ChicagoAlex

My thinking is very similar. My threshold for redeeming is $0.01. This is not to try to contradict anybody else's valuation on this board. YMMV.

IMO, any good valuation should depend on a number personal factors including:
+ The value you assign to lost miles, PQM, PQD and Lifetime mile earnings from a ticket that you might have purchased with cash
+ Personal discount rate (redeeming miles on a trip to Europe with a fantastic redemption rate in 3 years is probably less intelligent than redeeming at a mediocre rate today)
+ Expected devaluation over time (much like the discount rate, if you save your miles to redeem in a few years, there's a good chance you'll need more miles based on the way devaluation works)
+ Home location and flying patterns (most prominently, as has been mentioned, hub-status of your home airport and your mix of international / domestic travel)
+ Average booking lead-time
+ etc...

For example though - when redeeming on my kids (who don't have and aren't close to status), the my threshold to redeem effectively moves down since the lost PQM, PQD etc. don't matter.

If you're someone who buys a lot of International business class fares at the last minute, miles are probably much more valuable to you then they are to me.

Just so happens that for me a lot of these factors break the wrong way so I think I'm probably at the bottom end of the range, giving me the value of $0.01.

RNE

A quick survey of some travel bloggers yields values for a United mile at 1.4 to 1.8˘, not factoring in United's upcoming devaluations. Yet I recently booked a saver economy award CLE-SFO-HNL-KOA-SFO-CLE for 45,000 miles + $11.20, rather than $1349.57 for a paid ticket. That's 2.97˘/mile. And the award ticket is refundable for a small redeposit fee. To buy a flexible fare on this route would cost $2,814.56. That makes the award miles worth 6.2˘ each. But, in any case, prudent use of miles can yield values far in excess of the values commonly cited.

EmailKid

No worries, unless you fly domestic FC on Int'l routes, FC is going away and it will be only Biz. Still much nicer than coach.

Disagree. While I Iike lounge access as *G, I'd give that up before giving up Biz on longhaul.

Agree. But there are people who spend OPM (other people's money) to travel for business, and sometimes even own money, though that is rare.

IMHO, most of us who are lucky enough to fly Biz on longhaul, it's because we upgrade with GPUs (hopefully next year when I should be 1K again) or Ca$h and miles like I did this year.

Or we splurge when airlines offer insane $1.5K fares to Europe and $2K to Asia in Biz.

Did two a few years ago years to Europe a few years ago, and doing two this year to Asia this year - which should make me 1K again for next year

But for most folks, Ca$h and miles (if you choose your flights VERY carefully) is the King @:-) That over lounge access EVERY DAY @:-) (which you would get anyway if flying Biz).

kittiyut

For me, the best value will always be one-way, long haul International First.

At first I thought booking a one way SYD-BKK in TG F for 40,000 miles (9.5 hrs flight) @ ˘7.7/mile was already a good deal, but then I checked another one on NH ORD-NRT in F turns out it was a lot higher, at ˘13.17/mile!

jonsail

Some issues in comparing the purchase price of a business or first class TA or TP flight in miles and dollars:

1) If using miles you may take a somewhat less convenient flight.
2) If using miles you may have less of a cancellation penalty/fee than buying a non-refundable ticket with dollars.
3) Many people who do fly overseas in business or first get better deals if they buy from a consolidator or a cruise line (Cruise lines can get some fantastic deals because airlines know they are only selling to leisure travelers.)

hightide

I agree with this especially with the upcoming devaluation.

My last redemption was CGK-PER (24h stopover)-AKL (open-jaw) ZQN-MEL (stopover)-CGK for 35k miles + ~$200.
Cash tickets for this route can be easily had for under $1,000 during shoulder season, and I would be happy to pay $750 on a less than ideal routing Y ticket earning 0 miles.

($750-$200)/35k miles = 1.5~1.6c/mi

After the devaluation, the same itinerary will cost 50k miles, resulting in a value of 1.1c/mi.

After the deval, both South East Asia - NZ (50k return) and South East Asia - USA (80k return) redemption will just be about 1cent/mi in value. And there are not many other routes providing better mileage value.

cerealmarketer

This is is what I do as well - intl partner J or short notice domestic economy with the CPU chance.

Regularly 3-5 cpm.

Granted if I planned ahead on domestic the value would be much lower but I value the late booking flexibility.

But intl J and F isn't the 5 cent plus game it once was at least off retail.

exwannabe

Can this really still be done with today's cheap fares?

For example, just took a quick look at JFK<>SIN RT in C on random dates. Can book on a few carriers for under $3K, and Turksih priced at under $4K.

When you factor in that you would have earned something like 30K RDMs on the revenue ticket, a 120K award would be about 2 - 2.5 cpm.

Hell, as a DL captive this .... hits me even worse. But I do have some CC miles than can be used on *A.

LarkSFO

I guess if you receive all your miles for free then 1 cent / mile may seem attractive? Seems like your redemption patterns could use some improvement though. Have you heard of Frequent Traveler University?

My most recent redemptions:

10,000 miles for a ~$350 ticket. Domestic economy
12,500 miles for a ~$575 ticket. Domestic economy
35,000 (each) for 2 economy tickets SFO-LHR

Redemption is what it is; Go with what makes sense to you based upon your decision making criteria.

I am working to re-accumulate more CSP points and United miles for future travels.

Artpen100

It really depends on what you use them for. Domestically, around $.01 each is often what they would seem to save if I used them. The exception is for last-minute domestic travel where the dollar price can be very high but there is still saver awards available. But using them on international, they can be worth up to $.05 to $.10 to upgrade to or get an award ticket in J, particularly since I the flights I want often seem to be $6K-$9K in J, versus the $2.8K range when I am lucky. So I mainly use them for international business class awards and upgrades or last minute domestic travel where the ticket price is high.

dand99

I haven't heard of FTU but am going to take a look, thanks.

I fly for work and use my miles for tickets I would otherwise purchase with cash. I mostly fly Y TATL and US domestic - TATL travel can be found cheaply these days so there's no need to use miles there.

US domestic travel - all depends on which flight I need, but I am flexible and my US travel is usually flights that go for $100-200, hence $0.01 or so.

If I was flying C obviously the theoretical value per mile would go up, but I'd rather spend the miles on more Y flights....

dand99

Aussienarelle

+1.

The only time I will use miles for an upgrade, and note I only do this for international flights, is if the fare differential to "W" is more than $550. This is because I value my cash more than the miles. :-)

simmang

About a month ago I decided to do just this. Ditched using my MileagePlus Club Card and instead applied for and started using the Chase Sapphire Reserve for dining/travel and Citi Double Cash card (2% cash back) for everything else.

The fact I can never find saver premium space for routes I want to fly, and the upcoming dynamically priced awards, makes the miles less valuable to me. I'd rather earn on the sapphire card and have the flexibility to transfer to UA miles if I find a good redemption opportunity.

zombietooth

There are lots of domestic bargains to small airports e.g. ASE, JAC, SUN, etc. where a o/w is often $800- to $1,000- or more and yet saver awards are available. I have saved, quite literally, thousands off the cash prices (calculated at 2 cpm) over the past few years to these and other outstations.