TheTrustedTraveler

With the merger with Delta I would think that my NWA FF miles would be decreasing in value and would further decrease with the merger with delta if and when they merge ff accounts. If the standard ff amount is around 1 cent per mile what would you value NW miles at?

Bangkok Dave

Because I only redeem to SE Asia, and the average cash price is about $1200, the 60,000 miles to purchase an award ticket are worth .02 per mile.
Dave

fti

If you look at it purely from the perspective of "I would have had to pay $X but instead used Y number of miles" my miles are worth 5-10 cents/mile since I use them for economy or first class to Alaska or business class to Europe, both from a small city in central MN. But I would never pay those cash prices.

I still value my miles at about 2 cents/mile. I leave Thursday on a huge MR and figure the miles I am getting, if valued at 2 cents/mile, are worth roughly what my tickets cost. All other benefits are then "free."

John

raehl311

$0.01/mile.

I generally get more "cash value" than that when I'm able to redeem them, but the miles are not worth the cash value, since my ability to spend the miles is far restricted in comparison to my ability to spend cash.

But, miles on the WorldPerks visa card accrue at a cost of $0.005 each when charging NW flights.

MikeMpls

Still at $.02 per mile for now. Shortly before Christmas we booked MSP-IST/TXL-MSP in WBC for 100K miles apiece.

They seem to be lobbing a few lumps of coal in our direction but for now they are worth as much as ever.

TheTrustedTraveler

However you are not getting any ff miles for that flight, and you are not getting any elite miles for that flight, if you can fly that flight at all on a ff ticket therefore the miles wont add up to 2 cents per mile, personally I feel that NW ff miles have dipped below 1 cent per mile.

GUWonder

I don't generally value DL miles at being even 50-75% of the value of an equivalent number of AA or UA miles.

NW I still value higher than DL but it's on a fast track to reach DL-like sub-standard valuation.

thezipper

... and remember, there is at least another 100,000,000,000 Delta miles out there courtesy of AMEX waiting to be dumped... so I'd say 1 NW mile should = ~7-10 DL miles

fti

I used DL miles to fly my nephew first class from ATL to ANC next summer. 50K miles for first class (or was it 45K?). In any case, same number of miles as NW. But I plan ahead and can be flexible. Hopefully that will play in my favor.

I don't think the ball is dropping quite as fast as you think - if it is indeed 100,000,000,000 miles, those are the ones that will eventually get into the system. But people must charge $$$ in order to earn those miles so they are not all in the system yet. And most people use miles much less wisely than FT'ers so I suspect many would use double miles when we would make slight alterations to our plans to book lower mileage levels. Or others might use 25K miles for a ticket between two very cheap cities, etc.

Though I am not severely optimistic, I do think it will not be as bad as most here make it out to be.