How to know if using points is a good deal

Hi Ruth,

The Points Guy has a calculator to determine if you should use miles/points vs money which I have used before: https://thepointsguy.com/calculator/
Sorry, can't answer the additional upgrade fee question.

One truth in the points game is that points rarely go up in value, but they do get devalued from time to time. Ask yourself, “If I don’t use these points now, which trip am I saving them for?” Perhaps you do have an international trip that it is worth saving them for. If no trip comes to mind, why not use them?

FWIW, I asked Google AI and it said 37,000 United points about 1.2¢/pt is worth about $445.

Use 'em, or lose 'em. Some rewards orograms have time limits where points can expire. And some can become defunct. You can't eat interest on points.

Thanks all.
Mel, thanks for the link to the calculator which indicates the points are about $19 pricier per ticket (so pretty much a wash). I’ll definitely check in with the calculator as I figure things out for this and future trips!

IMO, the best use of points is for booking a premium (either PE or Business) cabin
in the off/saddle seasons, especially for international travel.

You have to be aware that airlines do not handle the departure charges and taxes
uniformly, which may affect how good of a deal it appears to be.

Note that tickets booked with points/miles can be cancelled without charge, so
if and when you do book, it does pay to check occasionally to see if the # of miles
required has gone done. It does happen quite often.

For the itinerary you have mentioned, the first class seat you'd be getting is domestic
first class, not a lie-flat seat.

I use 1.3–1.5 cents per mile (CPM) as guidance to determine if an award ticket is a good deal.

CPM = 100 * (Cash Price $ - Taxes & Fees) / Miles used

I booked a Delta award ticket recently for roundtrip flight from the West Coast to London for an early Fall trip; my CPM for this booking is 1.64 cents per mile which I considered very good. I did get 15% discount from my Delta AMEX card. Without the 15% discount the CPM would have been 1.39 which is still pretty good.

Hi Ruth, I tend to use my points occasionally for domestic trips and pay for the international ones.

If the price to pay for a flight seems reasonable, probably the points/miles are good to use on that one, too.

As Mindfulness has pointed out, it's important to factor into the equation the taxes you'll pay on a frequent flier ticket. I've seen those as low as about $6, but they can go a lot higher. The taxes are already included in the cash price of the ticket.

I used to try to get a value of 2 cents per mile on my mileage tickets, but I fly coach, and that seems no longer possible. If it comes out close to 1.5 cents per mile, I figure that's about as good a deal as I will get these days. However, this can vary between competitive and non-competitive origins and destinations.

I fly United and its partners most of the time and am very pleased to be able to redeposit miles and get taxes refunded with no fee if I cancel or rebook a flight. That's more valuable to me on long overseas trips, so I tend not to use miles domestically. Refundable cash tickets seem to cost at least $200 extra; that's a potential additional cost I avoid by being able to use miles. A younger person with less risk of needing to reschedule a trip for medical reasons might not choose to limit use of miles to international flights.