Zobelle Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Next week DH and I are flying first class to the Dominican Republic on award miles. In November DH, kidlet, stepDD, stepDD's fiance, and I are flying (coach) to Italy on award miles. I need to book those this weekend. All USAirways/American. A lot of butt-in-seat miles from work travel, but also a lot of CC miles. We'll be staying in Marriott and IHG properties on points, too - same combo of stays and card purchases for those points. I'm tempted to do the Ink Plus card for the 60K sign up bonus, but I need to look at United's award charts for Europe first. Be nice if you could get both Plus and Cash same time. 90K UR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cv91915 Posted May 6, 2015 Author Share Posted May 6, 2015 (edited) Almost forgot! I'm sitting at the Country Inn & Suites in North Sioux City, SD, right now. This is an award stay at a 15,000 point/night Club Carlson property, where rooms usually price out just over a hundred a night. I'm here for two nights, with the second night free thanks to the Club Carlson Visa from US Bank. This free-night benefit has basically disappeared for future cardholders, part of a double devalutation in 2015 that has made this rewards program/credit card combo completely useless to me going forward. Their hotels in the US mainly suck too, but then there is no Waldorf Astoria in Sioux City, so this redemption worked. Edited May 6, 2015 by cv91915 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTSoxFan Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CT is exactly right. Just the example I posted -- we got about $22,000 in plane tickets. We put $30k in spending thru the card to get that. We would need a card that pays 74% cashback (lol). You would never pay 22k for those tickets. Whether or not you would pay the amount were you using cash is irrelevant. The fact is that they cost $22K and he got them using miles for free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTSoxFan Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 Almost forgot! I'm sitting at the Country Inn & Suites in North Sioux City, SD, right now. This is an award stay at a 15,000 point/night Club Carlson property, where rooms usually price out just over a hundred a night. I'm here for two nights, with the second night free thanks to the Club Carlson Visa from US Bank. This free-night benefit has basically disappeared for future cardholders, part of a double devalutation in 2015 that has made this rewards program/credit card combo completely useless to me going forward. Their hotels in the US mainly suck too, but then there is no Waldorf Astoria in Sioux City, so this redemption worked. The better question is why the hell you're stuck staying in North Sioux City, SD...? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CT is exactly right. Just the example I posted -- we got about $22,000 in plane tickets. We put $30k in spending thru the card to get that. We would need a card that pays 74% cashback (lol). You would never pay 22k for those tickets. Whether or not you would pay the amount were you using cash is irrelevant. The fact is that they cost $22K and he got them using miles for free. First and foremost 99% of the time they are not free. I will tell you what is better than free is making money. Whole family first class to Mexico. All inclusive top rated hotel. Left when I wanted and stayed where I wanted. No miles card can do that no matter how much you try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zobelle Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 How much? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendelssohn Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CT is exactly right. Just the example I posted -- we got about $22,000 in plane tickets. We put $30k in spending thru the card to get that. We would need a card that pays 74% cashback (lol). You would never pay 22k for those tickets. Whether or not you would pay the amount were you using cash is irrelevant. The fact is that they cost $22K and he got them using miles for free. First and foremost 99% of the time they are not free. I will tell you what is better than free is making money. Whole family first class to Mexico. All inclusive top rated hotel. Left when I wanted and stayed where I wanted. No miles card can do that no matter how much you try. It doesn't matter how much he would pay for those tickets, the value in return is better than cash back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
encoder Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 CT is exactly right. Just the example I posted -- we got about $22,000 in plane tickets. We put $30k in spending thru the card to get that. We would need a card that pays 74% cashback (lol). You would never pay 22k for those tickets. Whether or not you would pay the amount were you using cash is irrelevant. The fact is that they cost $22K and he got them using miles for free. First and foremost 99% of the time they are not free. I will tell you what is better than free is making money. Whole family first class to Mexico. All inclusive top rated hotel. Left when I wanted and stayed where I wanted. No miles card can do that no matter how much you try. They weren't free. We had to pay over $1500 in taxes and fuel surcharge. But when I booked them I searched for a cash booking and it would've run just under $24k. Of course, I could've gotten miles & cashback from that purchase that would reduce it. So I'm comfortable just saying I got $20k in economic value out of the avois. Also, I realize I fibbed, we put more like $50k in spending to get the points, because it was on 2 cards. This was stretched over a period of about 16 months. With a cashback card, you'd get $50k * 0.02 = $1000 for that spend. So I think the question for people is: how do you want to use the rewards, and how much do you value the flexibility of cash. It makes total sense that travel rewards are more lucrative than cash: A $1 award in cash costs the bank/brand $1. But $1 in airfare costs some fraction of a dollar. For us, we knew all along what we would use the points for and how much value they would have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted May 6, 2015 Share Posted May 6, 2015 So I'm comfortable just saying I got $20k in economic value out of the avois. OK we agree on this one. DEFINITION of 'Economic Value'The worth of a good or service as determined by people’s preferences and the tradeoffs they choose to make given their scarce resources, or the value the market places on an item. Economic value is represented by the maximum amount a consumer is willing to pay for an item in a free market economy, or the amount of time an individual will sacrifice waiting to obtain a government-rationed good in a socialist economy. In contrast, market value represents the minimum amount a consumer will pay. Economic value thus often exceeds market value. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cv91915 Posted May 7, 2015 Author Share Posted May 7, 2015 (edited) Almost forgot! I'm sitting at the Country Inn & Suites in North Sioux City, SD, right now. This is an award stay at a 15,000 point/night Club Carlson property, where rooms usually price out just over a hundred a night. I'm here for two nights, with the second night free thanks to the Club Carlson Visa from US Bank. This free-night benefit has basically disappeared for future cardholders, part of a double devalutation in 2015 that has made this rewards program/credit card combo completely useless to me going forward. Their hotels in the US mainly suck too, but then there is no Waldorf Astoria in Sioux City, so this redemption worked. The better question is why the hell you're stuck staying in North Sioux City, SD...? My 93-year-old grandfather got up at 5:00 a.m. to start cooking lunch because I was going to see him, about an hour from here. I'd go anywhere for that. Edited May 7, 2015 by cv91915 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
encoder Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 (edited) Right, because the full market value includes extrinsic factors like the value of flexibility to fly when you choose. So absolutely, the economic value of the first-class conveyance is below the MSRP market rate. But to me, the distinction is not a very compelling argument against in-kind rewards because they are just much, much more lucrative. We're not talking about even 2x but in this case, 10x. And I find that definition to be somewhat kludgey. Yes, the maximum consumers will pay is often more than the minimum they must pay. The definition makes that sound as if it's a conclusion reached. Edited May 7, 2015 by encoder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 We're not talking about even 2x but in this case, 10x. We can always pick situations were they are a good value and no one is disputing that. Notice how everyone always talk about using them for international F tickets. Most people fly domestic not international. The only way I get any value out of domestic awards is with Avios and that is when there is availability. Other than that 9 out of 10 times revenue tickets is a better option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zobelle Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Revenue ticket + points upgrade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted May 7, 2015 Share Posted May 7, 2015 Revenue ticket + points upgrade? Or GPU/RPU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Pam Posted May 10, 2015 Admin Share Posted May 10, 2015 Almost forgot! I'm sitting at the Country Inn & Suites in North Sioux City, SD, right now. This is an award stay at a 15,000 point/night Club Carlson property, where rooms usually price out just over a hundred a night. I'm here for two nights, with the second night free thanks to the Club Carlson Visa from US Bank. This free-night benefit has basically disappeared for future cardholders, part of a double devalutation in 2015 that has made this rewards program/credit card combo completely useless to me going forward. Their hotels in the US mainly suck too, but then there is no Waldorf Astoria in Sioux City, so this redemption worked. The better question is why the hell you're stuck staying in North Sioux City, SD...? My 93-year-old grandfather got up at 5:00 a.m. to start cooking lunch because I was going to see him, about an hour from here. I'd go anywhere for that. OMG. cv I think that is probably one of the sweetest things I've ever read on here. And we've had people get married and have babies. We're not talking about even 2x but in this case, 10x. We can always pick situations were they are a good value and no one is disputing that. Notice how everyone always talk about using them for international F tickets. Most people fly domestic not international. The only way I get any value out of domestic awards is with Avios and that is when there is availability. Other than that 9 out of 10 times revenue tickets is a better option. Not avios in particular, but I use FF miles to fly domestically quite frequently. Since I don't pay for 90% of my flights that earn the miles, they're certainly a good economic value for me. Between the three airlines I have miles accumulated in, I can usually find the domestic flight that I want to take. I recognize that I might be an anomaly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwd847 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 I am very close to pulling the trigger on my very first reward redemption ever! ORD-TVC 11cpp. I wanted to do ORD-MQT. That would have been 20cpp!!! I will be using the British Airways 4500 Avios deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cv91915 Posted June 2, 2015 Author Share Posted June 2, 2015 I am very close to pulling the trigger on my very first reward redemption ever! ORD-TVC 11cpp. I wanted to do ORD-MQT. That would have been 20cpp!!! I will be using the British Airways 4500 Avios deal. Nice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendelssohn Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) I am very close to pulling the trigger on my very first reward redemption ever! ORD-TVC 11cpp. I wanted to do ORD-MQT. That would have been 20cpp!!! I will be using the British Airways 4500 Avios deal. I just checked that route because of the value you posted, and it looks like about 4.5 cpm to me. Maybe we searched different dates. Round trip is 9000 Avios + $11.20 The best ticket price I found is about $420 So roughly $400/9000=$.044 cpm Still a good value though. To put this in perspective, that's $.088 per dollar on Amex PRG grocery purchases or $.198 per dollar on EDP grocery purchases. The points bonus categories may not seem that lucrative, bit they can be worth much more than any cash back card. Edited June 2, 2015 by mendelssohn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwd847 Posted June 2, 2015 Share Posted June 2, 2015 (edited) I am very close to pulling the trigger on my very first reward redemption ever! ORD-TVC 11cpp. I wanted to do ORD-MQT. That would have been 20cpp!!! I will be using the British Airways 4500 Avios deal. I just checked that route because of the value you posted, and it looks like about 4.5 cpm to me. Maybe we searched different dates. Round trip is 9000 Avios + $11.20 The best ticket price I found is about $420 So roughly $400/9000=$.044 cpm Still a good value though. To put this in perspective, that's $.088 per dollar on Amex PRG grocery purchases or $.198 per dollar on EDP grocery purchases. The points bonus categories may not seem that lucrative, bit they can be worth much more than any cash back card. Oh yeah I book all my Spirit flights with individual one way fares. I forgot that AA gives you the R/T price. ORD-TVC = 5.2 ccp ORD-MQT = 8.7 ccp Edited June 2, 2015 by pwd847 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyschmied Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Sorry in advance for more Southwest love but with a combination of sale fares and points I just booked a trip for my family of 5 from STL to Raleigh NC over Labor day. The wife has been wanting take our oldest to check out a college in VA and also wanted to visit Hilton Head, SC. This way we can rent a car when we land and hit both. I really didn't want to spend 15 hours in a minivan with 3 kids trying to get to the east coast and plane tickets had been running 175-195 one way. The sale this week dropped it to $99 or 5500 points. So I was able to get tickets for 5 out and back for around 55,000 points. Basically one SW credit card bonus. And if I had bought the tickets with cash last week it would have cost me almost $2000.00. Or close to $3000 if I went on American. Plus we have 65,000 "miles" to use from the wife's Venture card to pay for the rental car in NC. Now to find some good hotel redemptions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwd847 Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Now to find some good hotel redemptions. Couchsurfing.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyschmied Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 Now to find some good hotel redemptions. Couchsurfing.org Maybe I can drop the kids off and then me and the wife head to a Hyatt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 To put this in perspective, that's $.088 per dollar on Amex PRG grocery purchases or $.198 per dollar on EDP grocery purchases. The points bonus categories may not seem that lucrative, bit they can be worth much more than any cash back card. Not so fast there about CB cards. I can get that same flight for 200 using a 5x card. What does that come out to? Also remember you will earn miles since this is a revenue ticket and you can fly when you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendelssohn Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 To put this in perspective, that's $.088 per dollar on Amex PRG grocery purchases or $.198 per dollar on EDP grocery purchases. The points bonus categories may not seem that lucrative, bit they can be worth much more than any cash back card. Not so fast there about CB cards. I can get that same flight for 200 using a 5x card. What does that come out to? Also remember you will earn miles since this is a revenue ticket and you can fly when you want. It depends on the orice at the time of course. I don't use miles or points unless I can come out ahead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rorer_714 Posted June 4, 2015 Share Posted June 4, 2015 To put this in perspective, that's $.088 per dollar on Amex PRG grocery purchases or $.198 per dollar on EDP grocery purchases. The points bonus categories may not seem that lucrative, bit they can be worth much more than any cash back card. Not so fast there about CB cards. I can get that same flight for 200 using a 5x card. What does that come out to? Also remember you will earn miles since this is a revenue ticket and you can fly when you want. It depends on the orice at the time of course. I don't use miles or points unless I can come out ahead. Was just pointing out that certain CB cards will blow miles card out of the water on most domestic flights. Avios is the only one that has a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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