Much has been written about trying to put a value toward points and miles and it has often been said that it depends on individual circumstances and prefences. Let's use this thread to not focus on the monetary value but on the circumstances and the resulting preferences on how people choose to *spend* miles/points.

I can think of four determining factors.

1. Disposable Miles/Points
The true frequent traveler (20+ trips a year) or big credit card spender earns so many rewards that entry level ones become meaningless. A big reward can mean two seats in F or six seats in Y for a family.

2. Disposable Income.
The richer you are, the more likely you are to save for the big awards because you'd otherwise outright buy them.

3. Disposable Time
The less time/vacation you have, the more likely you are to spend big. *Edited to clarify: Time = Vacation.

4. "Disposable" Age
The older you are, the more likely you are to appreciate comfort over travel frequency and therefore go for C/F, luxury collection hotels.

The behavior to *earn* miles/points is entirely driven by the way you anticipate spending them.

Right On!

I don't agree:

1. You seem to imply that because someone earns a lot of miles, they don't care about getting additional miles or are not interested in redeeming your basic 25K domestic coach award. Nothing could be further from the truth. I care about every mile I earn (even though I have 3 million banked) and will redeem 25K awards if the fare is too high to justify purchase.

2. I'm fairly well off, but would never buy a business or first class ticket to Australia. That's what miles are for. I don't necessarily buy every domestic coach ticket either. As in #1, if the fare is too high, I will use a 25K award.

3. No correlation that I can see between my time and spending miles on big awards.

4. A bit of truth to this one. I like comfort AND I like to travel frequently. But again, I'll only spend miles/points if the value is there. I'll almost never redeem miles for a first class domestic ticket, but prefer F/BC for overseas trips. Less picky about hotels and will usually opt for best deal. If I am staying for more than one night, may opt for a nicer hotel.

I think your "fresh look" needs, well, another look.

Thresholds for miles redemption are individual. Everyone in MR is looking for the best mile per dollar value of a flight, but the important figure, IMHO, is the dollar per mile saved by buying tickets in miles instead of dollars.

If I must spend 120,000 miles to buy a ticket worth $6,000, that I would really pay $6,000, then I redeem at 0,050 dollar per mile. It's the true value of my miles. As long as they are not spent, they have no value. If I spend 25,000 miles for a $200 ticket, my value will be 0,008 dollar per mile.

The true value of miles must take into account the "real" value of the award you get. I wouldn't pay $15,000 for a plane ticket. Never. So saying that 200,000 miles can get me a r/t in first JFK-SYD, won't mean that my "mile value" is 0,075 dollar per mile...

If anyone out there is actually enough of a chump to pay $6,000 - $15,000 for some of these flights, I will personally fly to your city and book your award ticket at the ticket counter with you standing right next to me. Heck, and I'll even do it for a 25% discount off the fare.

And many younger folks don't have much money to begin with (like me), let alone spending extra for extravagances during travel.

As the OP said, "it depends on individual circumstances and prefences"

1 - I also have a few million and wouldn't even think of the Wal-mart, Money Order, etc., schemes to get miles - they're just not worth my time. After eagerly following my balance up to 500K or so, and never seeing any missed flights, rooms, etc., I rarely even look at statements any more. Sure, I may miss out on a few thousand over the years, but it's not worth my time obsessing over.

2, I can't figure out. If you make enough, an F flight to Oz is a drop in the bicket and miles are an irrelevant concept (yes, I'd like to be in this situation too).

3 - I too don't see the relationship. But if someone else does spend miles to save time, I'd be interested in the logic.

4 - I'll buy this one. I used to grab the cheapest Motel 6/Super 8 when it's on my dime. Now I'll at least spring for a Fairfiled/Courtyard

There is no "right" answer, but these are interesting observations to toss into the mix.

I don't know who buys full price F tickets to SYD (that's where I got the 15,000 figure) but I suppose someone probably does. Companies with wealthy customers, probably... We'll never know the percentage of seats sold at full fare by airlines.

Well I am no where near the league you guys are in, but assuming there are a few budget travelers who are members here is my system for valuing miles: Basically I look for the cheapest internet or Flight Centre special (not including tax since you still have to pay the tax on top of the miles) and divide the price of the cheapest ticket I would spend money on by them amount of miles it would cost. These ones are all *A economy class ex-Australia awards for trips I have planned within the next few years:

Route award points cheapest fare tax point value
SQ-CAI 80,000 1835 110 0.022
NZ-RAR 20,000 778 218 0.038
SQ-JNB 100,000 1703 150 0.017
TG-KTM 50,000 1553 155 0.031
UA-LAX 60,000 1459 185 0.024
UA-MIA 60,000 2012 185 0.030
UA-SJU 60,000 2600 185 0.043
UA-TEG 60,000 2600 185 0.043
VG-RIO 80,000 2379 115 0.029

Sorry the spreadsheet pasted a bit funny and not all all the taxes have been updated since I did this a couple of months ago. As you can see, the best value is OZ-Caribbean or Central America, closely followed by the Pacific Islands, Central Asia and East Coast USA. The worst deal is to use miles to South Africa because reasonably priced SQ tickets are available for this route and they cost 100,000 miles. I think JNB and CPT, maybe NBO are the only places you can get to on SQ or TG from Australia-can't use LH via Europe as that bumps the price up. You have to be really organized to do this, not the sort who decides on the spur of the moment they want to go to Africa unless you have millions of miles which I don't and some of you guys do.

For me, miles are for upgrading on international flights paid for by my business or the business that hires me and provides coach fares. This is the bulk of my travel.

For domestic, I will use miles to buy a ticket when the fare is especially high - even for my own business. For upgrades, I don't worry - its the electronic "points" which can be used for domestic upgrades only or fly coach. A 4.5 or 5 hour flight seems short after 15 years of travel to Europe from the west coast of the US and to Perth, Australia in the other direction.

As for vacation? Why on earth would I want to get on another airplane and sleep in another strange bed when I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth?

Best wishes,

Teacher49