Skymiles Auctions – a good use of your Skymiles?

There is a never ending battle over determining what a point is worth. Not just Skymiles but any points. It is simple with things like Ultimate Rewards that you spend like cash at 1.25 cents each to say buy an airline ticket but less so when you transfer to say United as then it becomes more murky. To me, since I fly to Sweden a lot, and want to fly business, but don’t want to pay for business, I value my Skymiles at 2-3 cents each (since I can buy a business class discounted ticket, most times, around $3000 with flexible dates)

How does that tie in with today’s post? Most of us got the “spam” e-mail from Delta about Skymiles Auctions. This can be a neat idea and is marketed much like the SPG “Moments” I blogged about back in February of 2012.

Now if Colin Montgomerie is your golf hero, and you have a ton of points to fly to China, it will not take much to play a round with him. But that is the SPG program, back to Delta.

Let’s say you are an Atlanta Braves fan and or you live in Atlanta (you know medallions have access to a premium parking lot right). And you want some good seats.

Look at a recent auction. Now I don’t want to get into a discussion if a few hours at a baseball game is worth the ticket price or not but let’s break down the math of this deal to see if spending your Skymiles for this has value.

If we were to buy 6 “low price ” dugout level seats it would cost us $532 or more. We also know with the Delta AMEX card and with “Pay with Miles” we can get a fixed 1 cent each for a Skymiles so they are worth at least 1 cent each redeemed for any ticket any time anywhere.

This package, if it goes for under 53,200 Skymiles is a fair value as you still get a parking pass and a jersey too worth not just cash value. If someone gets it for only 40,000 Skymiles that is not a “bad” price or redemption for your Skymiles (again if you would pay for the tickets anyway).

This is just one example and to show you the math. There are other things to consider that go beyond the raw dollar value. There are other events with “stars” that you will, more than likely, never ever get another chance to do or take part in. What is the value for a once in a lifetime experience? I have no idea, you tell me. But that is part of the point of this. With this or the SPG program you are able to, via redemption of points, get something of great value beyond flying.

So if you have a ton of Skymiles and are looking for something fun to do, do take a look. Just make sure you DON’T overspend as Skymiles do have great value for those of us who know how to use them! – René

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