportunities to earn very cheap or free miles are very limited so I will pay more for more miles than the cheapest/free ones I earned. I am earning about 25K Asia Miles from the EBay Anything Points/Points.com deal spending only about $30. But this does not mean I am only willing to pay that much for 25K miles. Why? Because I can't earn more than 25K miles at that rate and have good uses (need tickets) for hundreds of thousands of miles.

I don't get how us earning miles offsets the poor management of the airlines.

Secondly, although I completely agree airlines are poorly managed, I think they are better managed than many FTers think. Just because we fly for as a hobby, read a few travel mags, and read FT doesn't make us an expert. I think the management understands their airline's business far better than we do and most of the time makes good decisions. Yes, there is mismanagement - but not to the extent we must think.

Also, the statement: Most airlines are loosing money therefore they must be mismanaged is a logical fallacy. It fails to consider the many other factors that could cause most airlines to loose money.

Lastly, I fail to see how our earning miles is related to the mismanagement of the airlines. Why should one cause the other?

Yes, the airlines are out of date in many ways – but what is the cause and effect relationship between that and earning more miles?

Now this really gets me! :( How is earning miles from the various offers out there “doing something that seems knowingly wrong?”

In my opinion, taking a business up on an offer they made is doing nothing wrong.

Also, how will your mileage earning tactics make the airlines listen to you?

Yes, I agree, let us go after as many free or close to free miles as we can and share our knowledge with others, helping us and them travel for less. By doing this I am not fixing corrupt airlines, making the airlines listen to me, or doing anything that seems knowingly wrong. I am just someone who knows of a good deal and is willing to go through the hoops required to get it, abiding by their rules.

I don’t know if I addressed issues you consider heated (airlines knew about 911?) and I am not looking for anything heated. Only a friendly discussion helping me understand the reasoning behind some of your statements.

Thanks MM!

I think what I am trying to say in MM ways is that I would like to continue to pay as close to zero as possible. It is not unreasonable to offer this one up.

I guess everyone obviously would like to pay nothing for something, but I think in the airline world, since there's no real regulation on the price or value of these little buggers, they actually have no value if you think about it. In a normal business, if we all only paid next to zero for something, the owner would not make any money and would eventually go out of business. We kind of have to let them make something and we do because we can also realize the benefits from the service thus provided.

But with airlines and their miles programs, or ones like it, it's entirely different and we need to remember that. The "price" on miles or what you can get for them is fluxuating every moment and it is a wild ride indeed. It's not like a recognized currency or anything like that, and it is certainly very unsecure. I think it is the fault of the airlines--their own poorly managed systems--that makes this statement so terribly true. So for me, they should cost next to nothing, but their value is often priceless.

Based on that, how can we believe that what we hold onto will have any value at all tomorrow? Sure, it can and does buy us a business class ticket to a foreign land sometimes; As long as we grab that ticket now and know how to play the game to our advantage. But then there are those other times, when you can't even get a seat using your miles without paying a huge fee for the trip one way or another. It's way off any normal, logical scale and so like many in here, I try to play it to my advantage even though its whole matrix really bugs me sometimes too. I feel like a drunk who knows I'll get a hangover in the morning but still continues to plow down another one. I play the game to get more and get more but it could blow up any day now. I roll with the changes but long for the day when there needs to be no change.

So yeah, my value on miles may indeed be high, and as you correctly mentioned, if they help me end up with a would-be $1000 ticket, then that's what they were worth at the given time. But what I would spend to get them is very little. How about .00011666 cent if I could? How about even less, or maybe even in such a way where I MAKE money? (I have)

I am not going to offer up a higher price and say "I would pay up to 1.5 or 2cents a mile" because there's no real reason to do this in the current environment. In response to what I have seen out there, they should cost me next to NOTHING except some time and effort doing promos maybe, and yet, they should be useful for everything I can get out of them! I will always look for ways to accomplish this and so I will not say "I would pay up to X amount" because of two reasons:

1) For me, in the world of the airlines, I keep thinking that everytime some airline or survey or person asks me what I would pay for something, that in itself will inveriably make it become that new amount! (once I say I would pay the price, they say, "Ok, that's the new price then.") SO they do listen, but selectively. The price goes up or fees are tacked on when they find their ways into things just because it's known that people will allow them for a while.

2) I just feel the airlines have screwed up royally so many times (my 911 thing being one of them, and poor management in both the business and the marketing of things being the other) that I almost feel I have the right to do the same thing back whenever I can.

I think our participation in mileage promos we find & reap in these forums has begun to teach the airlines a few things. Let's at least hope so--but often times we see how wrong that statement is. One thing they should be recognizing is that the correctly marketed offers are a win-win for both the customer and the carrier, and they hopefully grasp this. The second is that the poorly managed offers or promos make a loser on one side or the other. They seem to not really care though--as long as they get you on the plane and fill that seat today and every day. And I have certainly seen my share of people end up becoming that loser just by trying to do what they thought was the right thing: Buy this and earn miles. Earn miles and fly free one day. NOT! We all know too well it really doesn't always work that way. In a more pure loyalty scheme, it should. I guess Southwest has honoroed it but they have limits in other areas. In most areas, however, the traveling person is misled into thinking that all they have to do is ABC and they will have successfully accomplished the steps needed to obtain a free ticket. But the airline knows they can nab 'em so they toss in the rest of the fine print and the next thing you know, the person is paying way too much for the seat next to me and I just paid about $30 for it! They are standing there holding nothing and so they shruggingly offer up the credit card and get their ticket anyway. (On the other hand, I myself have to almost be LIKE the airlines in order to get what I need! I have to almost screw the system whereever I can.)

I feel bad for that traveler sitting next to me and yes, I have traveled all over the place and consider myself to be in the know in many areas because of what I have experienced. I don't know exactly what an expert is, but compaired to the poor sap who gets screwed just by trying to participate in what he thinks is the normal way, I guess I am one. And I will continue to find ways to grab at offers and deals, and nearly screw the majors out of every red cent I can just to get my near-free ticket.

Shame on me if I don't try to sqeaze everything I can out of this game, but sometimes I do feel like I have become an animal who wrestles relentlessly at my feast of constantly swarming tasty miles as if this were the last meal... And sometimes it feels as though I am an underworld scam artist who knowingly participating in offers that are so poorly managed that I am almost viewed as an aimmoral cheater by some. Consider the jazzy music playing in the alley way and some mobster-like character hanging out in the crime side of town: Yeah, that's it... I gotta wear dark shades and work out of smokey basement rooms with poor lighting and shifty souls milling about around me, see?... Yeah, me and my gang, we crank out vouchers or something from some sqeaky printer much like in the movie, Catch Me If You Can" and we work our magic like the MIT gang who took Vegas for millions in the book, "Bringing Down The House."

That AA ebay thing and the whole gift card thing have actually MADE me money AND I get free miles too. It's awesome. It's unbelieveable. There's nothing really illegal about any of it, but it sure feels crazy at times, even though I am a happy participant. It may not last but haven't I ever felt a tiny bit bad because I know it's so totally unbalanced? I think that for every one of us who is making out on those sorts of deals, there are thosands of sorry souls out there begging to cross over their own wild river of madness and stop losing out and try to earn their own share of the pie. But right now, they know nothing of how to do it our way, let alone do it in any more correctly managed method that is supposed to yeild properly disclosed results. They are almost as slaves would be to their unfair Masters. I keep thinking that some Moses-like dude has made it so those in the FT have been able to escape ancient Egypt or something and cross over to the promise land. And now we can have it all and fly free faster. Then agian, even we are existing in a sorry time of golden calfs and annarchy, and the leaders of this miles game have to figure out some real honest to goodness ground rules or we're all gonna do ourselves in regardless.

I am just one guy taking my slice of pie while I can, but I actually do long for a better way that works for everyone. I don't think we are in it right now and so for me, the value is low-life and the price to pay is worthless. It just happens to get me around once and a while, but what a mess, huh?

;)MM

Correction and Information
 

1. The Jaguar promo was 10K per person. With a household account (max of 4 people at the time), that meant a max of 40K. I got the 40K. The only way to get more was by going more than once. Don't know if that worked (didn't even think of trying it) but I'm pretty sure the airline (BA) would have caught on and taken back the "illegal" miles, and maybe more, too.

PS - My cat did not make the test drive! :D

2. When I finished my flight (First Class for two r/t Europe), that was the first time I had been on BA. It's still the only flight I've taken on BA, and it brought my FF account to zero.

It's now (when the new miles post) nearly 100K and I still haven't taken a paid BA flight yet. There are ways and there are ways. And (shame on me) I haven't even started the gift card thing yet.

But, as MM says, none of this stuff is illegal - the airlines have set themselves up for it and we take advantage of the rules and loopholes.

It's a game and if you treat it as such, the payoff is not some new high score or a bunch of cheers, but perhaps a very nice vacation in some exotic locale for as close to free as you can make it.

I love it.

concerning scams and BA and the like
 

I know of at least one person who made fordged copoies of those stamped or signed jag certs we downloaded... They sent them in all looking a bit different and got the 40k.

i actually got 50k. At the time, I noticed another gig going on where the airline was about to let you expand your family group to 7 people, so I sent one more member to the dealer and got it stamped, and then mailed in for 5 people to total to 50k. Then the airline changed its rules so that all EU flights were now 50k anyway.those left with only 40k still had been baited and switched in a way, and buy the remaining 10k.

I paid nothing for my BA 50 and my family members could care less who uses them so it might as well be me. Can combine this to fly on a partner but have yet to cash in. I do like the jag but would not buy one. What were the miles worth to BA to just hand them out like that? DID anyone --or even some hoped for percentage of people actually BUY a car due to this gig? What was the cost of these miles to them too?

BA has run a generous FFP. I think I have had two paid flights within Europe on BA. Perhaps a total of $300 for tickets over the years. I've redeemed 500,000 BA miles for four first class tickets with BA between US and Europe and US-Australia over the past two years. I love their 747 First Class.

Ok, sorry, I got my numbers confused (thought 20k but it was 10k and remember someone getting 5 and so that's how I came up with 100k, when you can see in someone else's message that for 5 they got 50k.

Still, my main point was that no matter how many thousands of miles it was, as long as it was many thousands of miles for nothing more than a test drive, and given the cost of the test drive would be nothing more than the cost of getting to the test drive, it still far beats any other value of miles to cost of getting them that I can think of.

(Except, of course, for the miles you get for doing things you would have done anyway for the same price without the miles. But that's not the same thing as doing something specifically for the miles and the cost of that.)

My take on the value of miles is that I generally will go for a deal if it is at 1 cent a mile or if I am making a purchase, then I calculate miles at 1 cent a mile essentially as a rebate on my purchase price.

There are opportunities all the time for picking up miles. Too many opportunities at times. Most of us don't have the time or money to take advantage of all the cheap ways to pick up miles.

There is a Jaguar dealer next to the shopping center I go to regularly, but I just didn't have time to get over there during that promo. I had already cleaned out my BA account for the trip to Australia and I wasn't in need of the 10,000 miles.

Getting back to the original topic of what I would pay for a ff mile - I am comfortable with a penny a mile as long as it is in a program that I know I can get a business class ticket or better in the next year or so.

And if I am making a flight just for miles then it generally is for a deal where I can get miles at .75 cents/mile or less.

The UA promo in the winter gave me 120,000 miles and a free systemwide ticket for $1,100. Alaska Airlines Fall 2003 promo provided 140,000 miles for about $700 in airfare. The hotel costs and miscellaneous travel expenses associated with the flights is no big deal to me because I am doing this whole frequent flyer thing because I love to travel. I set up travel to go to new places and I can have a good time whether I'm in Boise or Bangkok.

There are the little things like miles for telephones and miles for online purchases and test drives and stuff which are great for adding a few bonus miles. The bottom line for me is that I have found in my experience that flying during the good airline bonuses is the easiest way to earn the real miles at a level that they become valuable award opportunities.

I could easily burn 2 million miles a year. Would it be possible to earn that many miles a year at a cost of 1 cent/mile or less?

diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks...
 

The way I see it, it all depends what you use 'em for.

I have a bunch of miles on a bunch of different programs. I rarely do any business travel and always fly economy for my leisure travel unless I'm using miles to upgrade on long trans-pacific flights.

That said, I do take a ton of leisure trips (70 vacation days from work in the last 14 months) and I like to go to exotic (read as: expensive to get to) places. I just went to Bangladesh and India on BA/Emirates and it set me back $1200. Going to South Korea to see old friends ususally costs about $1000 in the summer and lowest around $750 in the winter. So the way I see things is this: A RT to Seoul in economy is going to cost me $1000 or 60,000 frequent flyer miles. If I could buy the 60k miles for enough less than $1000 to make it worth my while, I'd do it in a heartbeat just to save the money for the next time I want to go somewhere. (Worth my while = factoring in booking fees for a free ticket and the mileage I wouldn't be accruing by taking an award flight that I'd otherwise accrue miles for). Pure and simple.

Since I never use miles for cheap domestic flights because I don't feel like I'm getting as good a value out of it, I value them different than others do. I also don't care much about acheiving a super five star high worldwide platinum level in anything because I can't afford to stick with one alliance or airline for all of my travel - I usually have to go with whatever is the cheapest.

Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks...

peace,
~Ben~

I'll generally pay for miles... (depending on the price!)
 

My primary use for miles is premium-class international award travel for my family. I nearly always travel on paid tickets - so I can keep "feeding the machine." (There are a few exceptions, but see below.)

I'm usually able to book in advance and able to get substantially the tickets that I want.

A J ticket from the US to Europe is about $6,000 - give or take. It costs 90,000 miles on my primary carrier (DL) (recently increased from 80,000 - but this is not a "devaluation" thread), giving each mile a maximum value of $0.066 to me. Now, you do get less flexibility with award tickets, so the ascribed value of the trip should be less than $6,000, probably in the range of 60-80% of the price of the ticket - still giving miles a minimum value of $0.04 to me.

My wife and I flew R/T JFK-CDG on Concorde in 2003 - 160,000 miles each - compared to price of $11,000 for R/T - again $0.06875 per mile in value or savings. We flew JFK-SIN-MLE (Male, Maldives) on SQ in J (and some F) for 110,000 miles (this award has also gone up in cost since I travelled), compared to a price of $9,500 each - $0.086 per mile. These two trips alone would have cost $41,000 had I purchased tickets!

If I can "buy" miles for less than $0.04 per (through whatever promotions might be going on at a given time), and those miles are on a carrier where I (a) have a lot of miles, (b) anticipate accruing a lot of miles or (c) can transfer other Amex points to, I'll usually hit the offer.

The dollar-equiv value really depends what you do with the miles. If you're going to fly Song FLL-LGA for 25,000 miles, to me, this is a waste of miles. However, if this is the route that someone values (ie: to see a grandchild or something), and $300 is a lot for that individual to pay for an airline ticket, then this is a great value - but not one you should be "buying" miles for - as the value is $0.012 per mile!

for me, this depends on:
* which frequent-flier-program (for me a Mileage Plus mile is about 35% more worth than a miles&more mile)
* status miles are, if I am in need for it, much more worth then bonus miles
* expiry dates of such miles


As an average I "calculate" about US cents 3 for a status mile (if I need them for qualification/requalification) and 1 cent for a bonus mile.

Don't forget, when comparing paid tickets with awards, that awards not only cost the miles, but before comparing you should also add the miles (and status miles) not earned for a paid ticket.

You might be interested to know that until the end of this month you could "buy" a very large quantity of CX Asia Miles for about 1.4 cents/mile. They aren't a good deal for some destinations - but it sounds like you value JFK-Europe RTs in J. This is only 60K Asia Miles (on BA, AA, or Swiss). If you don't know about this - see the thread about cheap miles in the AA forum. Buy cheap priceline hotels for $20-$22 each - $30 with fees - using the 1500 per booking Ebay Anything Points link. Then transfer your Anything points via point.com before the end of this month. Priceline Anything Points take about 48 hours to show up. Works out ot 1.3-1.4 cents per mile. A couple hours doing this could net you a LOT of miles.

In the past 14 years, I have paid for 1/2 of one ticket. I believe that was around $0.02 / mile. Other that that, I have paid nothing for many tickets. However, it is a different story for my company and companies that schedule my services. The following is a breakdown of ff mile $$$.

1997 - $0.41
1998 - $0.398
1999 - $0.612
2000 - $0.424
2001 - $0.438
2002 - $0.402
2003 - $0.26
2004 - $0.256 (so far this year)

What a difference it is when one pays for their own tickets and when someone else does.