We've talked about this before but there are actually tons of different redemptions available, which is why it's important to have a stable of
different miles currencies.
Not exact matches
However, airline
miles are a little bit more like
currency from
different countries: Many places will not allow you to pay with money from another country, even if it's a place with similar
currency and value such as between the United States and Canada.
Caroline has enjoyed discovering the ins and outs of how to maximize
different types of
miles, hotel points, and transferable points
currencies.
First of all, it is important to realize that we are dealing with a lot of
different currencies when we talk about
miles.
ThankYou Points are a bit
different than the other cards I have mentioned in that they are a credit card
currency, not
miles or hotel points.
Points in the Starwood hotel's Preferred Guest program are widely considered to be among the most valuable points
currencies available in part because they can be transferred to
miles in 31
different airline programs and in turn, used for award flights with all of these airlines» partners.
This is like a
currency exchange company that deals with points and
miles from
different companies, instead of
currencies from various countries.
This post should come with a HUGE caveat: The valuations are useless for comparing
different programs without doing a «points
currency conversion», since a point is not a point or a
mile is not a
mile if
different programs award
different amounts of them for comparable transactions.