In the miles and points hobby, there’s a lot of debate about “cents per point” cpp and “cents per mile” cpm when it comes to using your hard-earned rewards. Getting the best value you can is often a goal. I find myself trying to get excellent value as often as I can.
But there are also situations where determining the cpm you get is a bit silly, such as spending points on an international business class flight I would never pay for with cash out of pocket. In this case, that is the very value — being able to afford an experience I would otherwise never enjoy. That being said, I have started tracking the cpm I get on each redemption, as I became curious of the overall level of value I’m getting out of this hobby. Although I wouldn’t pay cash for premium cabin flights (unless it is a mistake fare like this one), I definitely prioritize spending my miles for first- and business-class tickets. This is where the bulk of the value is.
However, occasionally one comes up with a screaming hot deal of an economy award ticket. And a recent redemption may go down as the best-ever economy award I’ve ever booked.
My (Likely) Best-Ever Economy Award Redemption
After scheduling a summer trip to visit my younger sister out of state, I had to push it back to the beginning of autumn. Although the time will be more brief, the weather in the Midwest will hopefully be a bit more pleasant. I’d booked our original itinerary using American AAdvantage miles to fly a one-stop itinerary departing Santa Rosa, California (STS). Although nearly four hours from home, this airport is a fine departure option given our rural location. The original price I’d snagged was good, nearly 4 cents per mile.
I finally locked in flights for the rescheduled trip this past week. Using the same itinerary, I found two things: first, the award price was even better than the first itinerary I’d booked (at the lowest price I’ve ever observed in each direction) — and the cash price was higher. We would be looking at just over $650 per person for round-trip tickets, which is insane. At the same time, American was asking only 12,000 miles per person for the same itinerary!
In terms of cents per mile, this is a whopping 5.4 cents per mile!
I had these tickets booked in a heartbeat. It’s not every day I find a deal like this. AAdvantage miles have proved to be the best choice for most of our visits, but this rang in as the best value domestic economy award redemption I can recall.
Other Economy Awards I’ve Booked for Amazing Value
I have a shortlist of economy awards that have provided particularly good value over the years. Here are a handful of them:
- Positioning flights on United from my home airport (ACV) to either San Francisco (SFO) or Los Angeles (LAX) for 6,500 Lifemiles (this price has now increased)
- A United itinerary from ACV to Honolulu (HNL) via SFO using 7,500 Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles (this price has also since increased)
- A United round-trip from ACV to Tucson (TUS) for 17,500 Turkish miles (this price has since increased)
- An Alaska award from STS to Boise (BOI) with a stopover in Seattle for 5,000 Alaska miles (I don’t think this is still available at this pricing tier)
An award to Hawaii using Turkish Miles & Smiles may rival this recent booking as my best economy award redemption. I got over 4.1 cpm in that case, but this was at the new award price of 10,000 miles for a one-way ticket. Before 2023 I wasn’t tracking cpm for all awards I booked, so I cannot say for certain what value I got for the couple tickets I booked at the old rate of 7,500 miles. There are some other outliers that may have been my best economy award redemption, but it’s been so long that I have no way of verifying.
Final Thoughts
It’s not often that I snag such an excellent award ticket. I try to get solid value out of my miles, ideally over 3 cpm. But this rarely happens for economy flights. This is why I burn most of my miles for business class itineraries. But once in a while I’ll find an amazing domestic economy redemption like this one.
I will say, of the U.S. airlines, American has seemed to offer the best award pricing, at least for the awards I’ve needed. I know this is not everyone’s experience. Here’s hoping this trend continues!
