See a lot of people say a Qantas point is at least 1c worth …
Does anyone have an example that cam confirm this?
What to redeem to get the most out of points?
Qantas Point 1.1c Per Point? Why
Poor Ass on 13/05/2019 - 21:09
Comments
I get 2c - 2.5c per point redeeming for international business class flights.
You can reach 3c or 3.5c if you go first class redemptions on international flights.
Can redeem on 9.5c/pt going to the US. But that was from Business to First.
It's impossible to truly value QFF points because they are worth nothing sitting in an account (however people will offer to buy them for 1.1cpp on ozb and other forums, however this is very dangerous). Their value is realised at redemption time.
If you redeem poorly, for Qantas Mall items or Points Plus Pay, you'll get around 0.07cpp of value under normal conditions, however there are often sales and promotions that will improve that redemption rate.
If you redeem for domestic classic rewards for economy class, you'll get about 1.5cpp of value.
If you redeem for premium cabins on international flights, you'll get anywhere from 3-4.5cpp of value.
How do I know? I check it (this is comparing to cheapest/equivalent retail fares) and record it for my own purposes. Your mileage may vary.
You can literally sell them for cash to other people for at least 1c per point, hence why you'd probably value it that way.
The people who find very high values from business flight and premium economy redemptions are probably cheating a fair bit in their valuations though. You end up on the same flight paying the same base fare, but spending a bit extra to upgrade and getting "value" from that…
Yes and no, you don't have to redeem a flight and pay taxes on it if you just do what I do and pay economy and then upgrade. I'm Platinum which helps with upgrade priority for sure but that said I still had a 50% run rate on Gold, I don't pay taxes or surcharges and I turn pretty much most of my Y seats into J, although in saying that there's plenty of times I haven't requested an upgrade as well, not every flight (especially domestic B737) needs to be in business.
Plus I still get points and SC on those flights which helps me stay plat (work flights alone would only get me to gold), which doesn't seem like it would matter if I was redeeming J all the time but the reality of it is sometimes flying Y is better, for example family holidays where there are 3 of us, better to get a group of 3 seats in Y than have an aisle break us up in J.
Point is points are plenty useful so I'll have people's if they don't want them, lol
Just like Australian houses, Qantas points have no fixed value. You could sell the points to someone who values it more than you do but that is against the terms and conditions so if you want to use it yourself my suggestion is to use it for something that makes you happy. Business class flights generally get you the most value compared to retail price but if you have no plans for a holiday then it doesn't really help you.
lol Australian houses… Could of said diamonds
Thanks for the input
"could have"
Does anyone know if it's possible to use points to upgrade seats on an emirates international flight? I looked on points hack but doesn't seem to mention it.
You can only use points to upgrade on Qantas flights
Boo! What's the best way to spend 100k points? Domestic trips? Points hack says to buy one way international tickets, but I dont see this as a good option as buying a one way ticket to come back will be really expensive.
The whole point of that comparison is to give a longer trip length, ie saying you could fly one way to LA in business class sounds fancier than Singapore business return.
That said, I book a lot of itineraries and I've found that the idea that return tickets are cheaper is largely a myth - you often miss out on sale and discount fares but on a flight by flight basis I find returns marginally cheaper most of the time. I book open jaw, round the world and one-way itineraries and I compare them to return tickets and often it's priced just as you'd expect, as individual sectors.
That means you can book outbound in first and inbound in economy, the first being a redemption and the second being a discount economy ticket and it would cost bugger all compared to paying in cash return, where the airline will require you to book the same class in both directions unless you contact them and book it over the phone.
Qantas redemption on Emirates, business class to Europe, return, about 300,000 points, plus about $1600 in taxes/charges. Business class on some airlines Europe return = $4,000. So I'd value those points at (4000-1500)/300000 = 0.8 cents per point. Do your own maths with your own trip, but that's how I'd work out the value of points.
Velocity redemption on Singapore Airlines, same route, about same number of points, but only $200 in taxes/charges. Velocity points in this example worth 1.27 cents per point.
Redeeming for 1st class, sky suites etc is all very well, but if you're on OzB then paying for 1st class and sky suites is not your gig so not really fair to use them to value points. You can only really value them at what you would otherwise be willing to pay for the travel you're doing. If you're upgrading your work trips, then there is something wrong with your employer - if the trip is long enough to be J, you should be in J.
This is the single dumbest attempt at valuation of points I have ever seen.
The value of a point is not a redemption through a program, on another airline, compared to the retail price of some other airline.
The only reason you had to do this was because VA flies next to nowhere outside of Australia.
That BS at the end about how you may only compare to what you say someone may only compare to, LOL. OzBargainers come here to get the best value, not to follow some arbitary formula you've concocted. Some will fly Y, some will fly J, some will fly F. Some will buy toasters. Some will use points to upgrade their seat (something you can't use as a comparison in your examples above because you're valuing VA so highly, lol).
well, I don't like your opinion either, but you're welcome to it and I hope it serves you well. If you're using your points to buy a toaster, then you are really valuing your points very low indeed, but good on you for leaving the good seats for the rest of us.
By the way, what is your valuation method, you didn't say….?
The value of a point is not a redemption through a program, on another airline, compared to the retail price of some other airline.
The value of a point is what it saves you in spending… so saying it is worth a lot because it saved you spending $20k on airfares is unfair unless you would otherwise actually spend that $20k. Last year I used points for flights which had a retail value of $42k (for 2 pax) but if I hadn't had points I would not have booked those particular flights, so it would be unfair to value the pints based on that retail price. I gave an example of what I might otherwise spend if I were paying cash instead of using points.
Well put. I agree with the valuation of a redemption being equal to what you otherwise would have paid for the same travel.
In my mind, if I'm willing to drop $2k on a Pre-Xmas economy flight to Europe (peak period, direct route), then I might value a business class ticket at $2.5k as I'd gladly pay another $500 to lie flat for the trip.
Therefore, as an SQ exercise = (2500-200)/232000 = 0.99cents per point. Thats allowing about $200 for taxes SQ charge.
In my mind, as long as I'm paying less than 1c per point in acquisition cost for SQ miles, I'm ahead. I've done a number of Y redemptions on certain routes because its been of value to me compared to what I could pay by booking the seat direct.
Whereas if I were to accept paying $7k for a business ticket = (7000-200)/232000 = 2.93cents per point. There's no way in hell I'll pay up to 3cents/point to acquire SQ miles. Some might if they would otherwise pay for $7k for the seat, but not me (and a lot of OzB's I would say).
My goal is to drive acquisition costs down as far as I can via various means so that in fact, I'm flying in J/F cheaper than if I were to buy an economy seat.
Dont know/dont care about upgrades - I'm not interested in a lottery to get a long haul upgrade based on no status.
Let's look at point valuations another way…
I picked a VA flight BNE-HOB as a random example: Economy 26.2k points vs $227 or Business $44.6k points vs $716.
If you buy points as 1.2cents per point, then to book that flight in economy on points would cost you $314, which is more than buying it directly. So in that example 1.2c per point is too high a value to place on points, you would need to pay less than 0.86 cents per point to save over just buying the fare directly. None of the respected frequent traveller sites recommend using points for economy flights as a good value option for this reason.
For the business class seat if use points you earned at 1.2 cpp, then it is costing you $535 for that seat, which is a saving of some $180 over the actual fare, and $308 more than the economy fare. So you are valuing the lounge access, the bigger seat and on-board food at $308 (given lounge access passes sell on here for around $35 you are valuing the on board experience at $273). What I wonder is, if the business class fare was just $535, would you book it? And this is where my thoughts run… at what price point would you pay for business, and when you find that, you can work out what you value points at. Say for example economy is $227, but you would be willing to pay $350 for a business ticket (more than 50% than economy for the extra perks, seems ok), then you can value the points at $350/44600 = 0.78 cents per point. If you would be willing to pay double the economy fare for business, then the points are worth 1.02 cents each. At the full business fare ($716) points value in at 1.6 cents.
Remember of course, you don't get any Status Credits when booking a reward seat, nor any FF points.
And this is the point I was trying to make in my previous comment, there is no single value of points, you have to decide if what you use them for brings you value or not. I would not book the $717 business class fare listed above (because I don't value the pre-flight and on-board experience at $500 for the example given), so it would not be reasonable for me to use that as the dollar figure to determine the value of the points. Everyone needs to look at how they would use the points and decide for themselves. By all my personal calculations, 1.2 cents per point is too much.
Now, if you want to buy a toaster using QFF points (like trotsky suggests), then the Breville Bit More Plus 2 toaster which costs $48 at Retravision is 12,730 points. This values your points at 0.38 cents per point. If you earned your points at 1.2 cpp, the toaster would cost you $153. Not really good value for a $50 toaster, and not a recommended use of your points.
Now, if you want to buy a toaster using QFF points (like trotsky suggests), then the Breville Bit More Plus 2 toaster which costs $48 at Retravision(retravision.com.au) is 12,730 points. This values your points at 0.38 cents per point. If you earned your points at 1.2 cpp, the toaster would cost you $153. Not really good value for a $50 toaster, and not a recommended use of your points.
Read it again you (mod: removed). I said some people use their points to buy toasters, a rebuttal to your drivel below:
Redeeming for 1st class, sky suites etc is all very well, but if you're on OzB then paying for 1st class and sky suites is not your gig so not really fair to use them to value points. You can only really value them at what you would otherwise be willing to pay for the travel you're doing. If you're upgrading your work trips, then there is something wrong with your employer - if the trip is long enough to be J, you should be in J.
You're literally dictating to a forum of people what is a reasonable redemption based on their membership of a forum. That's how little self awareness you have. My response did not suggest you buy a toaster with the points, but was a clear rebuttal to your dumpster fire of a valuation process which went something like this:
- I want to go to europe but I have points with an airline which doesn't fly direct to europe, so what I'll do is I'll price up a flight with a partner airline at a paltry 1.2 cents per point valuation because it's a bigger number than the 0.8 cents I hilariously valued another program's flight at doing the same thing when that airline flies there direct at a much lower point per dollar conversion rate AND A MORE DIRECT ROUTE than then partner airline that I selected only because VA doesn't fly there direct
- In doing so, I remove any option to upgrade lower flight classes because I'm redeeming on partner airlines and this would require me to transfer my points between programs (if that is even possible in each case) at a ridiculously poor transfer rate to be used on the partner airline for upgrades
- I'll then go on about how this is the true rate when actual premium flight redemptions when people who know what they are doing are redeeming for products that are the equivalent of 4 or 5 cpp regularly after the deduction of taxes, fees and the recognition of no points or status credits
- Then I'll add some bizarre rant about how if you are a member of this forum you won't be interested in getting the most out of your points by booking the most premium seats like I have a clue how the majority of people use their points
- When someeone else points this out and uses the industry standard "redeeming for toasters" joke that people who actually understand frequent flyer programs and redemptions use as a sarcastic reference to describe those who redeem for things like gift vouchers instead of flights which are obviously a worse redemption option as they involve partner products not offered directly by the airlines that own the programs and therefore capped somewhere around the 0.8cpp rate that you actually calculated the worth of a point at, meaning YOU think that is the best possible redemption value and YOU are effectively redeeming a toaster with your calculations…. you actually think it's advice?
If you want to redeem with SQ and you know what you are doing, you're going to acquire those points through a card like the St George Amplify or Amex MR and redeem through the KF program directly, just as you would with QFF points if you intended to fly QF. If the entire reason you're doing this is because you have VA points and you want to go to europe where they don't fly, then you've already stuffed up by acquiring the wrong points for your needs. Now you book across platforms at a poorer redemption rate and then force the same on the other side to make it even. Anyone who knows what they are doing transfers into programs based on their intended redemptions. Learn to earn points.
I don't think this is the place for personal attacks, but is the place for reasoned discussion. Your comments are the former rather than the latter, and I don't know why you have so much hate.
No, I have never redeemed for a toaster.
Probably by now it will be clear to the OP that there is no single agreed value of FF points, and that everyone has their own valuation based on their own method. Most likely some people undervalue their points and some over value them and in a market actual dollar value is what anyone will pay, which seems to be between 1 and 1.3 cents per point.
The experts at PointHacks have a good article on it.
They showcase an uplift of 42% on Qantas points and 58% on Velocity points when redeeming.
Premium class redemptions are almost always the best use if you consider the retail price of the flights, but it will also depend on how much you personally value the premium flight above an economy flight.
Pointhacks has detailed articles about how they arrive at their values.