Point values - Revision history

Editor at 18:14, 1 September 2021

2021-09-01T18:14:38Z

Show changes

Editor: /* The value of different types of miles */

2021-08-12T20:36:38Z

‎The value of different types of miles

Editor: /* Get more value with business and first-class award tickets */

2021-08-12T20:30:47Z

‎Get more value with business and first-class award tickets

Editor: /* The diminished value of frequent flyer miles for coach flights */

2021-08-12T20:28:56Z

‎The diminished value of frequent flyer miles for coach flights

Editor: /* “Fixed Value” frequent flyer points */

2021-04-20T23:37:18Z

‎“Fixed Value” frequent flyer points

Editor: Editor moved page Point Values to Point values without leaving a redirect

2021-02-19T05:01:37Z

Editor moved page Point Values to Point values without leaving a redirect

Editor at 07:19, 12 February 2021

2021-02-12T07:19:04Z

Editor at 01:05, 8 January 2021

2021-01-08T01:05:07Z

Editor: /* "Transferable" credit card points */

2020-05-01T16:43:28Z

‎"Transferable" credit card points

Editor: /* "Transferable" credit card points */

2020-05-01T16:43:17Z

‎"Transferable" credit card points

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 <ul class="bulletlist">
-<li>'''Points from foreign airlines can be just as valuable as points from US airlines, even if you never plan to fly on that airline'''. For example, you may dismiss getting a credit card that offers British Airways points because you don’t often fly British Airways. However, British Airlines and American Airlines both belong to the Oneworld Alliance, so you can use your British Airlines points to book award travel on American Airlines (as well as a bunch of other partners). In some ways, points on British Airlines can be even more valuable than American Airlines miles. Their program is distance-based, so it requires fewer miles when you are taking shorter American Airlines flights. </li>
+<li>'''Points from foreign airlines can be just as valuable as points from US airlines, even if you never plan to fly on that airline'''. For example, you may dismiss getting a credit card that offers British Airways points because you don’t often fly British Airways. However, British Airlines and American Airlines both belong to the Oneworld Alliance, so you can use your British Airlines points to book saver award space on American Airlines (as well as a bunch of other partners). In some ways, points on British Airlines can be even more valuable than American Airlines miles. Their program is distance-based, so it requires fewer miles when you are taking shorter American Airlines flights. </li>
 Due to the major alliances and partner programs, points from almost any frequent flyer program are useful to almost everyone.
 {{Image|AsiaMiles.jpg}}
 <li>'''As discussed above, the base value of frequent flyer miles depends on your how frequent flyer programs work for you'''. If you are willing to deal with the extra complexity, have a great deal of flexibility, and/or place a high value on premium seats, miles are more valuable.</li>

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 <li>'''When you use your miles to book premium-cabin international award tickets, you’ll get much more “face-value” from your miles—often 4 cents or more'''. For example, a business class round trip to Europe might cost $4,500. If you use 115,000 United points, that works out to about 4 cents in value per point. Some first-class tickets are priced high enough that you might theoretically get over 10 cents in face-value from your points.</li>
-<li>'''However, the real value of premium award tickets is based on how much you would have otherwise paid for the flights'''. If you would have paid the full cash price for premium-cabin seats, you are getting the full face-value from your award tickets. Anyone who would have actually paid out-of-pocket for an international business or first-class ticket is getting a great deal on award tickets. </li>
+<li>'''However, the real value of premium award tickets is based on how much you would have otherwise paid for the flights'''. If you would have paid the full cash price for premium-cabin seats, you are getting the full face-value from your award tickets. Anyone who would have actually paid out-of-pocket for an international business or first-class ticket is getting a great deal when they are able to use award tickets instead. </li>
 But if you wouldn’t normally consider paying more than $300-500 extra for a business class upgrade on an international flight, premium cabin redemptions are much less valuable than their face-value. Perhaps the tickets are only worth $1,000 or $1,500 to you. If so, you might still be only getting 1–1.5 cents in value from a typical redemption.

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 <li>'''It is hard to get good value for your frequent flyer miles on coach tickets'''. If ticket prices are high, there is usually no award availability or the airlines require huge numbers of points; and if prices are low, you aren't saving much money with your ticket. </li>
-Low-cost carriers have dramatically dropped the cost of international airfares from North America and on many flights within Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. At the same time, frequent flyer programs have been continuously increasing the number of miles (and sometimes the fees) you need to pay for award tickets.
+Low-cost carriers have dramatically dropped the cost of international airfares from North America and on many flights within Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. At the same time, frequent flyer programs have been continuously increasing the number of miles (and sometimes the fees) you need to pay for award tickets. Plus, with airlines moving to dynamic pricing, it is hard to combine connecting flights into a single itinerary or use partner frequent flyer miles.
 <li>'''If you don’t live in a popular international gateway, the situation is even worse'''. US carriers have gotten increasingly stingy with normal-priced awards, particularly on domestic flights. This doesn’t only affect your ability to find a good redemption opportunity when you are flying within the United States, it also affects many people’s ability to take advantage of international award tickets. Without award space available on your connection to an international gateway, you’ll need to buy a separate cash ticket to get you to the departure city or use your miles for an additional award ticket. In either case, you'll need to recheck your bags and worry about a missed connection.</li>
@@ Line 46: / Line 48: @@
 <li>'''In extreme cases, fuel surcharges on international award tickets can be close to the full price for the ticket'''. For example, on British Airways flights to Europe, the out of pocket cost for an award ticket may only be $200 less than the regular ticket price. In the end, you would be saving only $200 with the 25–40,000 miles it will require to book your “free” tickets.</li>
-<li>'''There are often significant downsides to using frequent flyer tickets'''. You won’t earn new miles on the trip. Perhaps more importantly, you will often find yourself taking less convenient flights, in an effort to take advantage of the limited award space that is available. On the other hand, sometimes frequent flyer tickets have better change and cancellation policies than regular tickets (but not always).</li>
+<li>'''There are often significant downsides to using frequent flyer tickets'''. You won’t earn new miles on the trip. Perhaps more importantly, you will often find yourself taking less convenient flights, in an effort to take advantage of the limited award space that is available.</li>
 </ul>

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 {{Image|SWRedeem.jpg}}
-For example, on Southwest airline, a round trip domestic ticket doesn’t cost a fixed 25,000 points. The award price of the ticket is determined by dividing the ticket price by between 1.2 - 1.8 cents per point. There aren’t really good or really bad opportunities to use your points and there aren’t issues with award availability—you’ll get roughly the same value per point, regardless of when you use them.
+For example, on Southwest airline, a round trip domestic ticket doesn’t cost a fixed 25,000 points. The award price of the ticket is determined by dividing the ticket price by between 1.2 - 1.6 cents per point. There aren’t really good or really bad opportunities to use your points and there aren’t issues with award availability—you’ll get roughly the same value per point, regardless of when you use them.
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 |Southwest Airlines
-|style="width: .5in;"|1.5
+|style="width: .5in;"|1.4
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 |JetBlue

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-Different types of reward points have very different values. Some points are worth a fixed 1 cent each. Other points, like Ultimate Rewards points, are considerably more valuable, worth 1.5, 2, or 3 cents each. A point from some hotel chains, like Hilton, are worth ½ cent or even less.
+Different types of reward points have very different values. Some points are worth a fixed 1 cent each. Other points, like Chase's Ultimate Rewards, are considerably more valuable, worth 1.5, 2, or even 3 cents each. A point from some hotel chains, like Hilton, are worth ½ cent or even less.
 But the truth is that most points and miles don’t have a set value. The value of each type of point and mile is different for different people—depending on how you travel, how you plan to use your points, how much you spend, and how many points you already have.
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 *[[#An example|An example]]
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 <li>'''Instead of having a fixed value, the value of frequent flyer miles varies widely based on your opportunities to use them'''. If you can use 25,000 points to book a cross-country flight that would have otherwise cost $400, you are getting 1.6 cents in value per point. However, if there is no saver availability and you need to use 50,000 points instead, you are only getting .8 cents in value. And if the flight were only $250, even at the cheaper award rate, you would only get 1 cent in value from your points. </li>
-On the other hand, if you can take advantage of a “sweet spot” to use 25,000 miles to book a trip from the East Coast to Hawaii, which would otherwise have cost $800, you are getting 3.2 cents in value per point.
+On the other hand, if you can take advantage of a “sweet spot” to use 25,000 miles to book a trip from the East Coast to Hawaii (which would otherwise have cost $800), you are getting 3.2 cents in value per point.
 <li>'''It is hard to get good value for your frequent flyer miles on coach tickets'''. If ticket prices are high, there is usually no award availability or the airlines require huge numbers of points; and if prices are low, you aren't saving much money with your ticket. </li>
-Low-cost carriers have dramatically dropped the cost of international airfares from North America and on many flights within Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. At the same time, frequent flyer programs have been continuously increasing the number of miles (and sometimes the fees) you need for award tickets.
+Low-cost carriers have dramatically dropped the cost of international airfares from North America and on many flights within Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world. At the same time, frequent flyer programs have been continuously increasing the number of miles (and sometimes the fees) you need to pay for award tickets.
 <li>'''If you don’t live in a popular international gateway, the situation is even worse'''. US carriers have gotten increasingly stingy with normal-priced awards, particularly on domestic flights. This doesn’t only affect your ability to find a good redemption opportunity when you are flying within the United States, it also affects many people’s ability to take advantage of international award tickets. Without award space available on your connection to an international gateway, you’ll need to buy a separate cash ticket to get you to the departure city or use your miles for an additional award ticket. In either case, you'll need to recheck your bags and worry about a missed connection.</li>
@@ Line 50: / Line 49: @@
 </ul>
-'''For most people, we recommend holding onto your miles, unless you are getting 1.5 cents each or more'''. While you typically can't get this much value from your frequent flyer miles, you should eventually be able to do so—hold onto them until you can. There are sweet-spots in different award programs (where you can book tickets for less than the normal number of points); routes where the regular prices are still high; and the opportunity to book out award space far ahead of time.
+'''For most people, we recommend holding onto your miles, unless you are getting 1.5 cents each or more'''. While you typically can't get this much value from your frequent flyer miles, you should eventually be able to do so—you usually want to hold onto them until you can. There are sweet-spots in different award programs (where you can book tickets for less than the normal number of points); routes where the regular prices are still high; and the opportunity to book award space far ahead of time.
 '''But because frequent flyer miles are hard to use, we only value them at around 1.2 cents each'''. In other words, while we expect to eventually get 1.5 cents or more in value, we wouldn't pay more than 1.2 cents each to acquire frequent flyer miles. This discount offsets the effort involved to use the miles and the less convenient flight options we are likely to settle on.
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 === Get more value with business and first-class award tickets ===
-Things look different when you want to get business or first-class award tickets or upgrades.
+Things look different when you want to use your miles to get business or first-class award tickets or upgrades.
 {{ImageX|BizClass2.jpg}}
 <ul class="bulletlist">
-<li>'''When you use your miles to book premium-cabin international award tickets (or upgrades), you’ll get much more “face-value” from your miles—often 4 cents or more'''. For example, a business class round trip to Europe might cost $4,500. If you use 115,000 United points, that works out to about 4 cents in value per point. Some first-class tickets have face values high enough that you might theoretically get over 10 cents in face-value from your points.</li>
+<li>'''When you use your miles to book premium-cabin international award tickets, you’ll get much more “face-value” from your miles—often 4 cents or more'''. For example, a business class round trip to Europe might cost $4,500. If you use 115,000 United points, that works out to about 4 cents in value per point. Some first-class tickets are priced high enough that you might theoretically get over 10 cents in face-value from your points.</li>
-<li>'''However, the real value of premium award tickets is based on how much you would have otherwise paid for the flights'''. If you would have paid the full cash price for premium-cabin seats, you are getting the full face-value from your award tickets. Anyone who can use points to avoid paying out-of-pocket for an international business or first-class ticket is getting a great deal. </li>
+<li>'''However, the real value of premium award tickets is based on how much you would have otherwise paid for the flights'''. If you would have paid the full cash price for premium-cabin seats, you are getting the full face-value from your award tickets. Anyone who would have actually paid out-of-pocket for an international business or first-class ticket is getting a great deal on award tickets. </li>
-But, if you wouldn’t normally consider paying more than $300-500 extra for a business class upgrade on an international flight, premium cabin redemptions are much less valuable than their face-value. Perhaps the tickets are only worth $1,000 or $1,500 to you. If so, you might still be only getting 1–1.5 cents in value from a typical redemption.
+But if you wouldn’t normally consider paying more than $300-500 extra for a business class upgrade on an international flight, premium cabin redemptions are much less valuable than their face-value. Perhaps the tickets are only worth $1,000 or $1,500 to you. If so, you might still be only getting 1–1.5 cents in value from a typical redemption.
-In other words, many people might feel they get more value from using their points for two coach tickets or a bunch of hotel nights, rather than a single business class ticket; while other people would prefer spending a bunch of points to fly in a business or first-class seat they could never afford (or convince themselves to pay for), if they had to pay cash.
+In other words, many people might feel they get more value from using their points for two coach tickets or a bunch of hotel nights, rather than a single business class ticket; while other people would prefer spending a bunch of points to fly in a business or first-class seat they could never afford (or convince themselves to pay for).
 <li>'''Regardless of how much you value the tickets, you will need to earn a lot of points before you will be able to make a premium cabin redemption and it can be very hard to find availability'''.  It will typically take around 200,000 points to pay for a round trip business class flight for two to Europe and 600,000 points for a family of four to fly on business class on a dream trip to Africa. That represents a lot of credit card spending or signup bonuses. So, if you realistically aren’t going to be generating many points from your spending, you are usually better off planning to use your points in a different way. </li>
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 <li>'''From these base values, the relative value of points for different programs depends on their award charts, policies, and partners'''. If a program often offers lower-than-normal price rewards, has particularly good redemption policies, doesn’t charge excessive fees, and/or has a good set of useful airline partners, their points are more valuable. For example, Alaska Airlines has a good partner network, offers reduced priced short-distance awards, has some great values in their partner award charts, isn’t particularly stingy with availability, and is the only airline that allows a free stopover on a one-way award, making their points more valuable than many of their rivals.</li>
-Of course, what matters most is how the program will work for you. If you frequently fly to Central America or Korea, programs that offer less expensive redemptions to those regions are more valuable. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter that these sweet spots exist.
+Of course, what matters most is how the program will work for you. If you frequently fly to Central America or Korea, programs that offer less expensive redemptions to those regions are more valuable. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter that those sweet spots exist.
 </ul>

← Older revision		Revision as of 16:43, 1 May 2020
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	In addition, Diners Club, Capital One, and HSBC operate similar, but smaller, transferable rewards programs.		In addition, Diners Club, Capital One, and HSBC operate similar, but smaller, transferable rewards programs.
−

	<ul class="bulletlist">		<ul class="bulletlist">

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 === "Transferable" credit card points ===
 <ul class="bulletlist">
-<li>'''Transferable credit card points are almost always more valuable than frequent flyer miles'''. Instead of being locked into a single program, you can transfer Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, ThankYou, Marriott, Capital One Venture or Diner’s Club points to several different frequent flyer programs. This lets you redeem award tickets for almost any airline and take advantage of whichever partner program offers the lowest priced redemptions for your trip.</li>
+<li>'''Transferable credit card points are almost always more valuable than frequent flyer miles'''. Instead of being locked into a single program, you can transfer your points to several different frequent flyer programs. This lets you redeem award tickets for almost any airline and take advantage of whichever partner program offers the lowest priced redemptions for your trip.</li>
 {{Image|TransferPrograms.png|480}}