Compare airline points redemption value.
Airline points have no fixed value; they have a redemption value that varies enormously between bookings. The only honest measure is cents per point: the cash fare you avoid, minus the taxes you still pay on the award, divided by the points spent. Subtracting the taxes is the step most comparisons skip, and on a long-haul award with high surcharges it can halve the apparent value. Compare the result against your own target — commonly 1.2 to 1.5 cents for major programmes — and pay cash whenever the redemption falls short.
Value per airline point
Cents per point = (cash fare - taxes on award) x 100 / points required
Between 1.2 and 1.5 cents is a reasonable benchmark for most major programmes. Premium-cabin redemptions can exceed 3 cents, while paying points for cheap economy fares often returns under 1 cent and is best avoided.
Because you pay them on the award too, so they are not a saving. On routes with high carrier-imposed surcharges the taxes can approach the cash fare, which makes an award that looks generous almost worthless.
Expensive ones, generally. Award charts are less responsive to demand than cash fares, so the value per point rises sharply when cash prices spike — which is exactly when redeeming makes most sense.