Points and miles are currencies, and, as with cash, you shouldn’t spend more points than you need to. But, like cash fares, points fares can vary widely depending on a lot of factors, including your airports, dates, airlines, and when you’re booking.
It can be hard to know if you’re getting a good deal, so we’ve implemented some price guidance to help you understand the value you’re getting from your points for each fare.
Is this value at least as good as the credit card portal?
Using points to book flights through your credit card issuer’s portal typically gives you a value of 1 cent per point (up to a maximum of 1.5 cents per point when you use certain cards).
This means a $500 economy flight will cost 50,000 points, while a $3,000 business class flight will cost 300,000 points.
This is the baseline. You should always be getting at least 1 cent per point in value; if not, you’re better off paying cash.
Transferring your points to airline partners often gives you a lot more value than booking in a credit card portal. For example, that same $3,000/300,000 roundtrip business class flight found in your credit card’s portal might only cost 96,000 points — nearly 70% less — when booked with an airline program.
The math of points value calculations
It’s pretty easy to determine the per-point price of a flight if you’re willing to do some math. Here’s the basic calculation:
Take the price of the flight in cash + any taxes and fees on the award ticket
/ divide by the number of points required and then multiply that number by 100
= the number of cents per point
Here’s how it works in practice. Let’s take a $2,800 business class flight that has $280 in taxes and fees and is available for 80,000 points via point.me.
$2,800 + $80 = $3,080
$3,080 / 80,000 = .0385
.0385 X 100 = 3.85
This puts the value of these points at over 3 cents per point — a much better value than the 1 cent per point you’d get from the credit card portal.
Price guidance from point.me
While there’s always going to be some personal factors that determine if a flight is “worth it” to you, point.me can help you determine if the fare is an objectively good value, especially when compared to the price you’d pay booking in your credit card’s travel portal.
When viewing your point.me results, look for the tags that say “Great deal” or “Beats the portal.”
A fare tagged “Beats the portal” does just that: it offers you a value better than 1 cent per point.
A fare tagged “Great deal” offers even more value — sometimes as much as 6, 10, or even 12 cents per point.
With these tags, you can be assured you’re getting at least a baseline value from your points — and likely even more.
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