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Cash vs points — flights

Price the flight both ways: the cash fare against the miles plus the taxes due on the award. You get cents per mile net of those fees, and a cash-or-miles verdict against your program's baseline.

Sets the baseline the verdict judges against. Transferring bank points to an airline? The airline's baseline is the fairer bar — pick it if you know it.

Same dates, same cabin, on the airline's own site.

From the award booking page, per passenger.

Cash due at award booking — enter it honestly. BA and Virgin Atlantic long-haul awards can carry hundreds in surcharges. Blank means none.

Pick your program, then enter the cash fare, the miles, and the award taxes to get the cash-or-miles call.

Cents per mile = (cash fare − award taxes and fees) ÷ miles × 100. Award taxes are netted out because you pay them either way — skipping them flatters the miles, badly so on surcharge-heavy awards. The verdict judges that value against your program's typical baseline with a ±10% toss-up band, because baselines are editorial estimates (typical = median achievable, the Frequent Miler / NerdWallet lane; maximum = optimized transfers, the TPG / Upgraded Points lane) and a redemption within a rounding error of baseline shouldn't get a confident answer in either direction.

Reference data as of 2026-07-01.