AFF Point Valuations

[AFF Editor]

When you valued a point, did you consider the number of points you would have earned by flying on a paid fare and paying for the flight with a credit card?

This was not part of the calculations.

Did you also increase the price of a paid flight by the amount you would pay in addition to the points (taxes etc).

Yes, the taxes & charges on a reward ticket were taken into account in our model.

 

[HockeyMonkey]

Is the underlying basket data available? I'd love to try an put a dollar figure on savings looking back at all my spending across classic flight rewards, and upgrades across the various classes

 

[VPS]

When you valued a point, did you consider the number of points you would have earned by flying on a paid fare and paying for the flight with a credit card? Did you also increase the price of a paid flight by the amount you would pay in addition to the points (taxes etc).

Welcome to AFF

 

[WilsonM]

Is the underlying basket data available? I'd love to try an put a dollar figure on savings looking back at all my spending across classic flight rewards, and upgrades across the various classes

Not at this stage, although we're looking at a couple of ways for people to at least customise the dataset to suit their redemption patterns. The basket data is just all in a very messy spreadsheet (my fault!).

One way could be to add a calculator, then allow people to filter out the redemptions they do/don't use their points for, to get a more accurate valuation i.e. filter out on-the-ground, or only choose domestic routes etc etc. Or maybe to change the weightings based on what people believe their opinion of certain programs are, based on the categories we used. All up in the air, but something we'd definitely love to get done.

As an aside, many people raise a really interesting point - does point expiry matter - especially if you're only transferring an exact amount of points in?

If you have a specific redemption in mind, I guess not. And for the vast majority of people who are accumulating miles that do expire, my guess would be that you won't ever have enough to spend.

But I'll propose something - using KF as an example - instead of 500,000, what if you were 'stuck' with 5,000,000 KF miles, out of the blue? For some people, they'd burn through that no problem, explore the world etc with family. But for others, how long would it be before you start redeeming for sub-optimal value, because you have the points there and you know they expire? In essence, the point expiry influences your redemption patterns, even if you still are redeeming for good value. Opposed to something like Qantas or Velocity, where you can actually keep your points in store for as long as you want. Of course, programs can devalue - hence why we added a separate category for this.

Just a thought I guess (a hard expiry is what stopped me from doing the TK million mile challenge, for example).

Again, absolutely don't disagree with the fact that an individual's own valuation may differ wildly, and if you're redeeming on only a few things (i.e. Long-haul J to EUR/Asia/Americas) then their value per point is vastly different.

And, I can only speak for myself, but I do appreciate the feedback, support, suggestions and criticism posted.

As another note, Point Hacks had absolutely nothing to do with these valuations - they're looking at doing something different with their own. They might end up borrowing ours, but to put it clearly - they are ours (being AFF's).

 

[BenP]

But for others, how long would it be before you start redeeming for sub-optimal value, because you have the points there and you know they expire? In essence, the point expiry influences your redemption patterns, even if you still are redeeming for good value

Isn't there sort of a live example of this happening with QF already with the "devaluation" (I really do not like the term) people are looking to book flights that may not be ideal
A simple idea as to how you might factor the hard expiry in the valuation have the value set as a sliding scale. For example the points expiry within 12 months from earning them for simple maths they are initial valued at 1.2 cents then each month the value decrease by 0.1 so with 6 months left to expiry they are valued at 0.6 cents. and after 12 months they are worth zero.
I know there will be multiple other factors to consider eg airlines CR releases

 

[burmans]

While I agree with many of the points made above, have to take issue with the stuck with 5M KF points example. For most people KF points are hard to get and the result of conscious decision, this includes points earned by flying (which can be credited elsewhere than KF).
As BenP notes I think devaluation creates just as strong an impetus to use points as a hard expiration does. I’ve never really had a problem using my KF points ( though I was forced to use on a suites redemption once -hardly a negative), with Qantas though, easy to earn but really hard to burn in a value manner. Either flights just aren’t available or I can get much better value on other FF programs.
And with latest devaluation am forced to either make sub optimal bookings or accept devaluation of the nearly 2M points my wife and I have.

 

[CaptJCool]

This is why I earn and churn
Knowing the “bank of Qantas” can pull levers and throttle BOTH sides of the transaction They can adjust the value proposition at will

They decide what points you earn for your spend AND decide how many points you need to use to redeem “so-called” rewards
AND they decide the co-payment charges as well.
Talk about the odds being “stacked against the consumer”

With the looming devaluation mere hours away, I did look to USE points to book but my forward schedule was already loaded up with (Test match, Tahiti and Cape Town) bookings

And while I added 5 more, 3 were under $100 cash while the other 2 are on a high demand to supply Darwin (QF $501 one way) route so no rewards tickets in sight (well there was one that involved a long detour via Brisbane or Melbourne for 14,400 plus a chunky co-payment so I just stumped up for JQ…

My tips for into the future

Getting to Europe
Avoid the Asia tax and fly from CGK or Manila
There’s 15 + million QFF Members so The level of competition to snag a very limited volume is now fierce
Most can’t wait until 3 days before to book Qatar or EK F late releases

Rewards tics
Partner airlines in Europe (far less competition from the 15 million QFF members) even at short notice

Cross-country to/from NZ / Perth
PERTH TO CHRISTCHURCH was 20,300 points (yeah a chunky co-payment)
Griffith to Perth was 20,300 when the revenue fare was $1,434

 

[Mischief1]

AFF has created a model that calculates the average value of a frequent flyer point in 12 different airline programs. It's not 100% perfect - no model is - but it should give you a pretty good benchmark, and make it easier to compare the value of points in different frequent flyer programs!

You can read in lots of detail how the model works, and our findings, here:

How Much a Frequent Flyer Point is Worth: Our Valuations

We've created a sophisticated model that calculates the average value to an Australian of frequent flyer points and credit card reward points with different programs. Find out which programs have the most and least valuable points!

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

These are the average values, and the range of values we found, for each of the 12 programs analysed as of July 2025:

View attachment 459699

We intend to update our valuations periodically, so these values will likely change over time.

Feel free to share your thoughts and comments in this thread!

First of all well done on all the work that went into this. I’m interested in more info on the Qantas vs Virgin availability issue. Is the reason they were rated the same that Virgin was classified as having a moderate network with good availability vs Qantas large network with moderate availability? My recent experiences ( looking for economy reward flights to Canada/New York) pre Trump with Qantas was very difficult and caused me to change my points hacking to Velocity. This was a good move as my recent experiences finding economy reward seats to Europe showed velocity partners with many more options (and Qantas reward options to Europe now almost all via US! - presumably because of reduced demand). By the way a shout to the advice to use points aero - just subscribing for a month cut down the work required to find a suitable flight considerably and found me a flight I never would have found via conventional searching.

 

[Mischief1]

This is why I earn and churn
Knowing the “bank of Qantas” can pull levers and throttle BOTH sides of the transaction They can adjust the value proposition at will

They decide what points you earn for your spend AND decide how many points you need to use to redeem “so-called” rewards
AND they decide the co-payment charges as well.
Talk about the odds being “stacked against the consumer”

With the looming devaluation mere hours away, I did look to USE points to book but my forward schedule was already loaded up with (Test match, Tahiti and Cape Town) bookings

And while I added 5 more, 3 were under $100 cash while the other 2 are on a high demand to supply Darwin (QF $501 one way) route so no rewards tickets in sight (well there was one that involved a long detour via Brisbane or Melbourne for 14,400 plus a chunky co-payment so I just stumped up for JQ…

My tips for into the future

Getting to Europe
Avoid the Asia tax and fly from CGK or Manila
There’s 15 + million QFF Members so The level of competition to snag a very limited volume is now fierce
Most can’t wait until 3 days before to book Qatar or EK F late releases

Rewards tics
Partner airlines in Europe (far less competition from the 15 million QFF members) even at short notice

Cross-country to/from NZ / Perth
PERTH TO CHRISTCHURCH was 20,300 points (yeah a chunky co-payment)
Griffith to Perth was 20,300 when the revenue fare was $1,434

Excellent advice! I found many options recently available to use q points on internal European flights and similarly good options last year on internal Nth America flights but incredibly difficult getting to and from!