Mileage vs. $$
 

In your opinion, if mileage or money weren't an issue, at what price point would
you use mileage instead of paying for the
ticket (say 50K points)

I don't typically use miles for any ticket $400 or less, but it kind of depends on where you are going. For example, is this a European fare, or a 'premium' US fare ? I also rarely use miles for fares in the US or Canada. Typically we use miles for Europe or the Caribbean (only).

I go by coach prices vs 25-35K mileage I'd pay up to $500 for a ticket... mileage after that. Generally I will not use my miles for tickets in the cont. US flying from ORD or MKE.

Just my rule of thumb... ((Y))

I think of each mileage point as worth about $0.01. So, for 50K points, the ticket would need to be $500+.

But of course, if I pay for a $500 ticket, I can accure miles from that ticket, and some airlines have double mileage promos. So, it's acutally a bit more complicated than just putting a $ on the mile.

You might try posting this on the Airlines forum. There are mega- frequent flyers there who talk about this topic all the time

I never "waste" my American miles by using them for domestic tickets that I could get fairly cheap. In fact I usually use them 90,000 at a time for free Business Class tickets to Europe and go for two stopovers (one each way) that gives me several destinations. Those tickets usually price out at about $7000 so that's gettin about 8 cents per mile for my miles.

I'm with Neo on this one. After using miles to fly business class to Europe, (90k miles for a $4k ticket) I'm not "wasting" them on domestic coach fares any more. We are doing all we can to save our miles for our Africa 2008 trip - business or first class all the way. It makes those long trips, dare I say, enjoyable. Our flight from MUC-LAX was continuing on to New Zealand. After 9 hours in the air, as the FA was refilling our wine glasses, DH and I turned to eachother and said, "Want to keep going?" :)

Whether you realize it or not, you paid around 2 - 3 cents per mile for those miles, buried in credit card fees paid by merchants, etc. Therefore any use that doesn't at least break even is a money loser.

If these are airline FF miles, and not Captal One miles etc., then you should carefully look at the redemption tables on that airline's website.

Most FFers agree that upgrades are, in general, the best use of miles. Saving 90K miles for a "free" round trip to Europe in business class is a good use, but what if you can upgrade from coach for 50K miles and maybe a "co-pay?" If you do that on a Europe trip, you also get credit for the (coach) miles earned on the trip, so if you're coming from, say, the west coast, you'll earn 10-12,000 miles for the round trip, v. 50K used to upgrade, net down 38K miles (and some cash, probably) instead of down 90K miles.

Or for domestic travel, on AA for instance, a one-way upgrade for any domestic itinerary - including Hawaii and Alaska - is 15K miles. HUGE difference on a transcon or Hawaii itinerary. 50K miles = 1 1/2 roundtrips, except remember you continue to earn miles on the upgraded flights, so in actuality it's very close to 2 RTs upgraded for 50K miles in most cases.


It's definitely a case where learing the program and doing the math makes a lot of sense.

Unlike some other posters, I actually have redeemed many miles for <b>domestic economy</b> tickets this year. How to best use one's miles very much depend on one's travel habits.

For me (and DH), we never will be able to know our schedule 330 days ahead in order to book FF Business tickets. So yes, I agree it's a great deal to use 90K miles for a Business tix to Europe, it just won't work for me.

We normally only know our schedule 4-6 weeks in advance at most, so sometimes buying domestic tickets then can be expensive. We flew from Dallas to Bangor, Maine back in June, and used 25k miles each for our tickets. We would have had to pay $500 each for the same flights.

One time I did buy coach tickets to Europe and upgrade to Business. But with the extra cost now to do so ($500 extra roundtrip)added to the already high cost of the tickets, and the high number of miles to do it, plus not being able to add two more destinations as stopovers, it just didn't work out mathwise for me as well. But for some it could.

I don't put a value on my FF miles. I earned them doing things I would have done anyway. Merchants don't charge a higher price for sales paid with a credit card, so if I had bought all my groceries with cash, I wouldn't have paid any less for them.

So when I have enough for a trip and can use them for someplace I want to go, then I will use them. Sometimes it is a domestic trip, sometimes international. Just depends on what is going on.

With regard to whether FF miles are worth more when used as an upgrade or to purchase coach fares, for me that is a moot point because I would not be buying business or first class tickets anyway so an upgrade to business or first is not a &quot;savings&quot;. I do buy coach tickets though. So if I can buy coach tickets with FF miles, then that is definitely a savings. In some cases, coach tickets bought with FF miles rather than money is the difference between being able to afford a trip or not.

I value most of mine in terms of what they cost me and that is $1 per mile since I have an airline-related CC and as a rule I get 1 mile for every dollar spent.

Ergo very few of those miles were &quot;free&quot; because I had to spend money to get them.

I agree that I usually don't use miles for domestic fares unless it is to Hawaii; otherwise I use them for FC or Business Class trips abroad.

I am not a very frequent business flyer but I do accumulate miles. I tend to use them for whatever, whenever I have accumulated enough to go.

My concern is that my airline will one day decide they are worthless. Just like their stock, employee pension plans, etc.

So my philosophy is use 'em before I lose 'em.

As J Correa says, if you are using the cards to purchase things that you were going to purchase anyway, then how is it costing you $1 a mile, when you have the groceries, prescriptions, etc. in your cabinet? Those merchant fees are built into the cost of our products whether we use a credit card with &quot;rewards&quot; points, or one without. Following that logic, then those who are using non-reward credit cards are subsidizing those of us who are earning miles with ours. To those consumers, I can only say -- THANKS! :)

Everytime I have tried to purchase an &quot;upgradable&quot; coach ticket, there were either unavailable (snapped up by savvy business travelers, no doubt) or over 3 times the price of a discounted coach ticket. The math didn't make sense for me in those cases.

I also agree with those who say that you should do whatever works for your situation. Some of us earn the miles by flying for business, some of us earn them by charging reimbursed business $$$ on credit cards. How fast you can earn them, how much in annual fees you may pay, etc. also have a bearing on how you value them.

My favorite miles-earning situation happened when we were changing our business cell phone service to Sprint, because Sprint has better coverage in our area and our Cingular contract had expired. There just happened to be a promotion earning us 10k miles per line of service transferred. I had no idea this promo was on until I walked into the Sprint store. Since we have 8 cell phone lines, we earned 80k miles without breaking a sweat. :)

we only use points to travel from DC to Europe or other far away destination. We buy coach and upgrade to business or first class using point.s Last year we went to Paris. Paid $600 and updgraded with 20K points for business class.

<i>My concern is that my airline will one day decide they are worthless. Just like their stock, employee pension plans, etc.</i>

I understand your concern; however the reality of FF programs is that the conduits (Visa, etc.) buy the miles in bulk from the airlines and then re-sell them to you as part of your credit card fees <b>as well as</b> via the skim paid by the merchant. So the airline gets its money up front. Statistically, only a fraction of the miles sold are actually redeemed, and because so many are redeemed for low-cost products like coach seats (really) the airlines make a lot of money on the &quot;leakage&quot; through the system.

The result is that on most airlines' balance sheets, the value of the FF program is very high compared to other components of their assets and liabilities. When Air Canada went bankrupt a few years ago, it sold its FFP to a third party for (if memory serves) more than the then-net worth of the airline. Even when airlines merge, they take special pains to ensure that their FF plans stay intact, because they are cash cows for the airlines. If they weren't, they wouldn't be around for a NY minute in this day and age.

People can earn and burn their miles however they choose. The OP asked where the tipping point is, and some people have one point and others have others. As it should be.

What type of coach fare can be upgraded using FF miles on Delta? Do you know the coach class?

Thanks...
Debi

Anyone able to answer my Q in last post?

Thanks,
Debi

Debi,
Y/B/M for international, not sure if there are more upgradeable fare classes for domestic.

I'm not sure of the class. I just call the 800 number and tell them what I want to do (buy economy and upgrade with points) and they usually can find me something. We are always very flexible with our dates.

I tend to disagree with the philosophy that you haven't really &quot;paid&quot; for those miles, since you would be making your credit card purchases anyway. The choice is often not FF miles or nothing. Instead of getting FF miles on my credit cards, I choose to get cash rebates. As mentioned above, many FF miles never get redeemed, and there is the chance that they'll change or drop the program. But cash is always good! And I get it back much faster. Then it's my choice to use it for airfare or anything else I want. I'm not saying this would work for everyone. For someone like NeoPatrick, he's obviously better off with the miles, but since I rarely travel overseas, and am unable to book far in advance, I like the freedom of having the cash.

We are able to plan ahead for trips &amp; are flexible (also necessary to get the most out of your miles) + there are a ton of ways to get miles. I travel for business so many of my miles are, in fact, 'free'. Airfares, miles, hotels, rental cars, etc. all turn into miles that my company pays for. I cashed in 150,000 this year alone. Just used 90,000 to go to the Caribbean in February, but I had to leave on Thursday &amp; return on a Tuesday. Otherwise, I would have spent twice as many miles. As far as credit cards go, as long as you pay them off every month, I would agree that they are essentially 'free' also. I'm not buying something I wouldn't otherwise buy, &amp; typically I would pay cash....so where does the cost come in ?

I think the cost comes in as described above. If you use a Credit card that gives miles vs one that give cash rebates (1% - 5% back on purchases) then the FF miles &quot;cost' you 1-5 cents per mile.

I use cash reward cards- so I only get FF miles from flights, car rentals, dining out, etc. The miles add up surprising fast. For example, yesterday I shopped at Safeway and got 3% cash back, plus 1 mile per dolllar spent.

I generally use mileage to buy upgrades or sold out dates (but then most of my travel is paid for by the company). For private use we also use it primarily for upgrades - and American Express &quot;miles&quot; primarily for hotels or merchandise.

For those of you who use cash rebate cards, which card(s) still offer a 5% rebate on certain categories of purchases? My Citibank Dividend card used to offer 5% back on gas, grocery and drugstore purchases, but as of last month, Citibank has reduced that to 2%. Therefore, I've shifted all of those purchases back to airline mileage earning cards because I can easily get more than 2 cents per mile &quot;value&quot; from my airline miles (whereas 5 cents per mile was questionable).

My FF miles are free miles.
They are miles my husband has accumulated traveling for business over the years.
We over 500K Continental miles and
close to 1M AMEX points.
I was trying to decide whether to use
points or pay for a trip my family is
taking to Trinidad over the holidays.
The cost of the flight is $700 per person or 70K miles per person for a coach flight. So we're looking at $2800 or 280 miles.
It seems silly not to use the miles when we have so many, but part of me
would like to save the points for trips that just my husband and I will take when we will want to fly first class.
So, any thoughts...$700 or 70K?

I'd like to echo Patty's question above. I also have Citibank Dividend card and was so sad when they cut back the rebates. (Knew it was too good to last!) Of course, the other problem was that I used it so much that I maxed out on the $300 yearly rebate cap prior to the year's end. I'd like to get another card that gives better than 2% on gas &amp; groceries, or maybe even dining. Any suggestions?

Amex (regular)gives #% on travel, 2% dining out, and 1% on all other.

chase rewards Visa gives 1% on everything, but has specials with 5%

Discover normally gives 1%, but has special categories - for this season it is 5% on dining, book stores, and something else. I have no maximum amount, and can get paid out anytime there is at least $20 in bonuses.

Recently it was drug stores and certain supermarkets, IIRC.

I don't use miles for anything under a $500 ticket. There are certain domestic destinations that would fit into that criteria (e.g., Hawaii, Alaska, parts of the NE, and sometimes, San Francisco). Otherwise, we got our Citibank AAdvantage card primarily as a vehicle to go to the Caribbean/Latin America every year and take one other trip. We go to the Caribbean in the summer, when the miles are less (25-30k), and that enables us to have one other domestic trip.

Also of note is the reduced mileage awards that can work out occasionally when you are Citibank AAdvantage cardholder. We keep saying that we are going to save up our miles to go to Europe, but to me, it's hard to think about 2 years from now when I want a vacation.

As previous posters mentioned, the best way to accumulate points is using your card for everything (and paying it off every month goes without saying), shopping on the miles online shopping mall, etc. We just paid our taxes last week with the Aadvantage card, so I figure if I'm going to hand over a large sum of money to the federal gov't, I might as well get some value for it! lol

But don't you get charged a fee of something like 2.9% to use a CC to pay for your taxes?

I don't know about federal or state taxes, but my county charges a fee to pay your property taxes with a credit card.

Just used 35K AAdv mi for BJX-HNL-BJX in Nov: taxes and fees were $49.91 vs. $1039.30 coach fare.
Paid $760.14 for next week's trip: BJX-DFW-JFK-BCN-FCO-JFK-DFW-BJX last December.
Last Nov., used 90K Delta miles for business MEX-EZE-SCL-MEX on partners Avianca and Aero Mexico. AM was great - forget Avianca.
So, I guess, it depends.
M

Could I just say, mikemo, that I cannot decipher your messages because they always use airport codes, which I am not as conversant in as you are, and I would imagine many people are like me. Let's see, I know my own, ORD, and my favored New York airport, LGA, and beyond that not much. I can guess what MEX is, and I guess I do know DFW and JFK, but the rest, NO.

mln,
Lo siento,
SO has been in the airline industry 45 + years and we travel lots.
BJX = Leon/Guanajuato (Baijo), MX; HNL = Honolulu; EZE = Buenos Aires, Argentina; SCL = Santiago, Chile; BCN = Barcelona, Spain; FCO = Rome, Italy.
You may look up airport codes on any airline web site.
M

Yes, but couldn't you just take pity on us and write the city names? I know I could look it up, but usually I just don't take in your information, which is a pity cause I know you know lots about areas I am interested in!