As we proceed our Miles & Factors for Novices collection, we take a look at what makes for an excellent deal when it comes time to redeem your factors.
In any case, selecting the best bank card and incomes the factors is definitely the simplest a part of the entire Miles & Factors course of.
If you’re able to redeem your factors, it’s possible you’ll discover that navigating and understanding the complicated world of loyalty packages could be troublesome, particularly as a newbie.
For many individuals, it’s straightforward to get annoyed and quit at this stage, selecting to redeem your amassed factors for merchandise as a substitute of journey as a result of it’s less complicated to know.
Nevertheless, for those who make investments a while in studying the ins and outs of loyalty packages, you’ll get considerably better worth out of your factors and unimaginable journey experiences besides.
What’s a Good Deal?
Determining whether or not a flight redemption is a “whole lot” or not can appear sophisticated, given the sheer variety of totally different loyalty packages and factors currencies on the market.
The which means of a “whole lot” may shift based mostly in your private wants and wishes.
Some Miles & Factors fans are very targeted on experiencing particular airline cabins and indulging in luxurious, and for these individuals, an excellent deal will solely exist inside this context.

Nevertheless, for a lot of travellers, an excellent deal has much more to do with balancing worth, availability, and comfort.
The typical traveller might not be trying to get outsized worth each time they redeem their factors; as a substitute, they might simply be wanting to economize on journey and be educated sufficient to make good redemption selections.
In any case, the very best redemption is the one which you could really make and luxuriate in. Not like money, miles and factors don’t have a tendency to understand over time, and actually, they’re prone to be much less helpful for those who save them for years, reasonably than “incomes and burning” extra steadily.
One essential (and irritating) side of loyalty packages is that they typically change, and often for the more severe.

Should you’re saving your entire factors for retirement, a redemption which may value 50,000 factors now might value way more then.
You’re solely ever assured to get the identical worth out of your factors as what’s out there as we speak, and that’s why we encourage you to set a purpose, earn the factors wanted to succeed in that purpose, after which benefit from the expertise.
With this in thoughts, we’ll discover a number of other ways to find out whether or not or not you’re getting an excellent take care of your miles and factors.
Calculating Worth in Cents Per Level
Chances are you’ll discover that many individuals within the Miles & Factors group typically seek advice from “cents per level” once they speak about worth.
Utilizing this metric, two key components in finding out whether or not you’re getting good worth to your miles and factors on a specific redemption are the money value of the flight and the subjective valuation of the factors foreign money you propose to make use of.
Mainly, a redemption is taken into account an excellent deal if the entire valuation of the fee in factors is lower than the entire money fare worth (don’t fear, we’ll present this equation in follow under).
Prince of Journey offers frequently up to date valuations of factors currencies on our web site, so you may discover roughly how a lot every of your factors is value utilizing our values.
After all, it’s possible you’ll worth factors greater or decrease than this – these are meant for use as a tenet.
As an example tips on how to use factors valuations to find out an excellent deal utilizing cents per level, let’s take a look at a pair examples.
Let’s assume you’re hoping to e-book a flight together with your amassed Aeroplan factors, and also you’d wish to ensure you’re getting an okay deal versus paying money.
You’ve appeared up our price evaluation for Aeroplan factors, so you recognize that we worth Aeroplan factors at round 2.1 cents (CAD) every.
Utilizing the Aeroplan portal, you seek for a flight from Calgary to Toronto and convey up the next outcomes:
- Economic system (Commonplace): 10,200 factors + $47 (taxes and costs)
- Premium Economic system (Lowest): 19,100 factors + $47 (taxes and costs)
- Enterprise Class (Lowest): 24,200 factors + $47 (taxes and costs)
Then, you lookup the money costs for a similar flights, that are as follows:
- Economic system (Commonplace): $173
- Premium Economic system (Lowest): $897
- Enterprise Class (Lowest): $1,323
In every of the three courses, we are able to estimate the worth of the redemption in cents per level, utilizing the next equation:
((money value in cents) − (taxes and costs on award reserving in cents)) / (flight value in factors)
In follow, the equation for the Economic system (Commonplace) fare appears to be like like this:
(17,300 − 4,700) / 10,200 = 1.24
So, with the above flight examples, we’d wind up with the next estimations of worth for every class of service:
- Economic system (Commonplace): 1.24 cents per level
- Premium Economic system (Lowest): 4.45 cents per level
- Enterprise Class (Lowest): 5.27 cents per level
From this, we see that an economic system reserving is available in under our goal valuation, whereas premium economic system and enterprise class each are available nicely above.
Right here, you would possibly decide to pay money for the low economic system fare and save your factors for a higher-value redemption, otherwise you would possibly select to redeem your factors for a better class of service, glad that you simply’re getting a fantastic deal.

It’s essential to all the time take note of the taxes and costs in your award redemption, since it may eat into the worth you may get out of your factors.
For instance, let’s take a look at the fee breakdown of round-trip flights between Vancouver and London, booked with British Airways Avios:
- Economic system: 65,000 Avios + $300 (taxes and costs)
- Premium economic system: 115,000 Avios + $600 (taxes and costs)
- Enterprise class: 190,000 + $900 (taxes and costs)
(Observe that the quantity of taxes and costs you pay will increase as you journey in a better class of service.)
And listed below are the costs of the identical flights booked with money:
- Economic system: $1,258.77
- Premium economic system: $2,510.47
- Enterprise class: $7,920.47
As soon as we crunch the numbers, we wind up with the next values:
- Economic system: 1.48 cents per Avios
- Premium economic system: 1.66 cents per Avios
- Enterprise class: 3.69 cents per Avios
We worth British Airways Avios at 2 cents per Avios (CAD), so utilizing this metric, we see that each economic system and premium economic system are available under, whereas enterprise class is available in at almost twice the worth.
Nevertheless, the variety of factors required for a enterprise class redemption is sort of triple the quantity wanted for economic system.

Subsequently, when you might not be thrilled with the greenback worth to your Avios for those who e-book economic system, it’s possible you’ll be joyful to decide on this selection to pay much less out of pocket, and to ration your factors to take pleasure in almost three journeys as a substitute of only one.
As you may see from the above examples, economic system flights can typically be a good deal; nevertheless, you do wish to all the time evaluate the worth in factors to the money fare worth since particular routes, journey seasons, and dynamic pricing could make it in order that money fares are typically the higher choice.
For travellers searching for a extra luxurious expertise, enterprise class and First Class redemptions are the place you’ll discover the significantly nice offers, when it comes to getting outsized worth to your factors.
Calculating the worth of a redemption isn’t the one option to decide whether or not or not a flight is an efficient deal. Should you’re searching for a better manner, you’ll simply want to know the variations between mounted pricing and dynamic pricing programs.
The Professionals and Cons of Fastened Pricing and Dynamic Pricing
When you earn sufficient factors and also you’re prepared to begin wanting up award flights, it’s possible you’ll be shocked to see simply what number of factors are required for sure flights.
To grasp why some short-haul flights in economic system may cost a little greater than a enterprise class flight to Europe, and that can assist you use your factors properly, you should perceive the variations between mounted pricing and dynamic pricing.
For probably the most half, airline loyalty packages value redemption flights utilizing mounted pricing programs, dynamic pricing programs, or a mixture of the 2.
Fastened Pricing
Fastened pricing is when an airline loyalty program retains the fee the identical for all out there award flights no matter market demand or the date flown.
With mounted pricing packages, there’s a restricted quantity of seats which might be out there to be booked with factors. As soon as they’re booked, you gained’t be capable to e-book a spot on the flight except this system releases extra award seats, which is rarely assured.
Some packages have a single stage of mounted pricing, akin to Avianca LifeMiles, whereas different packages have a number of ranges of mounted pricing, akin to Singapore Airways Krisflyer with Saver awards and Benefit awards.
With packages that use mounted pricing, you’ll know you’re doubtless getting a fantastic deal if you’ll find award availability on the lowest mounted price. That is sometimes called “Saver” pricing on Miles & Factors web sites.
Utilizing Singapore Airways KrisFlyer for instance, we are able to take a look at its two totally different ranges of mounted pricing, Saver and Benefit.
Saver pricing is decrease than Benefit pricing, however there are extra award seats out there on the Benefit pricing stage than there are on the Saver pricing stage. Benefit fares even have extra inclusions than Saver fares.
Underneath this mounted pricing construction, a one-way flight in enterprise class on Singapore Airways from Singapore to Hong Kong prices 34,000 KrisFlyer miles on the Saver stage or 50,000 KrisFlyer miles on the Benefit stage.
Naturally, taking a look at these costs, you’ll be getting a greater take care of the Saver award because it prices lower than the Benefit award; nevertheless, Saver awards are likely to get booked up, so that you’ll typically be topic to the Benefit award pricing (or wanting elsewhere for an additional redemption choice).
Airways which have a hard and fast pricing loyalty program will often publish award charts that present you what number of factors you’ll want for a redemption. Typically, there will likely be a number of charts that present costs for journey between varied areas of the world or for various distances flown.
With mounted pricing packages, so long as there’s award availability, you may count on costs to be constant. You’ll know you’re getting an excellent deal if you’ll find award availability within the first place, or on the “Saver” stage if there are a number of tiers.
Dynamic Pricing
Whereas mounted pricing packages present constant and predictable award costs, with a dynamic pricing construction, award costs can fluctuate drastically.
Usually, award packages with dynamic pricing will use “beginning at” costs, or present a spread of costs that you simply would possibly count on to pay. You’ll additionally discover that these packages don’t publish award charts, however they’ll typically have a calculator that you should utilize to estimate the bottom value for a reserving.
With dynamic pricing, you’ll know you’re getting an excellent deal for those who discover awards on the decrease finish of the vary of costs, or if you’ll find them on the “beginning at” costs.
A significant advantage of airline packages that use dynamic pricing is which you could e-book any seat on a airplane with miles and factors. With this construction, you don’t have to fret about looking in useless or ready for an award seat to indicate up at a later date; reasonably, so long as you should purchase the seat with money, you may also e-book it with factors.
For instance, Air France KLM Flying Blue has the next “beginning at” costs for flights between North America and Europe:
- Economic system: 20,000 miles
- Premium economic system: 35,000 miles
- Enterprise class: 50,000 miles
Based mostly on this, if you’ll find a enterprise class seat for 50,000 miles, you’ll know that it doesn’t get any higher than that, and it’s going to be a fantastic deal.
Nevertheless, you may additionally discover that on a unique date, that very same flight prices two, three, or 4 occasions as a lot because it “ought to” given the “beginning at” costs.
Should you encounter a value that’s a lot greater than the “beginning at” value, take into account taking a look at totally different dates for higher costs, or take into account taking a look at totally different loyalty packages altogether.
(Once more, that is the place the significance of getting versatile factors comes into play, because you aren’t shoehorned right into a single program).
Hybrid Applications
Some airways use a hybrid mannequin of each mounted pricing and dynamic pricing. Some examples of those embrace Air Canada Aeroplan and American Airways AAdvantage.
With Aeroplan, you’ll discover dynamic pricing for Air Canada flights and glued pricing for flights with associate airways.
Within the Aeroplan Flight Reward Chart, you’ll see a spread of costs which you could anticipate finding for Air Canada flights on one line, and on a unique line, you’ll see a hard and fast variety of factors which you could count on to pay for flights with associate airways.
With Aeroplan, you’ll know you’re getting a fantastic deal if you’ll find award flights on the mounted associate price or on the decrease finish of the dynamic vary for Air Canada flights.
For instance, let’s say you wish to fly to Australia from Vancouver utilizing Aeroplan factors.
In your seek for an award flight, you discover that the fee to fly Air Canada enterprise class direct from Vancouver to Sydney may be very excessive (and even pricing nicely above the higher finish of the dynamic vary)…
Nevertheless, you additionally discover that there’s a mounted value choice out there for those who have been to keen to fly by way of Los Angeles with United Airways (an Air Canada associate airline) as a substitute…
And it’s possible you’ll even discover the identical value with Air Canada for those who fly to Brisbane after which join on Virgin Australia (an Aeroplan associate) to Sydney…
So, by understanding what an excellent deal is and by being a bit versatile, you’d wind up at your vacation spot having paid a hard and fast value that’s considerably lower than the value you might have paid for the dynamically priced continuous flight with Air Canada.
Professionals and Cons
As all the time, there are professionals and cons to each the mounted pricing and dynamic pricing fashions.
With mounted pricing, you recognize what the value of the flight needs to be earlier than you even begin your search. This will simplify your factors incomes technique, as you recognize precisely what number of factors you should earn.
Nevertheless, with mounted pricing it’s possible you’ll run into issues round having the ability to really discover award availability within the first place.

A enterprise class flight to Europe for 50,000 factors sounds nice on paper, but when there is no such thing as a award availability in any respect, then it doesn’t matter how good of a deal it’s.
With the dynamic pricing mannequin, you won’t know what the value will likely be once you go to seek for your award flight, however you do know that there’ll all the time be a seat out there to e-book with factors (except the flight is totally offered out).
The draw back right here is that the fee may be considerably greater than an analogous flight with a hard and fast value.
What About Redeeming Factors for Merchandise and Reward Playing cards?
Relying on the kind of factors you have got, you may additionally have the choice to redeem them for different issues, like automobile leases, resort stays, present playing cards, merchandise, and extra.
Whereas having extra choices for utilizing your factors is all the time ultimate, it’s essential to notice that you simply’ll typically get a lot decrease worth by redeeming your factors for something apart from journey.
For instance, you would possibly see an choice to redeem 12,300 Aeroplan factors for a toaster. You even have the choice of redeeming 6,150 factors and paying $50 out of pocket.
A fast search on-line reveals the identical toaster out there for $80.
Redeeming your factors this manner would lead to a worth of 0.65 cents per level ($80 / 12,300 factors) with the primary choice and 0.48 cents per level ($80 − $50 / 6,250 factors) for the second choice, each of that are far under the worth out there when utilizing the identical factors for flights (as proven within the earlier examples).
Regardless of the way you select to redeem your factors, it’s value contemplating the various choices at your disposal, particularly for those who’d wish to take advantage of what you’ve earned.
Previous to redeeming your factors for merchandise or present playing cards, simply be sure you take into consideration the worth you may get out of your miles and factors through the use of them for journey as a substitute.
Conclusion
Navigating the world of Miles & Factors could be overwhelming, however with the suitable data and technique, you may unlock unimaginable worth and unforgettable journey experiences.
Whereas the definition of an excellent deal in the end comes right down to your private opinions and priorities, by increase your data, you’ll be in a greater place to judge what constitutes an excellent deal by yourself phrases.
Subsequent up, we’ll discover tips on how to leverage candy spots when making a dream redemption.