Partner flights may be able to get more value from the miles, so it is worth taking the time to compare
flight redemption costs.
There's a little - known trick to capping Southwest
flight redemption costs in many cases thanks to Southwest's ongoing merger process with AirTran.
You earn Southwest Rapid Rewards points based on how much your flight costs and
flight redemptions cost more or less points based on the cash price of a ticket for the same flight.
Not exact matches
Flights from the East Coast U.S. can easily
cost over $ 500 round trip, so this is a great value
redemption that doesn't require a bunch of miles!
Economy
redemptions cost just 30,000 Flying Blue miles for a round - trip
flight operated by a SkyTeam partner Delta Air Lines.
Take Capital One's
redemption schedule: under their system a $ 149
flight requires 15,000 points, whereas a
flight costing just $ 5 more would push you to the next tier and require an additional 20,000 points.
Flights from the East Coast U.S. can easily
cost over $ 500 round trip, so this is a great value
redemption that doesn't require a bunch of miles!
When you book a
flight from the Air Travel
Redemption Schedule, you may also decide to redeem RBC Rewards at the rate of 1 % to pay for any taxes and service fees (including sales, GST, departure and transportation taxes and fees, airport improvement fees, or other taxes), excess baggage charges, immigration fees, governmental fees and levies, customs charges and passenger facilities charges, health or other inspection fees, fuel surcharges and other non-ticket
costs or charges which may be imposed.
Airlines don't use a public formula to calculate the
redemption cost of a reward
flight.
One great
redemption from the Flying Blue program is for
flights to Hawaii from the continental U.S. Round - trip
flights cost 30,000 Flying Blue miles and less than $ 10 in fees — considering that
flights from the East Coast usually
cost $ 500 — $ 900 round trip, we're talking some great
redemptions even at the lower end of the value spectrum.
With the additional checked bags (each bag can
cost $ 25 - 35), a 10 % rebate on mile
redemptions, and a 25 % discount on in -
flight purchases, this card holds slightly more value in our eyes.
The mileage
cost to fly one of ANA's partner airlines to Japan aren't as good redeeming miles for ANA
flights, but the award chart does have a few solid partner
redemption options.
Unlike most other airlines, Southwest award
flight redemptions are based on the
cost of the ticket in most cases.
Economy
redemptions cost just 30,000 Flying Blue miles for a round - trip
flight operated by a SkyTeam partner Delta Air Lines.
While the chart is limited in terms of North American destinations, at just 44,000 miles one - way, this
redemption pairs extremely well with a cheap intra-Europe
flight on a low -
cost carrier to get to your final destination.
If the
flight costs between $ 100 - $ 179, then
redemptions fall between 15,000 miles and 20,000 miles.
Redemptions like this
cost about 60,000 points for a round - trip
flight with most domestic frequent flyer programs.
Yes, the seats aren't always guaranteed to be available, but when they are, the standard
cost for a transcontinental
flight with airlines that use a standard chart - based
redemption system is only 25,000 points.
While it's possible to maximize value further and take advantage of the 10 %
Redemption Bonus right away by booking
flights and splitting hotel nights into separate bookings over the course of a few days, we'd keep things simple in this case by recommending Tiffany's husband apply his bonus toward the taxes and fees on the Alaska award bookings, wiping out these
costs entirely, and having Tiffany apply her bonus toward the total hotel booking at Hotels.com.
It is possible to find higher
redemption rates for your points, but in some cases (especially with lower
cost flights or hotel nights), the 1.5 cents per point value can be better than redeeming for an award directly through the airline or hotel programs.
Hopefully this wasn't too confusing, but the bottom line is that I believe using Chase Ultimate Rewards points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve card can make for interesting «
redemptions» on lower
cost flights.
Avoid awards that place you on British Airways
flights unless you want to pay steep fuel surcharges that add hundreds of dollars to the
cost of your
redemption.
Redemptions are done against an award chart which lists the
cost for each type of
flight, either based on zones, countries, or distances.
Economy class
redemptions cost just 50,000 Flying Blue miles for a round - trip
flight operated by a mix of SkyTeam partners, such as Delta, Air France or KLM.
The point
redemptions on Southwest
flights are mostly dependent on the exact
cost of
flights, and over the years Southwest has become increasingly less transparent in this regard.
Avios
redemptions are calculated on a per segment basis, which means that
flights with connections
cost double or more versus non-stop routes on these short trips.
As mentioned above, a one - way business class award
flight to «Europe» will
cost 62,500 miles, which is a solid
redemption.
According to the British Airways Avios
redemption schedule, a
flight from Toronto (YYZ) to Chicago (ORD) would
cost 4500 British Airways Avios each way.
As you can see, SPG
Flights redemptions are in tiers based on the
cost of the revenue ticket.
With the additional checked bags (each bag can
cost $ 25 - 35), a 10 % rebate on mile
redemptions, and a 25 % discount on in -
flight purchases, this card holds slightly more value in our eyes.
A slightly higher
cost of
redemption applies to award
flights booked between South Africa and the following destinations:
One great
redemption from the Flying Blue program is for
flights to Hawaii from the continental U.S. Round - trip
flights cost 30,000 Flying Blue miles and less than $ 10 in fees — considering that
flights from the East Coast usually
cost $ 500 — $ 900 round trip, we're talking some great
redemptions even at the lower end of the value spectrum.
The mileage
cost to fly one of ANA's partner airlines to Japan aren't as good redeeming miles for ANA
flights, but the award chart does have a few solid partner
redemption options.
Keep in mind that many domestic
redemptions, particularly for longer
flights and more popular routes, will
cost around 15,000 miles each way.
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.
Conversely, longer
flights in premium cabins can
cost a fortune compared to what other airlines charge for the same
redemption, even on the same exact
flight.
With a load factor of 84 %, the carriers are constantly tweaking the
cost of award
flights by either raising
redemption levels or reducing the saver award inventory, especially in first and business classes.
Points can not be transferred to any partners, and the
redemption values are bizarre with
flights up to $ 350
costing 25K points and
flights up to $ 900
costing 50K points.
British Airways is great for short - haul
flights because they're cheap and have minimal or no surcharges added; Virgin Atlantic, Air France KLM and United are good options for transatlantic
flights; Korean Air has solid
redemptions to Asia, including Japan, Korea and Hong Kong; And Southwest, the largest low -
cost carrier in the world, offers cheap domestic
flights and only partners with Chase.
Because Southwest ties their award
redemptions to the
cost of the
flight at the time of booking, its points function like the no blackout date credit card programs of Barclays Arrival and Capital One Venture.
At the lowest
redemption level, for example,
flights between to the United States and the Caribbean
cost 35,000 miles,
flights to Hawaii are 45,000 miles and
flights to Europe are 60,000 miles.
The exception is for transcontinental
flights to Europe, where the front cabin is sold as «Business Class,» so those cabins
cost only 2 times as much as a coach
redemption.
You'll want to check Delta's pricing before booking your
flight, as the
cost of
redemption for SkyMiles can change closer to the departure date.
However, in my analysis of SPG Nights and
Flights awards, I described how — if you keep the
cost of the free nights the same as a normal
redemption — it is equivalent to getting a discount on the miles.
Like the US Bank FlexPerks Visa, this card offers travel
redemptions in fixed tiers, so the amount of value of your points will depend entirely on the
cost of the
flights you redeem them for.
If you snagged a paid fare for the JFK to TLV
flight you would pay $ 2,267.99, which means that a 50,000
redemption would come out to a value of approximately 4.2 cents per mile for this trip which is excellent and honestly a somewhat conservative valuation given how much those tickets can
cost.
If you snagged the cheapest paid fare for the JFK to TLV
flight you would pay $ 2,267.99, which means that a 50,000
redemption would come out to a value of approximately 4.2 cents per mile for this trip which is excellent and honestly a somewhat conservative valuation given how much those tickets can
cost.
One - way
redemptions for short
flights of 500 kilometers or less on partner airlines
cost only 6,000 LAN kilometers (3,728 miles) for economy.
A
flight between Hawaii and Asia
costs fewer miles than from the continental U.S. Those are probably the only routes where it might make sense to use LifeMiles for business class
redemptions.
The way the
redemption works is that for any
flights $ 500 or less, it
costs 25,000 miles to redeem.