Foreign airline co-branded credit cards, #8: Conclusions

Reviewing the 7 foreign airline co-branded credit cards issued by US banks that I covered in this series, the cards can be handily arranged into 3 groups:

• Cards worth getting and keeping for manufactured spend;
• Cards worth getting for the signup bonus and cancelling;
• Cards that are probably not worth getting.

Manufactured spend powerhouses

When looking at a card's value for manufacturing spend, it's essential to look at both the earning and redemption rates the card offers. For example, a Marriott Rewards point is more valuable than a Hilton Honors point, but not 6 times more valuable — that makes a dollar spent in a bonus category with the Hilton Honors Surpass American Express more valuable than the same dollar spent with a Marriott Rewards credit card that earns just 1 point per dollar.

Similarly, the two co-branded credit cards in this series that are valuable for ongoing spend are the US Bank AeroMexico Visa cards and the Barclaycard Asiana Visa Signature card. The former earns 3.2 AeroMexico kilometers per dollar spent at gas stations and grocery stores, which can be redeemed on SkyTeam carriers (with fuel surcharges) and the latter earns 2 Asiana miles per dollar spent in the same categories, which can be redeemed on Star Alliance carriers and their non-alliance partners.

It's especially worth noting that the recent increases in Delta redemption rates on SkyTeam partners make it even more likely that redeeming other SkyTeam partner miles, even ones that pass along fuel surcharges, will be more valuable than earning and redeeming Delta SkyMiles.

Valuable signup bonuses

Three of the cards I covered in this series have signup bonuses you might find valuable, depending on your situation:

• The British Airways Visa Signature card earns 100,000 total bonus Avios after spending $20,000 on the card within one year. Those Avios can be extremely valuable if redeemed on US flights without fuel surcharges or on certain off-peak sweet spots.
• The Miles & More World Elite MasterCard offers 50,000 bonus miles after spending $5,000 within 90 days, which can be extremely valuable for domestic first class redemptions, including to Hawaii.
• The "Black" Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard offers 75,000 Flying Club miles after spending $12,000 within 6 months and adding two authorized users. If nothing else, those miles can be moved to Hilton Honors points at a 1:1.5 ratio, earning you 9.4 Honors points per dollar on unbonused spend.

Cards that are worthless, or at least worth less

Finally, the LANPASS Visa Signature Card and SKYPASS Visa Signature Card, both from US Bank, offer minimal signup bonuses and weak earning rates, so even in the case of SKYPASS, where points can be valuable on certain routes, their co-branded credit card is unlikely to be the most efficient way to earn them. However, it's worth being aware of the cards and their potential redemption opportunities in case the signup bonuses on either card are temporarily or permanently increased.

Foreign airline co-branded credit cards issued by American banks, #6: Virgin Atlantic by Bank of America

[edit 4/12/17: thanks to reader secstate for pointing out the existence of a second Virgin Atlantic Flying Club credit card issued by Bank of America. This post has been updated accordingly.]

With just two foreign airline co-branded credit cards to go in the series, today's edition covers the Virgin Atlantic co-branded credit cards issued by Bank of America.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club by Bank of America

Bank of America issues two co-branded credit cards that earns Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles:

• the "Black" Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard has a $90 annual fee and a signup bonus of 20,000 Flying Club miles after your first purchase, 50,000 Flying Club miles after spending $12,000 within 6 months, and 5,000 Flying Club miles after adding two authorized users (2,500 miles per user). It earns 1.5 Flying Club miles for purchases everywhere and 3 Flying Club miles for purchases on Virgin Atlantic. Finally, you can earn 7,500 Flying Club miles for spending $15,000 total each cardmember (not calendar) year and another 7,5000 Flying Club miles for spending $25,000 total each cardmember year.
• the "White" Virgin Atlantic World Elite MasterCard has a $49 annual fee and a signup bonus of 12,500 Flying Club miles after your first purchase and 2,500 Flying Club miles after adding an authorized user. It earns 1.5 Flying Club miles for purchases everywhere and 3 Flying Club miles for purchases from Virgin Atlantic. You can also earn 2,500 Flying Club miles for spending $5,000 total each cardmember year, and another 5,000 Flying Club miles for spending $15,000 total each cardmember year.

As Frequent Miler helpfully explained, with the "Black" card all this nets out to:

"assuming no Virgin Atlantic purchases, the total earning rate (base earning + bonus miles) becomes:

• First $12K spend: 5.67 miles per dollar

• Next $3K spend: 4 miles per dollar

• Next $10K spend: 7,500 bonus miles = 2.25 miles per dollar"

Finally, if you spend $25,000 on the card during a cardmembership year on either the "White" or "Black" card you also earn an "Economy Companion Reward Ticket."

Economy Companion Reward Ticket

It's extremely difficult to find any datapoints of anyone successfully redeeming an Economy Companion Reward Ticket, but the rules seem simple enough:

"If you spend at least $25,000 in Purchases using your card within a year (beginning on the date you open your account and continuing for every 12 month period thereafter), the primary cardholder will also qualify for an Economy companion reward ticket for half the standard miles of a reward economy seat, maximum one reward companion ticket per year. You must pay flight related taxes, fees and charges relating to the complimentary reward flight."

In essence, the benefit seems just as restrictive as the British Airways Travel Together Ticket, but less valuable since instead of eliminating the mileage cost of the second ticket entirely, the Economy Companion Reward Ticket merely halves the mileage cost of the second ticket, while leaving you paying the substantial taxes, fees and charges for both tickets. Also, it can only be redeemed for economy tickets, while the British Airways Travel Together Ticket can be redeemed for any class of service on British Airways mainline flights.

I've done some light scouring of the internet and I cannot find any reports of anyone successfully redeeming one of these tickets. If you or anyone you know has redeemed an Economy Companion Reward Ticket, let me know in the comments or by e-mail.

Earning Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles

After the complicated earning structure of the first year, Bank of America's "Black" credit card earns 1.5 Flying Club miles per dollar spent everywhere up to $15,000, 2 Flying Club miles per dollar if you spend exactly $15,000, and 2.1 Flying Club miles per dollar if you spend exactly $25,000.

You can also transfer flexible American Express Membership Rewards points and Citi ThankYou points to Flying Club on a 1000:1000 basis, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints to Flying Club with a 25% bonus when you transfer in increments of 20,000 Starpoints.

Redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles

Let me be clear up front: redeeming Flying Club miles for flights on Virgin Atlantic will never get you a free or cheap flight, simply because of the taxes, fees and surcharges they pass along on award tickets. On the other hand, just as I said about the Chase British Airways credit card, if you're in a situation where you need to fly to the United Kingdom on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club award seats are available, you'll certainly save money compared to a paid ticket.

Another choice for redeeming Flying Club miles is swapping them for Hilton Honors points at a 10,000:15,000 ratio. At that ratio, $25,000 in unbonused spend on a new "Black" Bank of America Virgin Atlantic credit card would earn 191,250 Honors points, or 7.65 Honors points per dollar of unbonused spend. That's better, and cheaper, than earning 6 Honors points per dollar spent in bonused categories on an American Express Hilton Honors Surpass card.

There's also a special award chart for award flights on Delta, as long as there's low-level availability. If you ever manage to find low-level award availability with Delta, you could make a killing redeeming cheaply-earned Virgin Atlantic miles for that award, though I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.

Finally, it is apparently legal to redeem Virgin Atlantic miles for flights on Virgin Australia, although no one has ever done so.

Is it worth it?

If you live in a community well-served by low-level Delta award availability, then earning a slew of cheap Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles is an easy way to supplement your existing Delta SkyMiles award balances.

Likewise, if you're frequently required to pay for your own Virgin Atlantic tickets between the US and the UK, you may save money by redeeming Flying Club miles against the fare portion of your ticket's cost, thanks to their quite good award availability.

And finally, if you're moving heaven and earth to earn as many Hilton Honors points as possible for a big upcoming aspirational redemption, then earning a bunch of them through unbonused spend may offer an advantage over grinding out bonused spend on a Hilton Honors Surpass American Express.

But other than that, it's more difficult than I expected to find somebody who's willing to say, "I love Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, and here's why."

What are HawaiianMiles worth?

Hawaiian Airlines is a traditional US carrier that flies between the Hawaiian islands and between Hawaii and the Western United States as well as New York's JFK airport, and from Hawaii to Australia, New Zealand, American Samoa, Tahiti, Japan, Korea and China.

They have a co-branded credit card with an $89 annual fee and 35,000-mile signup bonus. The card doesn't have much value unless you fly a lot on Hawaiian metal, but if that's the case you get access to discounted flight awards and no blackout dates for award tickets. The card also gives 5,000 bonus miles each anniversary if you spend $10,000 on the card, but the card doesn't earn bonus points in any interesting categories of spend so that's unlikely to be the best place to direct your unbonused spend.

All of this raises the obvious question, "why are we talking about HawaiianMiles?" Good question! The reason we're talking about HawaiianMiles is, first, that they are historically very easy to earn. Long after Amazon.com, for example, was removed from airline and hotel shopping portals it remained on the HawaiianMiles marketplace, allowing you to earn HawaiianMiles for all your Amazon.com purchases. For heavy users of Amazon.com, that might mean tens of thousands of HawaiianMiles per year.

The second reason to look at HawaiianMiles is their travel partners. While you might not be interested in flying on Hawaiian metal between North America and Hawaii or the Pacific rim, you might be more interested in flying on their partner airlines. Since they have a fairly eclectic mix of revenue-based, distance-based, and zone-based travel partners, I had the idea of comparing HawaiianMiles redemptions on each partner with redemptions of that partner's own rewards currency.

Let's take a look!

All Nippon Airways

ANA is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, so their points are relatively easy to earn for folks with American Express cards that earn flexible Membership Rewards points.

Unfortunately, HawaiianMiles can't be redeemed for ANA flights between North America and Japan. Instead, there are two kinds of awards you can book: roundtrips between Hawaii and Haneda, in economy or business class; and roundtrips between Haneda and domestic Japanese destinations, in economy only.

There's no other way to say it: ANA's award chart for flights on their own metal is nuts. Here's Scott Mackenzie doing his best to explain it. However, we're just focused on the conversion rate between HawaiianMiles and ANA Mileage Club miles, which isn't too hard.

• Roundtrip domestic ANA flights up to 600 miles cost between 10,000 and 15,000 ANA miles depending on season, and 18,000 HawaiianMiles year-round, for a conversion rate of between 1.2 and 1.8 HawaiianMiles per ANA Mileage Club mile;
• Roundtrip domestic ANA flights over 600 miles cost between 12,000 and 23,000 ANA miles depending on distance and season. However, there are no eligible cities farther than 2,000 miles from Haneda airport so the equivalent ANA chart actually tops out at 21,000 ANA miles during high season. These flights cost 22,500 HawaiianMiles year-round, for a conversion rate of between 1.07 and 1.88 HawaiianMiles per ANA Mileage Club mile.
• Roundtrip ANA flights between Haneda and Hawaii cost between 35,000 and 43,000 ANA miles in economy, depending on season, and 90,000 HawaiianMiles, for a conversion rate between 2.09 and 2.57 HawaiianMiles per ANA Mileage Club mile.
• Roundtrip ANA flights between Haneda and Hawaii cost between 60,000 and 68,000 ANA miles in business, depending on season, and 155,000 HawaiianMiles, for a conversion rate between 2.28 and 2.58 HawaiianMiles per ANA Mileage Club mile.

HawaiianMiles are worth between 0.39 and 0.94 ANA miles.

JetBlue

JetBlue's TrueBlue loyalty program is revenue based, although the dollar value you get per TrueBlue point varies depending on, well, it varies. On a random search I found 6 different conversion rates, between 0.91 cents per TrueBlue point and 1.39 cents per TrueBlue point, with an average of 1.11 cents per TrueBlue point.

HawaiianMile redemptions on JetBlue are also revenue based, although the conversion rate comes with the stern warning: "Miles required for redemption will vary based on ticket value. Chart above shows ESTIMATED mileage redemption amounts."

Nonetheless, it's possible to calculate the minimum and maximum dollar value per HawaiianMile, and arrive at an average redemption value of 0.81 cents per HawaiianMile. Compared to the average of 1.11 cents per TrueBlue point, one HawaiianMiles is worth about 0.73 TrueBlue points. 

Korean Air

Korean Air SKYPASS miles are easy to earn through transfers from Chase Ultimate Rewards, but of course Ultimate Rewards points are valuable for all sorts of redemptions, so you might prefer to redeem a less flexible and less valuable rewards currency like HawaiianMiles instead.

There are three kinds of HawaiianMiles redemptions on Korean Air: roundtrips within South Korea, roundtrips within "Asia," and roundtrips between Korea and the United States. Flights can be booked in coach and business class. To the best of my knowledge Korean Air does not make partner awards available during their "peak" travel season, so HawaiianMiles can only be used for Korean Air redemptions during SKYPASS's "off" season (if you know otherwise let me know and I'll update this post).

• Coach roundtrips within Korea cost 10,000 SKYPASS miles or 15,000 HawaiianMiles, for a conversion rate of 1.5 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS mile;
• Business roundtrips within Korea cost 12,000 SKYPASS miles or 30,000 HawaiianMiles, for a conversion rate of 2.5 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS mile;
• Korean Air has three different zones in Asia, while HawaiianMiles has only a single zone. SKYPASS charges between 30,000 and 50,000 miles for coach tickets depending on zone, while Hawaiian charges 30,000 HawaiianMiles, for a conversion rate of between 0.6 and 1 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS mile. In other words, HawaiianMiles are 40% more valuable than SKYPASS miles when redeemed for Korean Air flights to Southwest Asia;
• In business class between Korea and Asian destinations, SKYPASS charges between 45,000 and 90,000 miles while HawaiianMiles charges 60,000 miles, for a conversion rate between 0.67 and 1.33 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS miles;
• Finally, between Korea and the United States SKYPASS charges 70,000 miles in coach and 125,000 miles in business, while HawaiianMiles charges 100,000 miles in coach and 200,000 miles in business, for a conversion rate of 1.43 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS mile in coach and 1.6 HawaiianMiles per SKYPASS mile in business.

In sum, one HawaiianMile is worth between 0.4 SKYPASS miles (on domestic business class flights) and 1.66 SKYPASS miles (on coach flights to Southwest Asia).

Virgin America

Like JetBlue, Virgin America's Elevate program is revenue based. Unlike JetBlue, however, HawaiianMiles redemptions on Virgin America are distance-based, with three distance bands: under 750 miles, between 750 and 2,000 miles, and more than 2,000 miles. Virgin America Elevate doesn't black out award space to their own members (since the program is revenue based), but they do limit award availability made available to partners.

Until recently, there was no good way of checking Virgin America partner award availability, but since Alaska acquired Virgin America, it's now possible to search for partner award seats using the Alaska search engine. Look for dates where the lowest level award seats are available.

I can't think of any useful metric to convert a distance-based award chart into a revenue-based program. Elevate miles are worth "about" 2.2 cents each, so that's as good a benchmark as any when deciding whether to redeem HawaiianMiles on Virgin America flights.

Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club breaks out award prices for each of their destinations individually, while HawaiianMiles consolidates them into geographic areas. That means HawaiianMiles charges the same price for destinations that Virgin Atlantic charges different amounts for. Here's the HawaiianMile award chart for redemptions on Virgin Atlantic, helpfully annotated with the amount charged by Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:

View fullsize

The key takeaway is that while redemptions always require more HawaiianMiles than Flying Club miles, the difference narrows on Upper Class redemptions since HawaiianMiles awards don't accelerate in price the way Flying Club awards do. So while HawaiianMiles are worth between 0.25 and 0.42 Flying Club miles for economy redemptions, they're worth up to 0.92 Flying Club miles on Upper Class redemptions between, for example, the UK and Johannesburg.

Note that all redemptions on Virgin Atlantic will have carrier surcharges, which you can get a sense of on the Flying Club website.

Virgin Australia

Virgin Australia's Velocity program is only open to residents of Australia and a few other countries in the Pacific, so you're unlikely to ever actually redeem Velocity miles for a Virgin Australia flights.

HawaiianMiles and Virgin Australia Velocity both use distance-based award charts, although they use different distance bands (Velocity has more, smaller bands). Here's the HawaiianMiles award chart, with the corresponding cost in Virgin Australia Velocity miles:

View fullsize

Note that Australia is very far from the other continents so unless you're flying around the South Pacific all international redemptions will fall in the "Over 4,000 Miles" distance band, where HawaiianMiles are worth between 0.28 and 0.6 Velocity miles each in economy and between 0.3 and 0.64 Velocity miles in business.

Conclusion

Now that we've reached the end of the exercise, what kinds of conclusions can we draw? First, it's worth reiterating that HawaiianMiles are not very valuable, so you certainly shouldn't be going out of your way to earn them.

However, if you have access to cheap and plentiful HawaiianMiles, it's possible to redeem them for real value:

• If you live in a city served by JetBlue, HawaiianMiles are worth an average of 0.81 cents towards those flights. It would take a lot of HawaiianMiles before you could redeem for a cross-country flight in their Mint business class product, but if that's the flight I wanted to take I'd much rather redeem HawaiianMiles than pay cash!
• If you can find partner award space on Virgin America, short roundtrip flights cost as little as 20,000 in economy, and the longest flights in first class top out at just 90,000 HawaiianMiles roundtrip.
• If you can find Korean Air partner award space, HawaiianMiles can be redeemed for first class travel between the United States and Korea, or within Asia, at relatively reasonable rates.

If you don't have the patience or inclination to book travel on Hawaiian's partner airlines, HawaiianMiles can be transferred to Hilton HHonors points at a rate of 1.5 HHonors points per HawaiianMile. HHonors points are also not very valuable, but they're much easier to redeem than HawaiianMiles.

Finally, HawaiianMiles can be redeemed for about half a cent each in rental car gift certificates, or even gift certificates to Foodland, a Hawaiian supermarket chain.

The single best award redemption, by transfer partner: Chase Ultimate Rewards

As my regular readers know, I don't chase "aspirational" redemptions; I earn the miles and points I need to pay for the trips I want to take as cheaply as possible.

But many of you do chase aspirational redemptions! That gets me into hot water whenever I point out that a Chase Ultimate Rewards point is worth 1 penny (its cash redemption value), or that American Express Membership Rewards points are hard to redeem for cash.

So in the spirit of reconciliation, I though it would be fun to put together a list of the absolute best redemption values for the transfer partners of each flexible rewards currency. Since I'm most familiar with Ultimate Rewards points, let's start there.

Airline Partners

As a reminder, here are the Chase Ultimate Rewards airline transfer partners:

• United MileagePlus
• British Airways Executive Club
• Korean Airlines SKYPASS
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

United MileagePlus

Two of the best international first class products, Lufthansa and Singapore, belong to the Star Alliance, and United MileagePlus miles can be redeemed for first class on either airline at their partner award prices. But which is the better redemption?

One-way award seats in Lufthansa first class between New York and Frankfurt cost 110,000 MileagePlus miles, plus $5.60 in taxes and fees. Unless you're a MileagePlus elite, you'll also pay a $75 close-in ticketing fee, since Lufthansa first class seats are generally made available to United only a few days or weeks before departure.

At the time of writing, Lufthansa first class seats between New York and Frankfurt cost $11,049 on October 10, a date Lufthansa first class award seats are also available. Less the $80.60 in taxes and fees, that gives a redemption value of just about 10 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

We can actually do a hair better than this by flying not to Frankfurt, but to Tokyo's Haneda airport via Frankfurt. This itinerary also costs 110,000 MileagePlus miles, but retails for $952 more, at $12,001, giving us 10.8 cents per MileagePlus mile:

View fullsize

By comparison, Singapore's JFK-Frankfurt flight costs a mere $7,108. In any case, since Singapore Air is also a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner, Lufthansa walks away with an easy victory here.

British Airways Executive Club

A safe choice for best British Airways redemption is a 4,500-Avios American Airlines short-haul flight like Norfolk, VA, to Charlotte, NC, which can get you about 9.9 cents per Ultimate Rewards points.

Knowing that Brazil forbids airlines from adding fuel and passenger surcharges to tickets, I was hopeful that a route like Sao Paulo — London would generate an astronomical value per Avios. But it turns out those flights don't get more expensive by distance in the way that Avios redemptions do! A first class seat from Sao Paulo to London costs just $5,783, which at 120,000 Avios gives a piddling 4.8 cents per point.

You're better off moving to Norfolk.

Korean Airlines SKYPASS

A popular use of SKYPASS is to book cheaper award tickets from the US mainland to Hawaii than those available on domestic US carriers. So, for example, while a Delta Skymiles award ticket to Hawaii from the continental 48 costs a minimum of 45,000 miles roundtrip, a SKYPASS award ticket costs just 35,000 miles.

Delta flies nonstop from Atlanta to Honolulu, so let's use that as our basis for comparison. A roundtrip departing March 8 and returning March 16, on which there's low-level award availability, costs $1,134. Less $11.20 in taxes and fees, that returns a SKYPASS redemption value of 3.24 cents each. That's not bad for SKYPASS miles, but it's not the best.

That's because Korean Airlines SKYPASS miles can also be redeemed for first class on Korean. On April 4, 2016, a first class flight from New York JFK to Seoul Incheon costs $10,032, but just 80,000 SKYPASS miles plus $104.20 in taxes and fees, giving 12.4 cents per SKYPASS mile, the highest transfer value for Ultimate Rewards we've seen yet!

It should be possible to kick that up another few cents per point by booking a single first class award from New York to Sydney for 120,000 SKYPASS miles, but I cannot for the life of me get the Korean Airlines website to price out such an award.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Remember the disappointing, $7,108 New York - Frankfurt flight operated by Singapore that I mentioned above? The good news is that it costs just 57,375 KrisFlyer miles (after their 15% online booking discount) and $203.30 in taxes and fees, or just over 12 cents per KrisFlyer mile.

There are more expensive Singapore Airlines routes, but they cost many more KrisFlyer miles such that you're unlikely to do better than the above. For example, it costs $984 to continue in first class to Singapore from Frankfurt, but 36,125 more KrisFlyer miles. At 2.7 cents per mile, that's a pretty good redemption in its own right, but it drags down the overall redemption value significantly.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards

Since Southwest is a revenue-based program, you're not doing to do better than 1.6-1.7 cents per Rapid Rewards point unless you have the Companion Pass. If you do, congratulations, you can get up to 3.2-3.4 cents per Rapid Rewards point when booking Wanna Get Away fares.

For example, with the Companion Pass you could fly two passengers from Baltimore, Maryland to Aruba for 11,620 Rapid Rewards points and $31.20 in taxes and fees, a $407.60 value, giving you 3.24 cents per Rapid Rewards point.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Virgin Atlantic has a number of partner airlines that could potentially offer some value, like South African Airways. Their website even contains this mysterious language:

"Economy Class Mileage* 40,000
Business Class Mileage* 50,000
Between Dakar and New York***"

Mysterious because South African Airways does not fly from Dakar to New York, although it's possible to book itineraries connecting in Washington Dulles. Maybe that's what they mean?

Virgin Atlantic does partner with Delta, which basically makes it a poor man's Skyteam partner. You can fly from the US to Europe for 100,000 Flying Club miles roundtrip, as long as you can find Delta low-level availability, compared to 125,000 Skymiles for the same awards. You can fly anywhere in Africa for 120,000 Flying Club miles roundtrip in business class, compared to 140,000 Skymiles to northern Africa and 160,000 Skymiles to South Africa (I think — no award charts, remember?).

I couldn't find any low-level availability on Delta metal to Johannesburg, but a roundtrip business class flight with award availability between New York and Dakar priced out at $3,375. Assuming Virgin Atlantic charges the same taxes and fees as Delta, $127.60, you could get about 2.7 cents per Flying Club mile on such an award.

Hotel Partners

Here are the Chase Ultimate Rewards hotel transfer partners:

• Hyatt Gold Passport
• Marriott Rewards/Ritz Carlton Rewards
• IHG Rewards Club

Hyatt Gold Passport

There are two places you can look for the highest redemption values in a program like Hyatt Gold Passport. You can look at properties in the highest categories during the property's high season (after all, they're there because they're expensive!), or you can look at properties in the lowest categories during major events. So, which approach yields the highest redemption value?

I looked at a range of top-tier properties, and the best I could do was at everyone's favorite aspirational beach resort, the Category 6 Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa, where rates go up to $2027 in early January, or 8.1 cents per point. Then Grant pointed to a May 29, 2016, stay at the Park Hyatt Milan, when the Hyatt Daily Rate is $4577 — and rooms are still available for 30,000 Gold Passport points, or 15.26 cents per point.

Other top-tier properties offer fine redemptions, but nothing like that: the Category 7 Park Hyatt Sydney charges about $814 on January 25 (the day before Australia Day), or 30,000 Gold Passport points, for about 2.7 cents per point.

What about on the low end? During CES in Las Vegas, you can book the Hyatt Place Las Vegas for 8,000 Gold Passport points or $338, about 4.2 cents per point. My main problem searching for these low-end redemptions is that enough people have obviously had the same idea that room rates are extremely difficult to find during the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Indianapolis 500, and other high-profile events! So if you want to secure an outsized value during those events, book as early as possible!

Marriott Rewards

Obviously the best Marriott Rewards redemption will involve a Hotel + Air Package, which allows you to buy much more valuable airline miles at a deep discount. Since we've already established that 110,000 MileagePlus miles are worth 10.8 cents each ($11,880), let's use that as our baseline and figure out where to redeem our 7, Category 5 nights.

The most expensive Category 5 Marriott Rewards property I found is the Courtyard Paris Saint Denis, where you can redeem your 7 nights for a stay that costs $3,027, bringing your total return on 250,000 Marriott Rewards points to $14,907, or 5.96 cents per point. That's true, however, If and only if you begin your 7-night stay on July 4, 2016.

Award rooms are not available for those dates. Marriott Rewards is a terrible program.

IHG Rewards Club

IHG Rewards properties get so exorbitantly expensive in points, so fast, that the best awards will invariably be on their PointsBreaks list. I've spent a couple lovely summers in Brno, Czech Republic, so I was pleased to see that I could get 3.6 cents per IHG Rewards point at the Holiday Inn Brno on October 13, which would otherwise go for $180.12.

The best rates found on Hotel Hustle's Hot Rates page top out at 1.94 cents per point (exclusive of taxes), so if you're looking for outsized value from your Ultimate Rewards points, stick to the PointsBreaks list (or look elsewhere).

Conclusion

When I started writing this post I thought this would be an easy and fun exercise. It turned out to be difficult, time-consuming, and boring, which I hope speaks to my basic point: seeking the "best" value from your miles and points is a thankless chore.

You'll always be better off redeeming your miles and points for the trips you actually want to take, rather than the ones some blogger tells you are the best.

Virgin Atlantic devaluation got you down? Don't forget Hawaiian

My RSS reader blew up the other day with news that Virgin Atlantic had announced a change to their partnership with Hilton HHonors. Starting February 6, 2014, the transfer ratio will no longer be 2 HHonors points per 1 Flying Club mile, but instead 3 HHonors points per 2 Flying Club miles.

Now, I didn't exactly care that this ratio was changing, except to write a note to self for the next edition of my ebook, but then I realized that none of the bloggers were making the obvious point: the Hawaiian Airlines transfer ratio hasn't changed.

As I explained earlier, I stay at a lot of Hiltons and find the availability of their Cash and Points awards, which sometimes let me redeem my HHonors 0.4-0.6 cents each, to be quite good. Still, I would never redeem flexible Chase or American Express points, or Starpoints, for Virgin Atlantic miles in order to transfer them at a measly 1 : 2 ratio.

Still, if you are really gunning for HHonors points, this means that the Hawaiian Airlines credit card, with its 35,000 HawaiianMile signup bonus (and $89 annual fee) will still be worth 70,000 HHonors points after February 6, 2014, while the $90 Bank of America Virgin Atlantic WorldElite MasterCard would need to offer 46,667 miles to match that offer (my casual search found that the best current offer is for 20,000 Flying Club miles – leave a comment if you know of a better current offer).

Note: HawaiianMiles transferred into the program from Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest cannot be transferred into HHonors points; those earned with the credit card can be, presumably including miles earned through signup bonuses. For more discussion of this issue see this FlyerTalk thread.

"True" credit card earning rates

Nothing's ever simple in the world of loyalty programs, and that's doubly true f credit card rewards.  While most cards seem to offer a straightforward earning structure of 1 point per dollar, in fact that number can be somewhat higher because of bonuses that accrue either annually or at certain high levels of spending.  If you don't take those bonuses into account, you're not correctly evaluating the earning rate of your rewards credit cards.

Today we'll take a look at several popular rewards-earning credit cards nd compute the true earning rate on each.

Chase Sapphire Preferred

The Sapphire Preferred is a good example of a card with a "hidden" bonus.  Every calendar year (not cardmember year) in early January you're awarded a 7% bonus on all the Ultimate Rewards point you earned the previous calendar year.  This means that on unbonused spending, you earn a total of 1.07 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, and on bonused spending (travel and restaurants) you earn a total of 2.14 points per dollar.

After the first year of card membership, the Sapphir Preferred has an annual fee of $95.  Valuing Ultimate Rewards points at 1 cent each (their cash redemption value; much higher value can be realized by redeeming them for travel or transferring them to airline, hotel, and rail partners), the first $9,500 you spend on the card each year only earns you enough points to pay your annual fee.  Taking into account the 7% annual bonus, however, you earn enough Ultimate Rewards points to pay the annual fee after only $8,879 in spending, a fairly low amount if you're manufacturing spend.

United MileagePlus Explorer

The MileagePlus Explorer card earns 1 mile per dollar on most spending.  However, if you spend $25,000 in any calendar year on the card, you earn an additional 10,000 bonus miles.  This makes the true earning rate on the card 1.4 miles per dollar, if you are able to spend exactly $25,000.  This card is essentially only worth spending any money on (after meeting the minimum spending required by the bonus you signed up for) if you intend to spend exactly $25,000, since the Sapphire Preferred has the same annual fee and allows transfers to United, while also allowing you to redeem your points for cash, travel, or transfers to other travel partners.

Platinum Delta American Express

Like the nited MileagePlus Explorer, the Platinum Delta card gives a bonus of 10,000 redeemable miles after spending $25,000 on the card in any calendar year.  However, along with the bonus redeemable miles, it also awards 10,000 valuable Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM), which can make a huge difference when qualifying for elite status.  Unlike the MileagePlus Explorer, the Platinum Delta card awards another 10,000 redeemable miles and 10,000 MQM at $50,000 in calendar year spending.

Most travel hackers who carry the Platinum Delta Amex therefore attempt to spend exactly $25,000 or $50,000 on the card each calendar year.  t those levels of spending, the card earns 1.4 miles per dollar, plus 10,000 or 20,000 valuable MQM.

Reserve Delta American Express

The Reserve card has a similar earning structure to the Platinum card, except instead of earning 10,000 mile bonuses at $25,000 and $50,000, the card earns 15,000 bonus miles and MQM after $30,000 and $60,000 in spending.

At those evels of spending, the Reserve card earns 1.5 miles per dollar, plus 15,000 or 30,000 MQM.

 

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

The Premier Rewards Gold card earns 1 flexible Membership Rewards point per dollar on ost spending.  At $30,000 in calendar year spending, the card earns an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards points.  If you are able to spend exactly $30,000 on the card, then you'll earn a total of 1.5 points per dollar.

Bank of America Virgin Atlantic Credit Card

The Virgin Atlantic card has a quite complicated earning structure.  On most purchases, the card earns 1.5 miles per dollar spent.  Then at $15,000 in purchases per cardmember year (not calendar year, like with the American Express cards), on the card anniversary, the card also awards 7,500 miles if you reached $15,000 in spend and another 7,500 if you reached $25,000 in spend.  However, you must renew the card for an additional year in order to receive the miles (unless you are able to cancel the card after the miles post and have the annual fee waived).  So the true earning rate of this card is 2 miles per dollar if you spend exactly $15,000 and 2.1 miles per dollar if you spend exactly $25,000 each year of card membership.  Since these miles transfer at a 1:2 ratio to Hilton HHonors points, this is like earning 4.2 HHonors points on all purchases, slightly better than the fee-free Hilton American Express card.  However, since the Virgin Atlantic card has a $90 annual fee, you would have to value the marginal 30,000 Hilton HHonors points at over .3 cents each in order to justify paying the annual fee each year and claiming the anniversary bonus.  

he card is probably not worth getting just for the 20,000 miles signup bonus, since the annual fee is not waived the first year

Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard

The Arrival World MasterCard earns 2 points per dollar spent on the card, and each point can be redeemed for 1 cent towards travel purchases ade with the card.  However, the card also gives a 10% rebate on all redemptions, meaning you earn approximately 2.22 cents for each dollar spent on the card.  I say "approximately," since when you redeem points received from the 10% point rebate, you'll receive another 10% rebate on those points, ad infinitum.  Thus if you redeem 100,000 points you'll receive a 10,000 point rebate, and when you redeem those points you'll receive another 1,000 point rebate, then a 10 point rebate, then a 1 point rebate.  Add it up and  $50,000 in spending earns 111,111 points ($1111.11 towards travel redemptions), a 2.22 point per dollar earning rate, which gives it a slight earning advantage over the 2% cash rebate Fidelity Investment Rewards cards.  However, the Arrival World MasterCard has a $89 annual fee after the first year of card membership.  To pay for that annual fee with the marginal earning advantage, you'd need to spend $40,050 on the MasterCard!  In other words, after the first year only spending above $40,000 is more lucrative than the Fidelity 2% cash back cards, which is probably unrealistic unless you have high business expenses you can charge to the card, or enough spare cash to consider aggressively making Kiva loans with the card.

However, the annual fee is waived the first year, so thanks to its competitive earning rate this is a good card to consider including in a credit card application cycle, as long as you're sure to cancel it before you pay the annual fee for the second year.