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).