Case Study: How I Redeemed Points for $36,000 of Travel Last Year

When I meet people who aren’t familiar with frequent flyer programs, they often ask me how I can afford to travel so much. The answer is that I use points to book a lot of my travel.

I’m happy to explain how this works, and how other people can also take advantage of the same tricks, to anyone who’ll listen. But invariably, at some point, many people lose interest because “it all sounds too complicated”. If you’ve ever tried explaining frequent flyer points to someone who’s new to the game, you probably know what I mean.

To be fair, getting value out of frequent flyer programs is indeed complicated. These people aren’t wrong. It’s reasonably easy to earn points, for example, through credit card sign-up bonuses. But working out the best ways to redeem points – and finding award availability – can be tough.

Nonetheless, taking the time to understand and master the art of using frequent flyer points is a very worthwhile investment! To prove it, in this case study I’ll show you exactly how I spent my own points over the last year.

In total, I used points to book over $36,000 worth of flights and hotels in the last 12 months.

This case study is the second part in this series and follows on from the previous article where I explained exactly how I earned Qantas and Velocity points over the past year.

I almost always use my frequent flyer points for flights, and my hotel loyalty points on hotel nights. I personally find this to be the best value for my personal circumstances because I travel a lot. But this case study is merely a snapshot of how I used my own points over the last year. You may find that redeeming points in other ways works better for you – and that’s totally fine!

Overview of my flight redemptions for the last year

Overall, I spent 784,600 frequent flyer points and paid $3,526 in taxes & carrier charges for flights taken in the last year.

It would have cost at least $33,916 for me to buy tickets on the same flights and cabins. On average, this means I got around 3.87 cents per point redeemed.

That would be an above-average value when using points because I mainly redeemed for flights in premium cabins, or for Economy flights that would have otherwise been relatively expensive. If the cost of an airfare is relatively low, compared to the number of points needed for a redemption booking, I’d usually just buy a ticket and save my points for another trip.

Some notes about my calculations

Below you’ll find a full breakdown of the flights I took between 1 July 2022 and 30 June 2023 using my own points.

Note that I didn’t necessarily book these flights or earn the points used during that same period. In particular, I redeemed more Qantas points than I earned last year because I had been saving them up during the pandemic when travel options were limited. I also haven’t included any flights that I booked last year but hadn’t yet flown by 30 June 2023.

In general, I book awards as one-way tickets because there’s no discount for booking a return award flight, and this provides more flexibility. This isn’t always the case when buying international flights, where one-way flights can cost more than half of the return airfare. To ensure fair comparisons, on certain routes where one-way airfares are significantly higher than return fares, I’ve quoted the equivalent one-way airfare cost as half of a return fare.

Throughout the last year, I have also reviewed some of these flights. You can find links to flight reviews for these trips by clicking on the relevant route, where a link is available.

Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions

As you can see, I used my Qantas points on a few international flights in premium cabins. But the majority of trips I booked using Qantas points were actually for domestic flights – particularly on routes or travel dates where buying a ticket on the same flight would have been quite expensive. (Being based in Canberra, that unfortunately applies quite a lot of the time.)

Points Club membership does make it a bit more attractive to redeem points on Qantas flights. That’s because I can earn status credits on Classic Flight Reward bookings.

The average redemption value I got per Qantas point was 3.87 cents. See our guide to redeeming Qantas points effectively for more on the valuation of Qantas points.

Velocity Frequent Flyer redemptions

On average, I got 3.48 cents of value per Velocity point redeemed over the last 12 months.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer redemptions

To book these flights, I used up some KrisFlyer miles that I earned before the pandemic. I was a little bit short, so supplemented these KrisFlyer miles by transferring some extra points over from Velocity Frequent Flyer. The average value I got per KrisFlyer mile redeemed was 3.9 cents.

United MileagePlus redemptions

United MileagePlus no longer has award charts, and United Airlines flights are now priced dynamically. But I was able to get an average of 5.53 cents of value per mile by redeeming on partner airlines. (As I covered in a recent article, United MilagePlus redemptions within Europe can be surprisingly excellent value.)

Overview of my hotel redemptions for the last year

I also actively collect points with IHG One Rewards and Accor ALL through hotel stays. These are the two main hotel loyalty programs that I currently hold elite status with, and I generally choose to stay at IHG or Accor hotels where it makes sense.

Over the past year, I’ve saved a total of $2,296 on hotel nights by redeeming hotel loyalty points.

IHG One Rewards redemptions

Over the last 12 months, I’ve redeemed IHG One Rewards points towards 10 hotel nights. These were all points that I earned through hotel stays, including bonus points from IHG promotions. (With a current promotion, for example, you can earn 10,000 bonus IHG points for every 4 nights stayed at any IHG hotels.)

Here’s a breakdown of my IHG One Rewards redemptions over the last year:

Note that I made a Points + Cash redemption at Crowne Plaza Utrecht, where I used 19,998 points to cover $262 worth of the cost of the room. The full cost would have been either $561 if paying only with cash, or 50,000 points if paying only with points.

The average value I got per IHG point was 1.2 cents.

Accor Live Limitless redemptions

In the last year, I’ve also redeemed 6,000 Accor Live Limitless (ALL) points towards hotel stays. With Accor’s loyalty program, every 2,000 points redeemed gets you the equivalent of a €40 (~AU$65) discount off any Accor room rate. This gives a fixed redemption value of 3.25 cents per ALL point.

In total, as I redeemed 6,000 points last year, those discounts were worth around $197.

Summing up: Why frequent flyer programs are worth it

So, there you have it – that’s how I used my points over the past year.

Navigating all the different frequent flyer programs and working out how to get the best value for your points can be tricky. You won’t always find award availability on the flights you want, and sometimes it even feels like airlines make it deliberately difficult to use your points effectively.

But by using my points wisely, I was able to get over $36,000 worth of travel over the last 12 months for an outlay of less than $4,000 in taxes & carrier charges.

Admittedly, there is also a cost involved in earning points. But I earned many of my points doing things that I would have done anyway, such as flying, shopping at the supermarket or spending money on my credit cards. Even after considering the marginal costs involved in earning points, such as paying credit card annual fees, I’m still way ahead.

Even a single credit card sign-up bonus could earn you enough frequent flyer points to book an international Business Class flight. That kind of value is pretty hard to ignore!

If you’re new to frequent flyer points and not sure where to start, the Australian Frequent Flyer forum is a great resource where you can ask questions and get help from the AFF community. We also offer a Frequent Flyer Concierge service that can assist you to redeem your points for reward flights.

How do you use your points?

Everyone uses their points differently. Let us know how you redeem your points, and what you consider to be a good value redemption, on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum!

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 80 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.