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I am excited to announce a new feature: the milevalue.com Mile Value Leaderboard. Find it at the top of the page. On it, I’ll keep track of my latest valuations for every major frequent flier, credit card, and hotel loyalty currency. So far, it just has three entries: Avios, Rapid Rewards, and Membership Rewards. Avios and Rapid Rewards were dissected in the last week.
Full Membership Rewards analysis is coming soon. But I’ve added it to the list because right now there is a 50% transfer bonus if you transfer Membership Rewards points to Avios. Since I value Avios at 1.70 cents per point, and I can get 1.5 Avios for each MR point, MR points are worth at least 2.55 cents per point at the moment. That’s the figure I’ve put on the Leaderboard. What currency do you expect to top the Leaderboard, which do you want to see analyzed and added next? Put it in the comments.
I’d like to see United miles valued. Thanks, I’ve been enjoying your site.
Chase Ultimate Rewards looks appealing generally speaking. Of course, each individual’s needs will dictate value, but the flexibility and number of transfer partners could make Ultimate Rewards a worthy competitor.
Dang I need to this valuation because it’s hard for me to see the benefits of MR esp when ANA has high fuel charges.
I love MR for their 1.5 Avios transfer, but I have more direct flights on AA from LA. You only have Chicago-O’Hare, Dallas/Fort Worth, London-Heathrow, Los Angeles, Miami, New York-JFK, and seasonally to Paris and St. Thomas on AA from Boston. If you don’t want to use Avios for those flights, and you don’t have upcoming trips to South America or Australia, your value of Avios and MR will be lower. I just booked an Avios award (Quito-Lima-Cuzco and Cuzco-Lima) for my parents last night that got about 4 cpm, so that would be 6 cpm for Membership Rewards
Hi, I’m ready to dump my AMEX Gold card and replace it with a Blue Cash card beacuse the annual fee is coming up. I’d like your opinion. First I assume if I don’t have a Gold card my rewards points will disapper if I don’t transfer them out. I’ve read that BA is starting to charge fuel surcharges from Brazil. I travel to Argentina and want to explore more of South America but am apprehensive about transfering them if BA is going to charge those outragous surcharges to South America. I already have 100,000 avios, 300,000 AA miles and 125,000 UA miles. I always travel coach, I might splurge at some point for now I’d rather have the miles for more flights. I don’t have many hotel points but then I like to backpack so it’s not as important to me. What do you think I should do with the 70,000 Amex points? Thanks.
I think the highest value transfer is 1.5 Avios for 1 MR (ends May 31, HURRY), but that would up your total to 205,000, which might be tough to use. There’s a bit of confusion about Avios surcharges ex-Brazil. The flurry of blog posts was about trips from Brazil to London and beyond on British Airways planes.
Trips from the US to Brazil and back on AA planes still have no fees on Avios awards. I just priced out a r/t economy award from Dallas to Rio on American planes. It cost 50,000 Avios and $94 (all taxes, no fuel surcharges).
I value 1.5 Avios about twice as highly as 1 Delta mile, but that’s also a possible option for you since you have no Delta miles, and it’s nice to diversify across the three alliances. Other options are gift cards, where you’ll get 1 cpm. Or using them to book paid flights.
I would definitely go with the Avios option, but it depends on your situation.