In order to play the Frequent Flyer point game, it’s necessary to have a clear understanding of your own personal monetary value of a point in your Frequent Flyer program of choice. You can then clearly assess whether you could…

• Consider an offer to acquire points that costs hard dollars
• Get good value by using points instead of cash on a specific flight booking

Read more about how and why to value a point in the first part of my guide to points.

Looking for a simpler version? Check out the simple single value calculator.

Point Value Calculator Instructions & Tips

1. Pick 3 frequent flyer point ticket/upgrade opportunities and note down the cost in points and equivalent cost or value in dollars for each one
2. Input the corresponding points cost and dollar cost/value for each of the three in the calculator below
3. Pressing ‘Calculate’ shows you the value of a point to you, in cents.

Calculating your own personal value of a point allows you to clearly and rationally assess when to outlay money and/or time to accrue points; or when to redeem points instead of paying for the equivalent airfare. Generally, points end up being worth a few cents, depending on your intended use for them. You can read more about this here.

This calculator works by comparing the dollar value of a ticket or upgrade compared to the number of points required for the same. It also asks for 3 examples of these comparisons, in order to provide an average value from the three.

The key to this is identifying the redemptions you aspire to make by using your points – for example travelling one way in Business class to Europe on Qantas – 128,000 points; compared to a ticket value of say ~$5000.