How Much are Points Worth? (2020)
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.
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.
WE assign a value to each type of point so that we can have a conversation about the relative value of different options. But YOU need to adjust these “base” values to reflect your unique situation and travel goals.
Hotel points are much easier to use than frequent flyer miles. For information on specific point values, see How Much are Hotel Points Worth?.
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The diminished value of frequent flyer miles for coach flights
Travel and reward websites will usually tell you that most frequent flyer miles are worth around 1.5 cents each. But the truth is not so simple.
- 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 was only $250, even at the cheaper award rate, you would only get 1 cent in value from your points.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- There are some 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).
- Despite what the sites say, you won’t often find an opportunity to get 1.5 cents or more in value with coach tickets. In many cases, when you can actually find award seats, you would be getting getting less than 1-1.25 cents per point.
- However, if you are patient and/or flexible, you can eventually find good opportunities to get 1.5 or 2 cents in value; and on the high-end, you might be able to get more than twice as much. While you often can't get great value from your frequent flyer miles, you sometimes still 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.
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.
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.
For most people, we recommend holding onto your miles, unless you are getting 1.5 cents each or more. You will eventually be able to get this much value from your points—hold onto them until you can. You are most likely to get good value on international award tickets (often on partner airlines).
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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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 addition, you can’t always assume you’ll be able to find two business or first-class seats on the same flight, let alone four. While it is hard to find regularly-priced award availability in coach, it is much harder to find it in business or first class.
“Fixed Value” frequent flyer points
Some frequent flyer programs use “fixed-value” points. Most programs fix the number of miles needed for an award ticket to a specific region of the world—the value per point varies based on the ticket price. Fixed value programs fix the value of a point——the number of points you need to book the award varies based on the price.
For example, on Southwest airline, a round trip domestic ticket doesn’t cost a fixed 25,000 points. The award price of a 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.
| Southwest Airlines | 1.5 |
| JetBlue | 1.3 |
The value of different types of miles
The value for different types of frequent flyer miles varies based on the program's award charts, policies and fees, partner networks, and award availability.
- 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 frequently 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). Due to the major alliances and partner programs, points from almost any frequent flyer program are useful to almost everyone.
- The value of points for individual programs depends on their award charts, policies, and partners. If a program frequently 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.
- If you plan to use your points for economy-class tickets, the value of a typical frequent flyer mile is around 1.2 cents. On many trips, you won’t find an opportunity to use your points at all. When there is award space available, you often won’t be able to get this much value from your miles. But, when you do get a good opportunity to use your points, you can get 1.5-2 cents per point. We discount the value somewhat due to the difficulty of finding these good value redemptions (especially with more attractive flight options).
- If you assign a high value to business and first-class award tickets and plan to use your points in this way, the value of a typical point is 3-4 cents. You’ll sometimes be able to get more value than this. It can be very hard to find award space space when you need it, so you'll need to be lucky or flexible to use your miles for premium cabin seats, especially as a couple or family.
- If you don’t want to spend much time mastering frequent flyer miles, their value is probably still around 1 cent per point. It becomes easier to find redemption opportunities when you only require 1 cent per point. You can start finding opportunities to user your points on more expensive anytime awards or for less expensive flights. Even if you are willing to accept 1 cent per point, it can still be hard to use miles from foreign airline programs.
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.
Here are the current set of values from a few popular websites, While they may not be accurate guidelines, they should give you an idea of which airline points are more or less valuable than others.
| One Mile at a Time | Points Guy | View from the Wing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Major US Airlines | |||
| Alaska | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.6 |
| American | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| Delta | 1.2 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
| United | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.4 |
| Others | |||
| Air Canada (Aeroplan) | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.4 |
| Air France / KLM (Flying Blue) | 1.3 | 1.2 | 1.2 |
| ANA | 1.4 | 1.5 | |
| Avianca | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.4 |
| British Airways | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.2 |
| Cathay Pacific (Asia Miles) | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.3 |
| Emirates | 1.0 | 1.2 | 1.1 |
| Etihad | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
| Frontier | 1.1 | ||
| Hawaiian | 0.9 | 1.0 | |
| Korean Air | 1.5 | 1.7 | 1.5 |
| Lufthansa (Miles & More) | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.2 |
| Singapore | 1.4 | 1.3 | 1.4 |
| Turkish | 1.3 | ||
| Virgin Atlantic | 1.2 | 1.6 | 1.0 |
Credit card point values
Some credit card points have fixed values. For example, the “miles” that you get from the U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card can be used to pay for travel at 1.5 cents each. To keep things simple, we don’t apply a discount to points that can only be used for travel purposes, compared to true cashback. But, they probably deserve a small markdown.
| Barclay Arrival Premier | 1.0 |
| Barclay Arrival Plus | 1.05 |
| U.S. Bank FlexPerks | 1.5 |
| U.S. Bank Reserve Points | 1.5 |
- 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.
- For most people, Ultimate Rewards points are generally more valuable than Membership Rewards points, which are more valuable than ThankYou points. Ultimate Rewards has easy-to-use redemption options, like booking award rooms through Hyatt, purchasing travel at 1.5 cents per point, or booking flights on Southwest Airline, which don't depend on finding good value award space for frequent flyer tickets. Membership Rewards is generally the best option for frequent flyer tickets. Introduction to 'Transferable' Reward Points.
- If you know you can get good value from your points with frequent flyer tickets or you are focusing on premium cabin award tickets, Membership Rewards points are the most valuable. ThankYou Rewards is probably next, but Ultimate Rewards points are close.
- If you have the Amex Business Platinum card, you can redeem your Membership Rewards points for 1.54 cents each when you use them to buy airfare—placing a floor on the value that points are worth. However, to make this approach work, you need to be eligible for a business card, pay an additional annual fee of $595 (which can be partially offset by some credits and benefits), and maintain a large balance of points.
- Marriott points are the most flexible. You can get good values per point when you redeem them for Marriott hotel rooms, they have the widest set of airline partners, and you’ll get 25,000 miles every time you redeem 60,000 points. But because of their long transfer times, there is some risk that any award space will disappear while you are waiting for your points to transfer.
- If you highly value business and first-class award tickets, and are willing and able to build up large amounts of points, the value of transferable credit card points are over 4 cents each. They will be far more valuable than any other type of reward points.
- If you don’t really want to mess around with frequent flyer miles, the value of transferable points depends on their other redemption options. Ultimate Rewards, Marriott and Capital One points deliver a lot of relative value even if you never redeem them for typical award tickets. ThankYou and Membership Rewards points don’t (unless you have the Business Platinum Card).
Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, Thank You points, and Diner's Club points transfer to airlines on a 1:1 basis. The value you can get from these points is about the same as you can get from miles in a good frequent flyer program, but since you can redeem your points on almost any airline, you’ll find opportunities to get those values much more frequently. And since you can take advantage of a cheaper-than-normal option for each trip, your typical award ticket might, on average, cost 20% fewer miles.
Marriott points transfer to Airline miles at a rate of 3 points to 1 mile, but you'll receive 25,000 miles for every block of 60,000 points you transfer. Capital One points transfer at a rate of 4 points to 3 miles (or 4 points for 2 miles for Singapore or Emirates). So these points are worth less than an airline mile.
| Ultimate Rewards | Membership Rewards | ThankYou Rewards | Marriott | Capital One | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| If you highly value business and first class tickets | At least 3 - 4 cents per point, sometimes much more | 1 - 1.5 or more | 2 - 3 or more | ||
| If you are patient and take advantage of coach tickets | 1.5 – 2 cents or more | .5 - .8 or more | 1 - 1.5 or more | ||
| Quality of their airline partners | Good | Very Good | Good | The Best (but slow) | Less Good |
| Value of easier-to-redeem redemption options | 1.5 - 1.7 | 1 | 1 | .7 | 1 |
| Value by using points to pay for travel | 1.5
(w/ Sapphire Reserve) |
1
(1.54 w/ Business Platinum) |
1 | - | 1 |
| The “base value” we use for our calculations | 1.7 | 1.5 | 1.5 | .7 | 1.5 |
An example
If you are evaluating your options for a general purpose reward card, you might have the choice of a card that earns 1.5x Ultimate Rewards points, a card that earns 1.5x Membership Rewards points, and a card that earns 2.5% cash-back.
- The math on the 2.5% cash-back card is simple. It earns $250 back for every $10,000 you spend.
- If you highly value premium-cabin award tickets, the Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards cards will each earn points worth at least $450-600 per $10,000 you spend and could earn rewards as high as $1,000 per $10,000. This is much better than the $250 from the cashback card.
- If you are patient and plan to redeem for economy-class frequent flyer tickets, spending $10,000 with the Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards cards will typically earn between $225 and $300 in award travel and might earn as much as $450. This is usually better than the cashback card, but requires more time and effort. You would more strongly prefer the Ultimate Rewards card over the Membership Rewards card, because you would also have the option of redeeming at good value for Hyatt hotel rooms or other easy redemption options
- If you want to earn rewards more easily and more often, the Ultimate Rewards card should offer at least $255 in value when you redeem for Hyatt hotel. This is slightly better than the cashback card, plus there is additional upside to get even more value on particularly good redemptions. However, the Membership Rewards card doesn’t have any good options other than cashing-out at 1 cents per point, which would only give you $150 in value. So, in this scenario, 1.5x Ultimate Rewards > 2.5% cash-back >> 1.5x Membership Rewards.
- However, if you have the Amex Business Platinum card, you can cash-out at 1.54 cents per point (on your favorite airline), and see at least $230 from your Membership Rewards points, which probably tips the balance versus the cashback card (due to the possibility of redeeming for much more).
