[arcticbull]

It varies a lot depending on the program. $0.003 for you as a customer is way too low, since you can redeem them for actual goods on their websites for usually $0.007. That's still way too low if you actually want to fly anywhere. Benchmark value of points when redeeming for economy is between $0.01 and $0.015. When redeeming for business its $0.03-0.06. When redeeming for first, its $0.10-$0.20

In general rule of thumb is Alaska miles are worth $0.02, American are worth $0.013, United are worth around $0.013, Delta are worth $0.01 (since you can redeem them for $0.01 as cash towards paid tickets if you have one of their credit cards).

Hotel points are different, Hilton, IHG and Club Carlson are around $0.005, Marriott are worth around $0.009, and Hyatt are worth $0.016.

But I digress, that's value to the end user. We're debating what the credit card company pays the airline for it.

[lotsofpulp]

I’ve searched United flights for many years, and have never found one at over $0.01. Plus the usual taxes and fees, end it’s worth less.

If a flight is $500, the miles are always >= 50,000, at least on United.

Hilton’s points are worth far below $0.01. I don’t know what they go buy, but it’s usually $0.005 at best, if not worse whenever I have searched it.

[ValentineC]

One of the few good things about redeeming Hilton and Marriott hotel points is the 5th night free benefit [1][2], which bumps the value of one's hotel points by around 20–25% in some cases.

[1] https://hiltonhonors3.hilton.com/en/promotions/5th-night-fre...

[2] https://www.marriott.com/loyalty/redeem/hotels/free-nights.m...

[NovemberWhiskey]

If you're booking economy flights, you're probably not getting good value.

International business and first class flights are often 2x or 3x the number of miles, but usually 5x to 15x the number of dollars.

[arcticbull]

Indeed Hilton is worth about $0.005 as I mentioned.

United, however, are worth substantially more. I just redeemed 77K for a one-way business class flight from SFO to IST non-stop on Turkish, which was priced at $2000 on a half-round-trip basis ($0.025).

It's actually quite easy to get $0.015 on United when redeeming for economy class. Maybe Pandemic pricing is messing with the numbers, but this shouldn't be too challenging most of the time. They don't impose fuel surcharges which helps a lot.