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Frequent Flyer Mileage Valuation Comparison

In order for PlasticIQ to accurately rank the dozens of credit cards with frequent flyer programs, it is necessary to calculate the dollar value per mile for each of these programs. We have written numerous articles about each, but below is a table which summarizes our estimated values for each program along with a link to a more detailed posting.

Frequent Flyer Mileage Valuation Comparison Chart
Airline Program Estimated $ value per Mile Detailed Information
Continental OnePass $0.0122 Value of Continental One-Pass Miles
ANA ANA Miles $0.0109 Value of ANA Miles
JetBlue True Blue $0.0122 Value of JetBlue TrueBlue Points
Delta Skymiles $0.0111 Value of Delta Skymiles
American Airlines AAdvantage $0.0136 Value of American Airlines Advantage Miles
AirTran Airways A+ Awards $0.0167* Value of AirTran Airways A+ Credits
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards $0.0167 Value of Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credits
US Airways Dividend Miles $0.0121 (personal credit cards)

$0.0105 (business credit cards)

 Value of US Airways Dividend Miles
United Mileage Plus $0.0111 Value of United Mileage Plus Miles
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club $0.0105 Value of Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Miles
*These airlines actually awards points or credits instead of miles. To make for an apples-to-apples comparison between the programs, it was necessary to use the affiliated credit card point conversion rates to derive a “per mile” estimate.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 4:01 pm and is filed under Airline Rewards Programs, Rewards Programs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://ideas.4brad.com Brad Templeton

    Thanks very much for doing this sort of chart and analysis. It’s refreshing to see a credit card comparison site that isn’t just trying to push affiliate links.

    However, let me add some things that adjust your numbers, possibly a lot.

    a) When you fly on miles, you don’t earn miles. Most people use miles for the more expensive, transcontinental flights which are 4-5,000 miles round trip. As such you should discount the value of the miles 20-25%. Status flyers will also earn 25% to 50% bonus miles on paid trips, so if you have status, discount to 30%.

    b) In addition, paid flights earn status, which is sometimes even more important to flyers than the miles. It’s hard to put a number on it, but market suggestions imply that status is worth anywhere from $250 to $1000 on various airlines. Considering what UA charges for Economy Plus these numbers are in range.

    b) There are usually taxes and fees on flights booked with miles, as much as $50-$100, depending on when you book them.

    c) Your flight costs are a bit low. While you may have found these costs to be average, because of the factors above, many flyers will pay cash when a flight is below a certain number (more like $400) and use miles when the flight would otherwise be expensive.

    d) On the other hand, Southwest fares are usually lower than other airlines, so the value of a SW flight may be considered to be less than that of another carrier.

    Now, you factor this in elsewhere, but a big factor in a credit card is the annual fee, since many people charge less than $25,000 on any given credit card, so they pay at least one annual fee per flight taken. Add the fee, and taxes, and the more expensive flight, and it balances out a bit.

  • admin

    Brad, thanks for the thoughtful reply. Let me try to respond to each point in turn.
    On point A, I think you are mixing the concept of credit card rewards with loyalty program awards. PlasticIQ is focused solely on credit card rewards, and not bonuses from loyalty programs. Thus, we don’t factor in mileage earned in loyalty programs from flying routes. Someday in the future I may try to value loyalty programs as well, but for now even just valuing the credit cards themselves is a full time job

    On point B, again this is a loyalty program feature, and has nothing to do with credit card valuations.

    On your point about taxes and fees, I bake all of those into my valuations. That’s why, for example, Virgin Atlantic has such low valuations, because their fuel surcharge is extremely high.

    On point C, about my flight costs being too low. This is just the prices I found when doing random sampling on kayak.com. I agree with your point about *some* flyers not using their points when prices are too low, but it’s also hard to model in these kind of behaviors. Some flyers, for example, may be OK using points when they are getting $0.01 or more; others may not be willing to trade unless they are getting $0.015 or $0.02 or even $0.03 or more. Where do i draw the line? That said, I never assume flyers exchange points on routes that value those points at less than $0.01, unless that airline has no other route options.

    Regarding your point on annual fees, yes this is indeed factored in when you use the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine. The annual fee technically doesnt affect the value of points for a given credit card, but it does affect the overall value of holding that card–which is what the PIQ Ranking Engine addresses.

    Again, thanks for awesome comments!!

  • Sue White

    Hi, Thanks SO much for publishing this for us. Very helpful.

    I live in Hawaii. Any chance you could also calculate for Hawaiian Airlines? We usually fly them to the Mainland. Thanks, Sue

  • admin

    Hi Sue! Glad you found the post informative. I’ll have to add Hawaiian airlines to my list! As you can imagine, there are a seemingly endless array of programs to analyze. I wish I could devote myself full-time to the blog:) But if you subscribe to the RSS feed, you’ll be notified each time I publish a new post. In general though, I’ve found that most frequent flyer programs’ miles are worth anywhere from $0.01 to $0.0125, give or take. You really get much more value from these programs when you use the miles for upgrades. Now, if you don’t go for upgrades, then you are probably better off with something like the Amex Blue Cash card or the Discover Escape card–you can easily achieve 2% effective cashback (or more in the case of the Amex Blue card) with these cards.

  • http://Ican'tstandflyingonHorizonAirlines.Theyusethosepropellerplanesthatcrashedallthetimeoverseas.Avoidtheminyourtravelplans. Herma Mihalko

    Avoid flying on Horizon Airlines, they treat people badly and cancel first and ask questions later.