Most folks hate booking standard awards, but I've written in the past about how it can sometimes make sense (see «Respect the Unloved
Standard Award Redemption «-RRB-.
We can therefore confidently say that on the average, Starwood points are worth between 2.0 to 2.2 cents per point for
standard award redemption.
All examples below assume Frontier's
Standard Award redemption levels (not Choice Award).
Not exact matches
Your rewards can be used as a
standard award, a Cash + Points
award, a PointSavers
award, or an Instant
Redemption.
Starwood Preferred Guest's «No Black - Out Dates» only applies to Free Night
Awards in
standard room types and is not applicable to this
redemption option.
5 least expensive airline
award redemptions — If you know where to look, airline
awards can sometimes ring in at prices much, much lower than the «
standard» 12,500 miles each way.
Effective September 1, Virgin Atlantic is improving some of the
redemption rates for Delta flights, and all Virgin Atlantic
awards have variable pricing between
standard and peak travel dates.
5 least expensive airline
award redemptions — If you know where to look, airline
awards can sometimes ring in at prices much, much lower than the «
standard» 12,500 miles each way.
Award redemptions book you a
standard room.
I think it's clearly only worth it if you have substantial
award redemptions planned (though I'd count both
standard redemptions and Points + Cash
redemptions).
And I only used
standard room
awards to calculate the cents per point for the
redemptions.
If BA starts linking the cost of flights to the number of Avios needed and doesn't keep any kind of
standard award in place the days of great
redemptions on routes like NYC — Boston are over.
This hotel went for 95,000 points per night (the highest
award price for a
standard room) which came out to a
redemption rate of.62 cents per point.
The
redemption prices will increase if you want to reserve the more flexible
Standard award which is not worth the additional miles for most travelers.
And even with the
standard award at double cost, our
redemption valuation is still roughly 2 cents per mile.
That
award chart is particularly valuable for premium cabin
redemptions, since business class and first class
awards cost 2 and 3 times the cost of economy, respectively, instead of the 3 and 4 times charged on the
standard Executive Club
award chart.
If you're looking at AeroMexico's SkyTeam
award chart, this explains why a domestic US ticket costs 40,000 «Premier Points:» once converted into miles it's a
standard 25,000 - mile roundtrip
redemption.
Anytime fares are your typical
standard award, offering a high
redemption rate just a touch below the Business Select fares.
But when you dig in a but, you may realize that these are mostly Category 7 resorts with such high
standard redemption rates it's hard to get a great deal — except maybe if you can find
award availability at very peak times.
Their
award rates are based on the ticket fare so there's no
standard award chart for their
redemptions.
Instead of having a pretty straight forward distance based
award chart with
redemption rates by fare class for economy, Economy FlexyFlyer, Premium Economy and business class tickets, PAL introduced multiple
award levels for each fare class: In addition to the
Standard Economy
awards, there are no Flex 1, Flex 2, Flex 3 and Flex 4
awards.
With the introduction of so many different
award classes, the miles needed for an
award have changed drastically: Some of the «
Standard»
awards have dropped by more than 20 % — that was to be expected as all the routes in question have offered very cheap economy fares over the last year, making a
redemption on these routes generally unattractive.
Once you start trying to combine different
award rates, the search engine will automatically reprice the entire reservation at the
standard (higher)
redemption rate.
Standard Awards are available for
redemption using United miles at a higher
redemption rate.
The Less is More
redemption promotion is valid for Room
Award redemption stay in
Standard Room, Club Room and Executive Suite at any Shangri - La hotel, Kerry hotel, Hotel Jen and Traders hotel worldwide, excluding Shangri - La Hotel, Vancouver.
Fortunately for us, Hilton doesn't bother checking that the premium room
award price is in fact higher than a «
standard»
award redemption.
Flying Blue also allows a stopover and open jaw routing on roundtrip
awards, so even if you have to pay fuel surcharges, you may be able to get well more than the
standard 1 cent per point or less that Citi gives for ThankYou point
redemptions.
To give you a taste of what I'm talking about, here's a
standard award night
redemption at the Hilton Molino Stucky Venice in early January:
Bonus Points are only
awarded for a stay including at least seven
standard Rewards Program
redemption nights at a category 7, 8 or 9 hotel.