The Starwood brand encompasses the following 9 brands: Sheraton, Four Points, the W, Aloft, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Westin Hotels, Element, and St. Regis.

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The Continental OnePass frequent flyer program offers both SaverPass and EasyPass fares for many global destinations. SaverPass fares require far fewer miles to obtain flights, but suffer from limited availability. Conversely, EasyPass fares, while requiring significantly more miles, have no availability restrictions.

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At a high level, estimating the value of Delta Skymiles is a 3-step process:

• First, obtain the miles redemption schedule from Delta…easily done.
• Next, make some assumptions around what portion of travel will be done during periods of low, moderate and high demand, as the Delta Skymiles program charges different amounts of points for each of these tiers.
• Finally, tie in PlasticIQ’s estimates of typical “market rate” ticket prices, making sure to back out out-of-pocket taxes and fees which miles never cover.  This will enable us to calculate the dollar value per Skymile.

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The American Airlines AAdvantage (“Advantage”) Rewards program is the 1st and world’s largest frequent flyer program, or so their website claims. Travelers earn miles when they fly on American Airlines, American Connection/Eagle, or more than 20 other airline partners. The American Airlines Advantage program offers several different types of awards:

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In order to calculate the value of certain frequent flyer programs, it is necessary to understand what it would cost to buy those airline tickets with cold hard cash. In economic terms, I think this is referred to as the replacement cost. Given that airline pricing strategy is one of the more complex human endeavors (witness the armies of economics PhDs hired by airlines to tackle this stuff!), we aren’t aiming for anything near perfection here, just a directional estimate.

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PIQ’s Assessment of the Discover Business Miles Rewards Card

• The 2 miles per dollar of spend on gas purchases is fairly unexceptional, especially with the travel/gas cap of $5,000 per year (after which point you only get 1 miles per dollar of spend).  There are at least a couple of cards that offer 5 cents per dollar of spend on gas.
• Additionally, the 2 miles per dollar of spend on travel related purchases is outdone by more focused, higher rewarding cards.

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