Measured
Each year I have points and miles earning goals. My daily goal is earn 10,000 points/miles. Please understand that I’m not tossing out that stat to brag or boast, as nothing I write is meant to take that path. I recognize that some people earn much less than that and also know that others earn significantly more than that. That goal is just something that motivates me to keep earning. I also recognize that earning 10,000 Radisson Rewards points in a day is much different (and much easier) than earning 10,000 Alaska miles. Some days I earn significantly more than 10,000 points, and others fall short of that goal. But in general, that’s roughly my current daily earn rate which equates to over 3 million loyalty based award points each year. The value add in the equation is to do all of that at no (or as little as possible) cost. That goal has also been accomplished.
500k
Recently I wrote a post talking about points and stated that I figured that I have accumulated over $500,000 worth of travel benefits from my points. When I said that, I wasn’t talking about points that have already been redeemed, but only the current value of my (points) portfolio. At the time, that was a quick estimate that I did in my head. Since then, I sat down to try and put some more detail into that stat. Here’s my current point totals rounded to the nearest 10k.
From those totals, I’ve picked out some appealing award redemptions and approximated the value of each award. I tried to be conservative with the valuations, using Google Flights roughly 4-6 months out to calculate airfare costs, and also used hotel websites for finding approximate daily rates.
Quick award redemption example for various points currencies. No Citi Thank You points!
This example is far from perfect, I get that. I’m probably not going to redeem tons of Alaska miles and fly 15 times from San Francisco to Johannesburg, South Africa. Even if I did, by the time I complete that many trips the award chart would probably change. However, not all of these redemptions are the absolute highest examples for the specific points currency. So there’s some more value that’s not shown. There’s also points left over on many of these examples, so there’s more value that’s not shown. Even though my goal wasn’t to find the absolute best highest redemption value for every award currency that I have, I realize that many of the ones displayed are quite “sweet”!
Taxes and fees aren’t included in any of the examples too, which would bring down the value by thousands. These saved points are all depreciating assets, and will only go down in value over time. In that sense, I’ve “invested” in a depreciating asset. My time and gas for acquiring these points aren’t included in the example either.
In the end, as long as the retail valuation of the award is accurate, it seems fair to go with it. My value, your value, and the airline’s value may all be quite different, as I’d never pay first class airline prices or high end hotel suite costs – but some people do. And since the airlines and hotels are charging (and getting) these rates and people are paying them, that’s at least one consistent way we can place an objective value on how much the points are worth.
Summary
The bottom line of this post isn’t to draw attention to my points stash, but rather just to show that award points and miles can and do have substantial value. Again, there are many people who have or have earned more, points than I’ve displayed here. I don’t doubt that the retail value of my points is over $500,000, but it’s not a big deal. I’m mostly an economy to business class airline traveler, as first seems to pricey to be worth it in most cases. I’d also rather stay in decent hostels and Airbnb rentals than most hotels too. Therefore, I could easily redeem the bulk of these points for awards that aren’t very flashy and that have retail values much less than the ones displayed here. If that path was taken, the miles and points would last much longer, but be worth “less”.
Right now I’m earning points at a faster rate than I can spend them. I just got back from 2.5 weeks in Europe and burned through well over 500,000 points for that trip alone. I’m also giving some away to friends and family. My cousin is getting married next year, and I told her and her fiancé to pick a destination for their honeymoon and their tickets are on me. I also got a first class Lufthansa ticket back from Europe for my good buddy on our trip. As many of you know, spending the points isn’t a problem, especially if someone else or others are involved in the redemption picture.