I have about 100k in a flexible currency and exactly one trip planned this year, so this is not a long game for me. Booking with cash means keeping the points for something I may never book, and booking with points means giving up a big chunk of the balance in one go. I keep reading about cents per point and I still cannot tell whether 1150 for 90k is a good deal or a bad one.
You have one trip and 100k points. Book the trip. A balance you never spend is worth zero regardless of the chart.
Divide the cash price by the points and you get about 1.28 cents per point, which is a fine but not exciting portal redemption. The real comparison is not against a chart, it is against your alternatives: what would the same points get if transferred to a partner for the same route, and what is your guaranteed cash-out rate if you gave up and took a statement credit. If the transfer option is not obviously better and you actually want this flight, 1.28 is a perfectly respectable use of points you would otherwise sit on.
So the floor is whatever the boring cash-out gives me, and anything above that is a win as long as I wanted the trip anyway?
That is the honest version, yes. The charts you see published are averages of other people's trips, not a price you are owed.
Two things the cents-per-point number hides. First, portal bookings normally behave like paid tickets — you earn miles on them and they count towards status — whereas award tickets usually do not, and that gap is worth real money on a long flight. Second, award tickets can carry taxes and carrier-imposed charges that vary wildly by programme and route, so a redemption that looks brilliant can arrive with a few hundred in cash attached. Compare the total out of pocket, not the headline.
@stealth_park_stu · 3mo ago · 2 replies
I will disagree with the whole cents-per-point framing. It only means anything if you would genuinely have paid the cash price. If 1150 is more than you would ever spend on that flight, then measuring your redemption against it is flattering yourself, and the honest comparison is against the cheapest ticket you would actually have bought. Ask what you would have done if the points did not exist, and price against that.
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@coast_fi_casey · 3mo ago
This is the trap I fell into for years, valuing redemptions against fares I would never have bought and congratulating myself.
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