Tim Leffel’s Cheapest Destinations

FF Mile Transfers are a Raw Deal

As I point out in the book Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune, you can’t just join a frequent flyer program and hope for the best if you really want to maximize your miles. You have to know all the myriad ways to earn miles, but even more important, you have to know how to spend them.

If you don’t know, for example, that a frequent flyer mile is generally valued at one U.S. cent, it’s easy to get bamboozled by offers like this one I just got in my e-mail from Delta:

MAY SPECIAL – TRANSFER MILES FEE FREE Celebrate Moms, Grads & Dads with the Gift of Travel.

Hello Mr. Leffel,

We’re helping you celebrate the Moms, Grads and Dads in your life. Give your family and friends the gift of travel with Transfer Miles! At just $0.01 per mile transferred, Transfer Miles is a great way to share your extra miles, enabling you to top off their SkyMiles account or give them enough miles for an Award Ticket. Transfer miles between May 1 and May 31, 2007 and we’ll waive the $25 processing fee. Additionally, we have doubled the maximum number of transferred miles any individual SkyMiles account can receive per calendar year to 300,000 miles, making it easier to receive the gift of travel. Up to 150,000 miles may be transferred out of any individual SkyMiles account per calendar year. Visit delta.com/transfermiles for details and to transfer your miles today.

First of all, they shouldn’t be charging you $25 to transfer your own miles anyway, so that’s not a gift, it’s just a removal of an unjust fee. Then you see that they are charging you $.01 per mile for the transfer. How much is a mile worth again? Imagine that—$.01, one penny. So if you transfer 25,000 miles to your mother to get the most restricted domestic round-trip ticket, you’ve just spent $250 for a “free” ticket. You destroyed all the value of your hard-earned miles.

In general, your miles are only worth more than a penny each if you use them for international tickets or upgrades to business class or first class. Or if you’re grabbing a domestic ticket to a route that’s owned by one carrier and is expensive because they have a monopoly. Unless you are in a bind, use your miles in a way that will get the most return money-wise.

Does a paid mile transfer ever make sense? Yes, if Mom needs 1,000 or 2,000 more miles to get a ticket to come visit you or meet you somewhere, it’s worth spending $10 or $20 to top off her balance. Otherwise, don’t get taken.