2017 Travel Credit Card Study
When it comes to the value of travel points, your mileage may vary
By Erin El Issa
April 11, 2017
2017 Travel Credit Card Study
By Erin El Issa
April 11, 2017
For many consumers, travel rewards credit cards offer the ideal combination of convenience and benefits. The best ones have large sign-up bonuses, high ongoing rewards and great travel perks, making them among our favorites at NerdWallet. But just because you’re swimming in travel points [1] earned on your credit card, should you use them to pay for your next trip? Not necessarily.
As a simple rule of thumb, if the value of each point is less than 1 cent, use cash and keep your points for a higher-value opportunity.
right travel card?
Check out our list of the
best travel credit cards of 2017.
Airline loyalty programs consistently devalue their points every few years, and many close accounts that are stagnant. …
Methodology
NerdWallet looked at 320 individual trips — 160 for one-way tickets, 160 for round-trip tickets — to capture information on domestic, international, peak, off-peak, economy and business/first-class fares. We used averages to provide our advice above, but we encourage you to use our simple calculation to determine whether you should use cash or points for your next flight.
Footnotes
[1] Throughout the study, we refer to frequent flyer miles as “points,” and actual miles flown as “miles.”
[2] We examined fares on the top 10 domestic routes and top 10 international routes originating in the U.S., as determined by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Fares were checked March 7-14, 2017, for travel on May 15, 2017, and June 15, 2017.
[3] The four largest U.S. airlines based on number of passengers are American, Southwest, Delta and United, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The most recent data is from April 2016, based on 2015 U.S.-based enplanements, or passengers boarding.
[4] Peak summer travel is defined as the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day; off-peak summer travel is defined as the several weeks before and after those holidays. We used June 15 for our peak sample date and May 15 as our off-peak sample date. For round-trip flights, we assumed a return date of one week later.
[5] Southwest doesn’t charge change fees on flights booked with points or cash.