Welcome to FT travfar!

For future reference, check our pgary's website under Value of Miles. He has a nice formula for calculating whether to use miles or cash, even though this example was pretty straightforward.

50k miles vs $500? That's an easy choice, pay for the ticket. Right now i just was looking at flights vs miles on MVD-ATL. It's a $2000 ticket in mid January, but 60,000 miles. That's 3 cents per mile, vs 1 cent which you'd get on the europe trip.

The only reason to take the miles option is if you have a LOT of miles and aren't using them.

Please read the entire thread - it is now $1000 vs. 50K miles.

I have redeemed miles at low redemption rates when it meant taking a family a trip we wouldn't otherwise be inclined to do for financial reasons...so, the miles were an empowering opportunity, enabling a vacation we weren't going to take, and therefore the redemption "value" was high to us, but low in absolutes $/mile.

BTW, it is $150 for CO reward changes now, not $100.

me, I'd rather pay cash for an upgradeable coach fare and then use the miles to upgrade. typically this is a much better return than using the miles to get a coach ticket, but then again I fly almost exclusively on AA.

hope things work out for you, OP

-benzguy80

Glad you don't fly NW. Upgradeable coach fares are only Y and B fares - read: very expensive. I prefer to use miles for outright international business class ticket. Flying CO next Tuesday to Italy that way. Woohoo!

Thanks for pointing out this UA vs CO difference. There was a time when I flew a good deal on CO (when CO was a good deal), but that hasn't been for years, and I don't know when I might fly them again. But when I get unhappy about some of UA's "enhancements," it is helpful to be reminded of the advantages that UA offers in certain circumstances, like this business about how changes to award tickets are handled.

At $500, no question I would buy the ticket. And often, when I need miles to requalify for 1K, I still will buy at $1000. For me, what is much more important, is earning and upgrading....or going for an F tix on LH!

I burned 150K (3X50K) for a domestic transcon to go to the Rose Bowl

the tickets were anywhere from 500-800 bucks each.. I say anywhere from b/c I had to wait until the the games were announced to buy my ticket and to travel New Years Eve and come back the 3rd Sat.. it was expensive.. when I finally got around to looking I was having problems finding 3 tickets under 2 grand (total) in coach; I did not want to shell out that kind of dough and since I had 665K miles I decided to go with it and just eat the miles.. plus the $15 in taxes ($5 X 3)...

not the best value but as someone said, I still have that 1800-2100 cash in my pocket and I should requalify for EXP next year so right off the bat that is another 200K earned back..

I don't know.. if you have the miles, sometimes its just more fun to keep the cash.. sure you can get more value if you try.. but sometimes stuff comes up that you want to do and well... thats more fun than trying to get the most for each and every mile

Well, TrojanHorse, I just did nearly exactly the same thing (2x50K) for exactly the same reason. My buddy will be paying for the hotel and car, and I got the air tickets. For me, this was the right decision at this point.

Given your name here, I'm guessing that we'll be wearing different colors at the game. :-) Good luck!

Hi Travfar,

Nice question - pay money, burn miles = depends on the $ and miles!

No matter the answer - have a great trip!

Elizabeth

yep I'll be the one in cardinal and gold


I am using Marriott points as well for the lodging and my free avis weekend for two of the three days I'll have a car so the real out of pocket is the tickets, one day of car rental and whatever I spend.. so my point of view is 2K saved, probably about 500 burned and 150K miles which still leaves me with a $1500 gain which in theory could be applied to travel next year anyway..

its really an individual decision for each person. I would surmise that someone could have one heckuva trip if they could travel anytime anywhere with 150k miles but then again, I will guess that I'll have just as much fun on this trip as anyone would have on any other exotic 150K mile trip as well

fight on... beat the lions

the Rose Bowl (BCS championship) in Jan '06 was worth that kind of expenditure ^

Ironically I was able to buy an airline ticket to that game for $200 but that was b/c of the timing a week into January; this year I'm competing with the way the holiday breaks and all the holiday travelers