Is this award redemption worth it?
Enter what the flight costs in cash, what it costs in points, and the taxes and fees you would still pay on the award. This works out what each point is buying you, shows the arithmetic, and explains what the number means.
Result
Fill in the fields and choose Calculate. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
How this is worked out
The calculation is one line. Take the cash you avoid paying, divide it by the points you spend, and turn it into cents:
(cash price − award fees) ÷ points required × 100 = cents per point
That is the whole method. There is no proprietary model behind it, and any site that gives you a different number for the same three inputs is either using different inputs or is wrong.
A worked example
A flight sells for $825.00. The airline will also sell it for 45,000 miles plus $11.20 in taxes and fees. The points are doing $813.80 of work:
($825.00 cash − $11.20 award fees) ÷ 45,000 points × 100 = 1.81 cents per point
So each mile is buying about 1.81 cents of airfare. Against Delta SkyMiles' current reference value of 1.35 cents, that is roughly 134% of typical - which MileVerdict labels strong relative value. Those labels are our own editorial bands, not an industry standard.
What the number does and does not tell you
Cents per point measures one thing: how hard your points worked on this specific booking. It is not a measure of whether the trip is a good idea, whether the routing is sensible, or whether you should have saved the points for something else.
The single biggest way to fool yourself is the cash price. If you enter a fare you would never actually have bought - a last-minute business-class ticket you were never going to pay for - the result will look excellent and mean nothing. Enter what you would really have spent.
Questions people ask
What is a good cents-per-point number?
There is no single answer, which is why this calculator compares your result against the reference value for the specific program rather than one universal threshold. As a rough orientation, most transferable bank points land somewhere around 2 cents each and most airline miles land lower. What matters more is whether you would actually have paid the cash price. A 5 cents-per-point redemption on a fare you would never have bought is not a saving.
Should I use the cash price or the sale price?
Use the price you would genuinely pay if you were not using points, all-in. If you would have flown a cheaper airline, or a cheaper date, use that number. Comparing against a fare you would never buy inflates the result and is the most common way people talk themselves into a bad redemption.
Why subtract the award taxes and fees?
Because you still pay them. If an award ticket costs 45,000 miles plus $11.20, your points are only saving you the cash fare minus that $11.20. On some routes - British Airways long-haul is the usual example - the fees are large enough to change the answer completely.
Does a high result mean I should book it?
Not on its own. A high cents-per-point figure means the points are working hard on this particular booking. It says nothing about whether the trip is worth taking, whether the routing is sensible, or whether you will want those points more later. The number is an input to your decision, not the decision.