which miles are the most valuable?
 

The recent thread I started on redemption strategies got me thinking about which miles I value the most so I'm going to tell you. As a disclaimer, I only have experience with US programs and a handful of Asian programs so my thoughts are somewhat limited in scope. Nonetheless, they may of some value and I'm curious about your comments. Here are my rankings:

1) AA - great availability (I've never not been able to redeem at the cheap level), awesome international upgrades, good partners, and domestic awards allow stopover PLUS open jaw
2) UA - while the availability isn't too great, they fly lots of places I go. Also no fees for last minute bookings
3) AS - many people can't use AS miles because their east coast coverage is limited, but for those of us that have business/pleasure in the west, east, and northwest, the 20K award is a great value
4) NW - no advance booking fee, first class for elites on Y awards per normal upgrade procedures, 30K intra-Asia in business class which can be split with Y
5) DL - good availabilty (IME best other than AA), decent open jaw/stopover rules on domestic awards
6) CO - I can't say anthing good about them other than the fact you can move the miles to UA via Amtrak
7) WN - while I understand the utility of WN awards, they just don't fit my travel patterns, hence the low ranking
8) B6 - I love the TVs so I fly them, but the FF program is so bad that I don't even bother crediting my flights (and that's saying something because I obviously care abot this stuff).

Turning towards Asia, the Chinese programs really can't be compared with their American counterparts so I won't comment other than to say that they fail to motivate me to pledge allegiance to any particular carrier. As for AsiaMiles, JL, and NH, I place a premiunm on their miles because they cost a lot (when earned at 50/70%), but they're nothing special. BR/KE/OZ flights are best crediting towards other programs.

That concludes my summary. Your thoughts?

I have always found AS miles to be the easiest miles to use because they are partners with half the airlines that fly in and out of the U.S.

Also, haven't had a problem using UA miles, even during holidays and at the last minute.

Our goal is to build up a large quantity of both UA and AS miles before we retire so we can fly pretty much any airline we want once we finally have the time. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Actually the best value we ever got from points/miles (thanks to Ozstamps) was trading in 120,000 Starwood points for 300,000 Qantas miles, which we in turn traded for two Concorde tickets. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif We still have 50,000 Qantas miles left in our account.

I agree AA is probably #1. I would rank US #2. In addition to being able to redeem miles on both US and UA, US is one of the few (the only?) major to still offer domestic coach awards at 20K (Sept 15 - Feb 29). Although award availability is not as good as AA, it has improved.

CO miles are least valuable, at least when attempting to redeem on CO. Since you can also redeem CO miles on DL and NW, they are not totally worthless.

What should I do with almost 80,000 CO miles? I tried to redeem them for an upgrade to Europe with NO success. Is there any possible travel use for these CO miles. What a regret!

I vote for AS. (If you live in Seattle, or Alaska, it's even more valuable!!

The big plus is 20K awards all year long... including transcon. While not much presence on the East Coast, they do have EWR, BOS, IAD, DCA, ORD, and MIA.... works for me!

Plus all the Mexico destinations.

As was mentioned before, they are partners with QX, CO, AA, QF, NW, KL, BA, LA (Lan Chile) and now CX!! My award travel has allowed stopovers, open-jaws, flexible routing, etc. Not many places I can't go!

Then there were the wonderful AS50 awards... but sadly, not as valuable as they once were (no free class upgrades allowed anymore).

No wacky fraction miles either... full miles per mile on all partners. (Double miles for me since I'm MVPGold), numerous miles promotions, etc. Very easy to accumulate miles, and with 20K awards, you don't use them as quick.

Again, YMMV. Extremely valuable program for those who live in Seattle and Alaska. Not as good if you live someplace like Atlanta.

I guess this doesn't fit exactly, but my vote is Starwood. You can either book a hotel with no blackouts or controls, or exchange 20K for 25K in most airlines.

I second the vote for Starwood.

Here is the way I look at it. Most frequent flyer mileage addicts like myself are trying to collect points and miles for use on vacations. That being the case, one should consider that much more time will be spent in and around the hotel room during a vacation versus the time spent on a flight. Besides, there is usually a good deal to be had on airline tickets regardless of the season. However, good deals on a first rate hotel during high season is a lot harder to come by.

Among the major hotel chains, Starwood is by far the best in terms of availability, points required for free nights, number of properties, and ease to become elite members. With the latest acquisition of Le Meridian (hopefully will be integrated into SPG), Starwood is no doubt the best value out there.

convert them to UA miles

I will "third" the vote for Starwood. Not only you get the hotels, but if you do want the miles (if you travel to destinations like South America or Asia where hotels are cheap and flights are expensive, miles may be a priority) you have the pick of the litter of the airlines aside from UA (due to bad conversion rate). That way, you can call each airline one by one and find the one that has the award available.

The starpoints are the most valuable once you have them, but they are probably the hardest to come by, not nearly as many opportunities to earn them and the amount you earn per $ spent (on hotel/airline) is usually less than what you would get with airline miles. That is probably why they have been able to maintain a higher value.

I agree just used AS miles yesterday to secure first born child a honeymoon trip to Hawaii in April. Had to flex one day to secure desired tickets. Took me maybe 15 minutes total time on the phone. This is consistent with other redemption experiences using AS miles.

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"A day without FF Miles is like a day without SUNSHINE"

Living here in Japan, I'll have to go with NW. Besides still only requiring 30K for an intra-Asian business class RT as moondog points out (CO requires 40K), it has a strong Asian network (at least it goes where I want to go) and a good online award booking engine on its Japanese website.

(corrected typo)

[This message has been edited by DoubleJ (edited Jan 06, 2004).]

Looking at domestic carriers, I would rank AA the best followed by UA and US. CO has to be the worst!

As far as international carriers are concerned, I highly value my LH miles! I can use them on various *A flights and have never had a problem getting an award even on short notice.

Hi ~ Really new at this. So new, in fact, that I don't know what AS stands for. Can anyone enlighten me? Much obliged.
~ Suzy

Alaska Airlines http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I will "fourth" the Starwood starpoints. You could "earn" an extra 5,000 miles just for converting 20,000 miles to any of many airlines on the list.

Then, you could book an off-peak award travel on US Airways for 20,000 domestic travel award, which would save you another 5,000. Further, if you are a NW visa cardholder, you could save an additional 4,000 of a domestic ticket for specified periods. Add this to the frequent NW promotion of earning 1,500 miles for booking award travel online during around Nov. to April. Then you would bee looking at saving about 5,500 miles from the 25,000 miles, which were really 20,000 miles from STarwood.

If you opted not to use the miles for airline travel, then you could use them to book hotel rooms. If they have the rooms available, you could book them--in other words, no blackouts.