It seems that often the "value" you get for miles when redeemed for something like magazines is less than what you would get for a flight or upgrade. The actual value of a mile can be debated endlessly because it is arrived at by several variable factors, among them are:

1) what are you redeeming it for
2) what is your perceived value of the award (how much would you actually pay for it - not what is charged for it)

On one hand, getting an award seat is often like pulling teeth, which diminishes the value of a mile.

On the other hand, I can get free stopovers, open jaws, and get the schedule I want without paying extra.

I wanted a certain schedule to fly open jaw EWR-TUS, LAS-EWR and used 20k miles for the flight because I had the miles and to get that schedule for the dates I wanted without a redeye (which I did not want). Had I bought that exact itenary outright it would have cost $1200. Sure I would not pay that much for the flight (just like I would not pay 4 or 5 times coach fare for FC) so one should value miles based on what a person is willing to pay and not solely on what price that the airlines charge. I am not willing to spend an extra day in travel (and thus extra money) just trying to accomodate a cheaper flight. To me, one of the stupidest things people do is plan their vacation based primarily on price of flight and end up spending like $150 more and losing a day's worth of time just to accomodate a flight that is $100 cheaper. With the miles, the flights all are priced the same provided they are available. So I could have perhaps purchased a cheaper roundtrip to TUS, PHX or LAS (maybe for $200-$250 instead of spending 20k miles) and had to drive more to accomodate it, but to me personally, it is worth at least $200 more to not have to waste a day or most of a day driving extra just to accomodate the flight. For me, money is easier to come by than vacation time - so I would perceive the use of miles for this flight to be more than the dirt cheapest roundtrip that could be obtained to go to that region.

To me, based on what I would redeem the miles for and what matters to me, the miles are worth about 2 cents. I think the limited availability is offset by getting the route/schedule that I want without paying extra for it.

If the airlines really wanted to get cute, they would reward $$ spent, not miles flown. I have flown BOS-LGW RT for less than it would cost me to fly BOS-LGA but I get many thousands more miles. Counting miles and segments are stupid for the carriers, what the airlines really want to reward are your $$ spent.

Then again, it's very unlikey that flying a passenger from BOS-LGW costs less than flying a passenger from BOS-LGA. So perhaps the airlines should re-examine their fare structures rather than messing with the FF programs.

AA tried to do that several years ago and got creamed in the marketplace. DL this year ran a promo in which double BASE miles were issued if you paid a high enough fare. Absolutely made business sense to me!


[This message has been edited by RobertS975 (edited 05-25-2002).]

Forget these mileage plans. Instead of being a truly important customer to the airline company as I used to be, to them I'm now just another schm*ck with a platinum card in my wallet and a couple million miles that I don't truly need and won't have time to use in the foreseeable future.

Again, I think these programs are here to stay - thankfully! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif