Is it better to use miles or pay for flights?

Choosing whether or not to use miles or cash is always a personal decision, especially if you’re looking to save money. However, you’ll want to consider the flight cost versus how many miles you’ll be charged to redeem flights. If it’s a good value, redeeming them can be a great way to use miles.

Is points and cash worth it?

This answer will depend heavily on which award program you’re looking at, but generally, the answer is no. For hotel programs such as Hilton Honors, you’ll receive a much lower value for your points if you redeem them for points plus cash stays versus just using your points. The same is true for British Airways Executive Club.

Do you lose your status if you use miles?

Earning elite status with an airline can be tough and often requires a lot of flying. In the past, miles redeemed for flights didn’t contribute to status, which meant those who flew exclusively on award flights couldn’t earn or keep their status. However, now both United and Delta allow passengers redeeming miles to earn points towards elite status.

Do reward miles expire?

There are quite a few programs whose points never expire. This is true for Delta and United. Others, such as Hilton, require that you have some sort of activity within the last 24 months. However, activity doesn’t necessarily mean staying at a hotel. This can include transferring points, completing a survey, buying points, or even dining out.

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Why I Always Mix Cash With Points and Miles (With Methods To Keep Costs Low)

Updated: February 7, 2025, 6:06am CST

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Anyone who’s spent time with me knows that I’m nearly always traveling. Although I live in the U.S., much of the time you can find me sprawling on a couch in some exotic Hyatt location, whining about my suite upgrades. While I realize that this lifestyle isn’t available for most, there are still takeaways from it that people should consider.

While I love the points and miles hobby, I firmly believe there’s a time and a place for redemptions — and an equal time and place for using real-life dollars. Let’s talk about it.

Points or Cash?

For many people, using points and miles enables them to take trips they otherwise wouldn’t. This can mean economy class flights to Europe, first class redemptions on Emirates, and everything in between.

While I spent years enjoying the aisle seat in row 52 as I jetted around the globe, those days have long gone. Sure, if it’s a domestic flight or takes less than 6 hours, I’ll squeeze in and queue up my Netflix. But anything long-haul? I’m going to look into flying while horizontal.

The same can be said for hotels: the more places I stay, the more I’m looking for better than just a clean bed.

Flights

Of course, ideally, I’m always going to use points for my flights. I’d dearly love to have an unlimited supply of miles that can be redeemed at will. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works. There are a number of factors that impact whether or not I can use miles for a flight, including:

Award seat availability
Travel dates
Flight routes
Mileage cost
My point programs

For some, it may be perfectly acceptable to only pick destinations and dates that have award seats available with the mileage program in which they have points — but this isn’t the case for me.

There have been plenty of times award availability didn’t work for me, like when I needed to get from Buenos Aires (EZE) to Ushuaia (USH) for my cruise to Antarctica. Flights down there are operated by a variety of carriers, including Aerolineas Argentinas, which is a member of SkyTeam. However, for my dates, there were no rates that made it possible to redeem points. So what did I do instead? I used cash.

Of course, I could have done something like redeem Capital One miles at a rate of 1 cent per mile as a statement credit to effectively erase the purchase and make it free, but that’s a terrible use of miles.

I’d much rather pay using a card such as The Platinum Card^® from American Express and earn 5x per $1 spent on flights booked directly with the airline or through AmexTravel.com (on up to $500,000 per year; then 1x points) while saving my Capital One miles for a better redemption.

The same can be said anytime I’m traveling when there isn’t award seat availability. If I can find a reasonably priced redemption and I have the points to do it and — critically — if it constitutes a good use of my points, I’ll redeem my miles. Otherwise, I’ll use cash. Even if it means my trip is not net zero.

Here’s an excellent example on a flight from San Francisco (SFO) down to San Diego (SAN):

SFO SAN cash rate — Image Credit: United

Flying economy on this flight would cost me $114. Using my Amex Platinum card to pay would net me a capped 5x points per $1 spent and I’d also be earning my way to United MileagePlus elite status.

The award rate for this flight, meanwhile, costs 9,200 miles.

SFO SAN award rate — Image Credit: United

Redeeming my miles means I’d be paying virtually nothing out of pocket, but we value United miles at 1.3 cents each, which means I’d be using $119.60 worth of miles for this $114 flight. I’d also be missing out on those extra earnings from my credit card.

Hotels

I think it’s pretty easy to make the same argument for hotels as I do for airlines; namely that the hotel needs to have award space in order to get a redemption. Of course, you could always opt to redeem your points for atrocities such as Hilton Honors’ Premium Room Rewards where you can end up paying more than a million points per night for a room.

However, there are a few extra factors to consider when thinking about redeeming hotel points:

Hotel location
Hotel availability
Award availability
Cash versus point costs
Elite status/benefits
Number of travelers
Types of rooms available

Let’s take an example from a trip I took in 2022 to Santorini, Greece. I was traveling during late August, which is just the beginning of the off-season. There aren’t a ton of options for those looking to redeem points in Santorini, and of the ones that are available, costs are absolutely exorbitant.

Sure, you can choose to redeem 120k Hilton Honors points per night for the Sea Breeze Santorini Beach Resort, Curio Collection by Hilton (on the 3% of dates when award space is available). You can also opt for one of the Hyatt choices on the island, including the new Magma Resort Santorini (which can cost as little as $250 per night but will charge you 25k points per night).

But there are so many more options if you’re willing to look away from chain hotels. Rather than sticking with these limited options, I wandered over to Travelzoo where a 3-night voucher for a suite cost me just $798 and included breakfast:

Travelzoo voucher Santorini — Image Credit: Travelzoo

Vouchers like this have the added benefit of flexibility. If I were wholly reliant upon Hilton for my hotel stays, I’d need to base my travel around the very limited dates within which there is availability. By going elsewhere, I was able to plan travel on my time, not an award calendar’s.

Cruises

I’m not a super-experienced cruiser. In fact, I’ve only been on a handful of cruises over the last few years, so I’m no expert. However, one of my recent forays included a trek down to Antarctica — and while I could have used points for the journey, it would have cost me far more than I ended up paying in cash. We’re talking millions of points here versus the ~$9,000 I went with out-of-pocket.

Instead, I paid for my purchase using my Chase Sapphire Reserve^®, which netted me 3x Ultimate Rewards and gave me the benefit of complimentary trip cancellation and interruption insurance.