Frequent Flyer Points - to use or not to use?
 

How much are frequent flyer miles worth? I need a ticket that costs $420, including taxes or, I can purchase this ticket for 20,000 miles and pay about $80 in tax. I am debating what to do. Any suggestions/ideas? Thanks in advance.

It all depends on what you want to do.

If you want to save your miles for something else, like an overseas flight or something, then don't use them for this. But if you aren't saving them for something else, then use them for this.

I'm curious as to what frequent flyer award you can get for 20,000 miles that also has $80 tax associated with it. This has to be international as domestic U.S. awards do not incurr taxes, only the $10 security fee. I'm also not aware of international awards from the U.S. (my assumption of your trip) that only cost 20,000 miles unless it is Canada.

In any event, if what you say is correct, then you are really looking at 20K miles for $340 ($420-$80). That works out to 1.7 cents per miles. I usually value miles at about 1.35 cents each, so in your case I would redeem the miles and save your money.

MileKing - I have American Aadvantage miles, I need a ticket for travel from London to Moscow (20,000 miles). Unfortunately, none of the discount European airlines/charter airlines have service between these cities. When American told me that taxes would about $80, I thought this was very high. What experiences have fodorites had when booking flights using ff points within Europe?

IMHO, that is an excelent use of points. The high taxes are due to the highest taxed airports in the world. London(LHR/LGW) and Moscow(SVO) do charge a nice sum, so don't worry about that, it is true and unavoidable.

Going back to your original question. I always, and I mean always, look at what I want to do with miles, not how much they are worth. If I need to go from point A to point B and I don't have the discretionary funds, although the fare is not much, but I do have the miles, I WILL use the miles. No guilty feelings about it. If I just maybe, possibly, want to go to point B, but it's not necessary, and it's the same $/miles scenarion from above, then I will take the $ per point into account.

You decide!

OK, now I see. AAFrequentFlyer is correct that those two cities have high taxes. I still think getting 1.7 cents per mile for redeeming an award is a good deal. However, as AAFrequentFlyer implies, if you are short on miles and planning for a big trip, it may be worthwhile to pay the $$ for this trip and save the miles for something even better. Good luck with your decision.

Unlike AAFrequent flyer, I would rather pay for the ticket (if it is cheap) and save my miles.

I have found that you get the "most bang for the buck" by using miles for for first class/business class tickets or upgrades.

The bottom line, is that there is no answer to using miles that is appropriate for everyone.

At a price of $420 for the ticket London to Moscow, if you paid for the ticket you would only acrue (have you checked whether this ticket price does acrue miles?) about 3100 miles.

So if you have the 20,000 miles (+$80 tax) and aren't saving the miles for some fantastic holiday or upgrading to business class - I would go with the giving up the miles.

Since I value miles at 1.5 cents each, I would agree that you are getting an adequate value for the 20K miles and so personally, I would take the FF ticket on this one.

I never value my miles at 1.5 cents. I really work at all kinds of ways to get lots of them and save them for big trips -- free business class to Europe including two stopovers. Those tickets are worth a minimum of $7500 -- usually more -- and cost me 90,000 miles. That comes out to more like 8.5 cents per mile.

But Dick is right. It all depends on what you want to do with your miles, and how many you are likely to earn.

I'm with Patrick. I save miles until I get the biz/first class ticket to Europe.

Patrick, you would actually pay $7500 out of your own pocket for business class tickets to Europe?

Like Patrick, it's unlikely that I would pay $7500 for airfare anywhere, but I would certainly save up miles to get those seats! But while I would rather spend $420 for a ticket tourist class between the US and Europe also collecting the miles for that trip, I might consider it a good use of miles for a shorter trip within Europe that wasn't going to earn me miles anyway and cost $420.

No, MileKing, that's exactly the point. I'm getting something I could never afford to buy on my own. If you got a deal to buy a $60,000 for a coupon and $5,000, would you turn it down and just buy a used $5000 car instead??

It's probably not valid to compare it to a hard asset. It's more like like: you have $250 and a scalper is willing to sell you tickets to the World Series. You can get one ticket in a luxury suite for one game. You can sit in the second deck behind home plate with one of your friends for all four home games. You can take four of your friends to two games and sit in the bleachers. Which do you choose?

I'm with Patrick.

I used 180,000 miles for two free first class tickets to Australia/New Zealand.
Retail value is $10,000. for EACH ticket. I never would have paid for those tickets. I got great value for my miles. If I had used the same number of miles for domestic rewards, I would have received less than $3000 worth of tickets.

Obviously, I look for ways to accumulate extra miles.

I agree that you received good value. I traded 163,500 miles for three r/t coach tickets to Rio de Janeiro and three r/t coach tickets to San Francisco which ended up being upgraded to first class. That was good value, too -- even though the retail price would be considerably less.