Author Topic: Is It Worth Using Miles?  (Read 9516 times)

Offline lechaim2life

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Is It Worth Using Miles?
« on: October 10, 2011, 01:56:24 PM »
Looking for some help/advice:

I am going to Hawaii (via LA) in January and want to book my ticket. Since I only started "The Game" recently, I don't have the miles I need to fly business both ways. With a few more cards waiting in the wings and plenty of miles on the way I should have the neccessary mileage in a couple of months. Does it pay to wait until I have that to book or can I book in Economy now and then upgrade to Business/First closer to the flight?
« Last Edit: November 15, 2011, 10:14:32 AM by Dan »

Offline Dan

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2011, 02:00:23 PM »
Unless you can get an internationally configured plane (eg, CO from EWR/IAH/SFO*, UA from DEN, AA from DFW, DL from MSP) I wouldn't pay extra for most domestic first class.
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Offline AJK

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2011, 02:00:52 PM »
Looking for some help/advice:

I am going to Hawaii (via LA) in January and want to book my ticket. Since I only started "The Game" recently, I don't have the miles I need to fly business both ways. With a few more cards waiting in the wings and plenty of miles on the way I should have the neccessary mileage in a couple of months. Does it pay to wait until I have that to book or can I book in Economy now and then upgrade to Business/First closer to the flight?

What airline are you flying? I dont know about anyone else, but if you book an award ticket on Delta, you cannot later upgrade it with miles. You either book it on the front end as business, or fly in the back.
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Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #3 on: October 10, 2011, 02:17:46 PM »
I would be flying American. Not sure what there policy is. Anyone have an idea?

Also, to be clear, I wanted to know if I could upgrade with the miles I would be getting.

Dan, are you saying it is not worth it to do it even with miles?

Offline LAXtraveler

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #4 on: October 10, 2011, 02:20:41 PM »
I would be flying American. Not sure what there policy is. Anyone have an idea?

Also, to be clear, I wanted to know if I could upgrade with the miles I would be getting.

Dan, are you saying it is not worth it to do it even with miles?

The planes AA flies from LA to HI are old 757s generally. Not worth it at all for miles or $$$. Save the miles for something more worthwhile.

Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #5 on: October 10, 2011, 02:24:28 PM »
OK thanks for the quick feedback & advice.

What would be a more worthwhile way to spend the miles?

Also, to be clear, should I be spending miles at all on this flight? I can get an Economy flight for the days I want from JFK to LIH (stopping in LAX) for 30k each way. I thought that was a pretty good deal but I am really an amateur at this stuff so let me know what you think.

Offline myb821

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2011, 02:27:01 PM »
OK thanks for the quick feedback & advice.

What would be a more worthwhile way to spend the miles?

Also, to be clear, should I be spending miles at all on this flight? I can get an Economy flight for the days I want from JFK to LIH (stopping in LAX) for 30k each way. I thought that was a pretty good deal but I am really an amateur at this stuff so let me know what you think.
how much would it be to buy the flights?

Offline Dan

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #7 on: October 10, 2011, 02:28:27 PM »
60K RT in coach is a lot to Hawaii.  The other airlines all charge 40K RT for saver awards.

AA via DFW might have planes that are worth using miles for first, but not via LAX/SFO.
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Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #8 on: October 10, 2011, 02:37:48 PM »
Problem is I have a lot of AA miles but only 55k from Chase Saphire Preferred which I could convert into CO miles but would only be enough to get me one ticket. I was going to convert the 55k into Hyatt points and use it toward GHK.

I appreciate all the guidance and sorry if these "beginnier questions" are annoying. Just trying to maximize what I have to save the most money and have nicest accomadations/best results.

Offline myb821

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #9 on: October 10, 2011, 02:44:06 PM »
Problem is I have a lot of AA miles but only 55k from Chase Saphire Preferred which I could convert into CO miles but would only be enough to get me one ticket. I was going to convert the 55k into Hyatt points and use it toward GHK.

I appreciate all the guidance and sorry if these "beginnier questions" are annoying. Just trying to maximize what I have to save the most money and have nicest accomadations/best results.
ill ask again how much would the plane tickets cost

Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #10 on: October 10, 2011, 02:50:31 PM »
ill ask again how much would the plane tickets cost

Sorry for the delayed response. Didn't have the information in front of me.

Cheapest flight to LIH would be $727pp with 3 stops.

Chepest with 1 stop is $1300


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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #11 on: October 10, 2011, 04:02:12 PM »
Sorry for the delayed response. Didn't have the information in front of me.

Cheapest flight to LIH would be $727pp with 3 stops.

Chepest with 1 stop is $1300

If my math is correct, that'd be (at least for the $1300, one stop) a redemption value of >2.1cpm.

Seems like a good deal to me; especially on AA.
2015: 116K bkd | 1.6M brnd | F: OZ,NH,AA,EK | J: UA,CA,TK,DL,TN,AF,VA | LIH,NRT,ROR,PEK,CNS,BOB,MEL,TLV & Pacific Hopper

Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #12 on: October 10, 2011, 04:19:41 PM »
Can you just explain how you did that calculation? Would like to know for future reference.

Offline Dan

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #13 on: October 10, 2011, 04:23:33 PM »
The $1,300 would got a non-elite some 10,000 miles though, need to factor that in as well into a "buy or redeem" calculation.
Still Hawaii is often a good use of miles from the east coast.
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Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #14 on: October 10, 2011, 05:34:01 PM »
Dan-

Do you have a formula or a way you do the calculation?

Offline Dan

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #15 on: October 10, 2011, 05:44:17 PM »
Dan-

Do you have a formula or a way you do the calculation?
To illustrate.  You are a non-elite with 100,000 CO miles thanks to AMEX.
You want to fly CLE-LAX nonstop which is $460. You would earn 4,100 miles for that.


If you don't redeem miles you will now have 104,100 miles and your wallet would be lighter by $460.
If you redeem 25,000 miles plus $5 tax you will now have 75,000 miles and your wallet would be lighter by $5.

The mileage spread is 29,100 miles.  The cash spread is $455.
455/29,100=1.56 cents per mile.
That's my basic "buy or redeem" formula.

Thus for JFK-LAX-LIH the mileage spread is 70,000 miles. The cash spread is $1,290.
1290/70000=1.84cpm.
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Offline lechaim2life

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #16 on: October 10, 2011, 06:03:45 PM »
Got it. Thanks for the clear explanation.

What would be considered a good CPM rate to use miles over pay? Does it depend on the miles/airline?

Offline Dan

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #17 on: October 10, 2011, 06:07:10 PM »
Does it depend on the miles/airline?
Absolutely.  And it depends on every individual person.
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Offline aussiebochur

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #18 on: October 10, 2011, 07:20:43 PM »
Absolutely.  And it depends on every individual person.
Unless its 5cpp I wouldn't use points ;)

Offline Swizard210

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Re: Booking Economy and Upgrading to Business with Miles
« Reply #19 on: October 10, 2011, 11:17:14 PM »
That was a good explanation, Dan!  :)

Question though, what is YOUR cut off to when you'll spend miles vs. cash?  Like if you get 1.5cpm or more?  etc.

PS.  For some reason, in the back of my head, I feel like I've seen a complicated Excel worksheet that accounted for all the major airlines, elite statuses, and you plug in your status, origin, destination, flight miles, ticket price etc.  And did the calculations that you pretty much did.  Is there one?  Or is it just my imagination?
If there isn't, is anyone down to make one?  I would gladly do it but I don't know all the information for each of the major airlines, and elite bonuses etc.