Award Travel 101 Podcast Episode 25: What Are Points Worth

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Previous Episode Show Notes

• 1 — Meet Award Travel 101 Community Administrators Angie & Joe
• 2 — Booking a Dream (African Safari) Trip
• 3 — Creating Memories Through Big And Small Trips
• 4 — 8 Steps to Better Award Travel
• 5 — Cruise (on Points), Racking and Stacking, and Keep or Kick it to the Curb
• 6 — Transfer Bonuses, Hyatt Bonus Journeys, and Benefits of AwardWallet
• 7 — So Many Program Changes with AwardWallet’s JT Genter
• 8 — Hyatt Changes, AA Domestic First Class Routes, and Meet the Mods (Jackie Wisniewski)
• 9 — Sapphire Lounge Opening, New Bonuses, Meet the Mods (Jerod Morales), and Business Class for Six
• 10 — When to Part with Points and Angie's Safari Trip
• 11 — AvGeeks, Spreadsheets, & Cheatsheets – Meet the Mods (Mike Zaccheo)
• 12 — Status Matching for More Value
• 13 — How Often Do You Get a New Card
• 14 — Incredible Trip to New Zealand on Points, Plus a Trip to the Freddie Awards
• 15 — Best Card for Groceries & Award Travel Community Meetup
• 16 — Citi Product Change Rules and Meet the Team: Allison Caraway
• 17 — Husband Cashes in All Their Points AND Programs To Book Round The World Flights
• 18 — Gorgeous Pictures from Iran and Cards That Earn Status
• 19 — The Tools We Use
• 20 — Mistakes We've Made
• 21 — Crafty Way to See Taylor Swift and Ways to Earn Hotel Free Night Certificates
• 22 — First Class Trip to Croatia and Should You Speculatively Transfer Points
• 23 — Our Favorite Award Programs
• 24 — LIVE From a Lounge & Is American Airlines Status Worth Chasing

Award Travel 101 Podcast Episode 25 Show Notes

Post of the Week (From the Award Travel 101 Group)

Daniel Mark Adsit recently did an around-the-world itinerary with eight stopovers in seven countries, including seven flights in business and three in coach. Check out his post on how he accomplished this incredible journey.

News & Enhanced Offers

• Changes to Citi^® / AAdvantage^® Executive World Elite Mastercard^® — increased annual fee plus a new fee for authorized users. But it's not all bad news.
• Another change to AAdvantage — Rocketmiles and Book AAdvantage Hotels reduced earning potential AND now one and the same
• The Hyatt/MGM partnership is no longer. Just after the “break-up,” MGM announced a new partner.

Trip Updates

• Angie — another safari?!
• Joe:
  • Found flights to St. Croix on AA (now need to get back)
  • Rebooked Mexico flights…to the same flight (why?)
  • Canceled a bunch of flights (Delta via Virgin, American via British Airways, and JAL First Class via American)

What Bonuses Did We Get?

• Angie:
  • “Player 2” applied for the new reduced spend 100K bonus on the Ink Business Preferred^® Credit Card
  • Ink Business Unlimited^® Credit Card (see Ink Unlimited offer) points ready to post when the statement closes.
  • Same for both Barclays AA cards.
• Joe:
  • AA miles posted
  • Gave Hilton Honors American Express Surpass^® Card (see Hilton Surpass review here) another try

Highlight Feature: What are Points Worth?

Travel rewards can be highly subjective. That means your personal experience with any one program is highly dependent on how you choose to use your rewards. One person’s trash is another’s treasure. Did you know that AwardWallet has a tool that helps you see what type of value others in the community are redeeming for? So let’s discuss methodology. You’ll find various values on sites around the internet, but here’s how AwardWallet calculates.

Keep in mind that AwardWallet values are generally higher as AwardWallet users and Award Travel 101 members tend to be more informed and educated on how to get the best value from these programs. Plus the information compared against — while always the lowest comparable priced flight — may not be what you'd actually pay when looking at last-minute close-in one-way bookings relative to a preplanned round-trip booking. Keep in mind that the values shown are in cents per point or mile.

Flexible Points

For transferrable currencies, AwardWallet considers how much value users have gotten from the program's transfer partners. And then we weigh the value by the most-popular transferrable partners. So, Amex Membership Rewards is heavily weighed by Delta SkyMiles, while Chase Ultimate Rewards is weighed down by Southwest Rapid Rewards and United MileagePlus.

• American Express Membership Rewards: 2.14¢ per point based on 24,697 bookings
• Capital One Venture Miles: 2.66¢ per point based on 9,977 bookings
• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 1.97¢ per point based on 52,671 bookings
• Citi ThankYou Points: 2.2¢ per point based on 8,295 bookings

Airline Miles

AwardWallet tracks average redemption values for 20 programs. Here are some of the ones most often mentioned in the Award Travel 101 Facebook Community:

• American Airlines AAdvantage: Book 23 different airline partners and has been highly valuable to me
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: 4.96¢ per Virgin point — which is crazy, but you can get solid returns on Delta, ANA, and others
• Avianca Lifemiles: 2.87¢ per LifeMile
• British Airways Executive Club: 3.43¢ per Avios

Other U.S.-based carriers — like United MileagePlus, Delta SkyMiles, and Southwest Rapid Rewards — typically run between 1.1-1.5 (might be high IMO) except Alaska Mileage Plan which is at 2.57¢ per mile (based on 4,840 bookings) due to their exceptional award chart for Asia and the South Pacific.

Hotel Points

• Choice Privileges: 0.6¢ per point
• Hilton Honors: 0.58¢ per point
• IHG One Rewards: 0.69¢ per point
• World of Hyatt: 2.19¢ per point
• Marriott Bonvoy: 0.95¢ per point
• Wyndham Rewards: 1.17¢ per point