Much has been said about reward points, in the media, with friends, and big brand marketing. Everyone seems to have points, and an opinion about them.

So what’s the point? Why bother collect points?

The answer is: Freedom to Travel.

Pause for one moment: Freedom, Travel… what images come to mind?

Freedom: “generally, is having the ability to act or move without constraint”

Travel: “the movement of people between distant geographical locations”

When you collect points, it’s gives you freedom to travel affordably in any class.

Using points, you can regularly fly Business class at up to 75% off the normal cash prices. We know this through booking 475+ million points for our clients.

The key to using points is in knowing how to make them work for you, by doing the right calculations based on your travel needs and spending profile. Everyone is a little different.

Turning metal into gold

Using points is a bit like ‘alchemy’ 

From the Collins dictionary: “Alchemy was a form of chemistry studied in the Middle Ages, which was concerned with trying to discover ways to change ordinary metals into gold.”

The ‘price’ or the surcharges of collecting the required points is a lot lower than the normal selling cash price of the business class ticket for which the required points can be swapped for.

Example: A return Business class ticket to Europe has a normal selling price of $8,500+, but the total ‘price or surcharges’ of collecting the av. 250,000 frequent flyer points required to book the same ticket will cost less than $2,000.

How much would you rather pay to fly Business class, $8,500 or $2,000?

The more you spend, the more points you’ll earn.

Opportunity for business owners

The sweet spot is for business owners, who have large company expenditure and can control how they can pay bills to earn points.

Using points to fly in a structured manner is like creating your own perpetual huge discount to fly Business or First class anywhere, anytime.

Using points, you’ll perpetually fly cheaply on your own terms, rather than joining the rush with others who have to wait until the airlines run promotions.

Business Owners > Learn More

Redemptions matter

Below are some examples of how valuable your points are (cents-per-point) depending on how you redeem them.

In the figure above, we can see that a point can be worth either 0.5 cents, or 4 cents. The choice is yours.

LOW VALUE REDEMPTIONS (0.5 cents to 1.5 cents)

• Gift cards

• Points+Pay feature (online booking)

• Points for Hotels

• Economy flights, where the cash ticket is cheap

HIGH VALUE REDEMPTIONS (3.5 cents or more)

• Select Economy flights, where cash ticket is high (i.e SYD <> MEL peak hour)

• Business class flights

• First class flights

To find out the cost-per-point value of something, you use this formula:

The value of the redemption $ divided by the # of points required.

Example: It costs 40,000 points to stay at the QT Melbourne. The hotel rate is $314 for the night. $314 ÷ 40,000 = 0.7 cents per point.

Points vs Cash fares

When you understand the numbers behind points and flying, you’ll know how to utilise them (the right way) to fly at the cheapest price.

This illustration is using averages based on thousands of previous points bookings by our team. The lower you can keep your surcharge costs, the more value gap you’ll get using points.

Unfortunately everyone has to pay the airline fees & taxes, although some airlines charge more than others.

What next?

Now that you know how points work, discover how many points are needed to fly.

The best way is to use our Trip Points Calculator. This is a free no-download app that compares how many points you need to fly Business class from A to B, with over 50 popular destinations listed.

If you have enough points to fly, the world is your oyster.

Speak with our Flight Concierge team who can help you turn your points into dream trips. If you are short on points, they can also assist with normal cash flights and hotels through our concierge partners.

See you onboard soon,

Steve Hui

Founders & CEO iFLYflat - The Points Whisperer

asksteve@iflyflat.com.au