How do I calculate value of FF points award flight vs buying ticket on sale price

[cumquat]

Not sure whether I just go Qantas FF and choose and buy flight and it will be best value, or whether I should be looking for sale priced fares and route, and this would be cheaper .
Am planning Melb to London, and then swanning about Croatia and Turkey and maybe Italy, and then home.
Any suggestions appreciated.

 

[serfty]

Welcome to AFF.

It really depends on many factors - today I had to consider exactly that, in the end I chose the base revenue option as I am trying to rebuild my points bank and don't need any more SC's before my year finishes end of October:

Hmmm ... prices have dropped significantly and award availability has opened (U3, X9)

One can do MEL-xSYD-ADL:

• on a Economy classic for 12K + $66.
• on a Business classic for 24K + $66.
• on Economy Revenue $255
• on Business Revenue $1200
• on YASA for 5K + $225 (or 33K)
• on JASA for 16K + $355 (or 61K)

No E class $129 sale fares left.

Need to be back Saturday as Sunday 14th Booked.

Decisions, Decisions ...

 

[AVC]

There is no fixed rule on how much a FF point is "worth"

In my case we recently booked PE fares to DFW and it cost 252K points plus $1600, which equates to a FF point value of 3.4 cents per point for the same paid fare at that time. (3 tickets purchased)
But, we picked a day where the ASA was costing less points compared to different dates. A different date could have seen the points go up 336K points, thereby lowering there "value" to 2.5 cents per point.


On another example, we upgraded to PE on a SYD-LAX leg for 135K points. That's 5.1 cents per point value. Based on fares of those dates.