Miles + Points, often used interchangeably, actually refer to two distinct ways to travel for less (or even free) + are two of our absolute favorite things! They’re also a big part of how we can travel so frequently.

Points:

Points are a reward currency accumulated through a credit card program.

How can I earn points?

Points are earned as part of a credit card’s reward system. When you sign up for a credit card, you may review through a number of features (cash back, points, etc.) that you’ll get access to. Not all credit cards offer points, but if you are looking to sign up for a credit card as a way to earn rewards, points are our absolute favorite way to do so! Depending on the credit card, you’ll get points for every dollar you spend. Some categories of spending (such as travel, dining, or groceries) may give you more points per dollar. For example, your card may always offer 3x points for travel - so if you purchase a flight for $200 on your credit card, you’ll earn 600 points.

How can I use points?

Once you’ve started accumulating points, you can redeem them! Your credit card account will have a portal where you can see what you may redeem points for. There are lots of options! Usually you can redeem for travel (from flights to hotels to car rentals), but you can also redeem for things such as Amazon credit. Points have a cash value to them + often times, you can get more value for your points if you redeem for travel. For example, with our Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, we get 1.25 the value of our points when redeemed for travel. Yay!

What are the benefits of using points?

If you’re going to already be spending on things like groceries, gas, and other essentials, you might as well earn back some value for the money you have to spend! If either way I’m spending $75 to fill up my car, I’d rather get 75 points that I can accumulate toward a future trip than nothing.
Points offer flexibility! If you aren’t someone who consistently travels or prioritizes it, there are still a plethora of other way to spend your points. We’d wager that there’s something of value to you that you can use your points on. Not only do points offer flexibility on how to redeem the value, they also offer flexibility when redeeming specifically for travel. You can shop on the travel portal in the same way that you would shop Google Flights to see what the best bang for your buck (or points!) is. Click HERE for our guide on how to use Google Flights effectively.
There’s a transparency of value with points that we appreciate. Because you know the dollar value per point, it makes it easy to compare what you’d spend in points vs dollars to know if you are getting a good value. We use points primarily when it makes more financial sense than paying cash - we value their value! And we’ve scored some pretty good deals using points over the years.
You can convert points into air miles (more on air miles below). This allows you a great amount of flexibility to land the best deals and we always recommend comparing both options before booking. How does this work?
- Scenario: You want to book a Delta Airlines flight to Philadelphia on Chase. The cash price on the Delta website for your ticket is $300. To redeem Chase points, you would use 24,0000 points. (10,000 points = $100, but when redeemed for travel = $125; $300 flight = 24,000 points). You also search on the Delta website to see the cost in miles which happens to be 15,000 miles. 15,000 is less than 24,000, so in this case, it would make the most sense to convert your points to Delta miles and book this way. Ultimately saving you 9000 miles that can be used for future travel! If the Delta flight was any more than 24,000 miles, it would make more sense to redeem as points on the Chase website.

What are the negatives of points?

Points are earned through a credit card, and if you’re still learning how to manage your finances, a credit card can be tempting to get you off track. As much as we love points for free travel - we think it’s important to be comfortable using a credit card responsibly. The best part? There are other ways to earn free travel…like air miles!

Air Miles:

Air miles are rewards accumulated through a specific airline + to be redeemed for that specific airline or their partners.

How can I earn air miles?

Air miles can be earned by simply flying - whenever you are boarding an airplane make sure you’ve input your frequent flyer number. Even if it is an airline you don’t frequently travel - many airlines have partners that you can transfer miles between! If your flight is delayed, your bags are lost, or you have some other inconvenience on board, many airlines will also offer miles as compensation. Whenever we’re offered miles or dollars, we like to do a little cost analysis. Often times, the miles will be a better value! We also encourage you to keep an eye out for airline mile offers. For example, Delta has “12Status” where Seattle residents can sign up + earn 1 mile per passing yard during every Seahawks game. Lastly, similarly to points, many airlines also have a credit card where you can earn air miles for them by spending.

How can I use air miles?

Similarly to points, you’ll log into your account with the airline and be able to track your points and spend them. With air miles, you can only redeem for flights (some will offer flight + hotel combo options), but you are more limited on how you can “spend” them. There’s still some availability to shop around when using air miles though. The majority of airlines have partners. For example Delta partners with KLM, AirFrance, + more, where you can earn air miles for Delta no matter which partner you are flying with. When it comes to redeeming miles, you can also transfer among partners. Which means you can shop around to see between the partners which offers the lowest mile flight option.

What are the benefits of using air miles?

If you are loyal to an airline, it is a great way to fly them more affordably, but also earn more perks - such as club access, free upgrades, + more.
Air miles don’t require you to have a credit card in order to earn free travel + you can earn them without having to spend.
If you are using an airline credit card to help you earn miles, you’ll also often get access to other travel perks with the airline, such as companion fares.
Sometimes a con as well, but most airline’s have dynamic redemption values for air miles. Meaning that their values fluctuate frequently and are not always directly in line with an increase/decrease in the cash price for a flight. Unlike points which would move in the same direction. This means that you can sometimes score a killer deal. An airline might be charging $1000 for the cash price for a ticket, but only 10,000 miles (not many) for the same flight.

What are the negatives of air miles?

There is less flexibility both in what you can redeem them for + airlines you can redeem them with.
There’s no explicit currency value for them. It’s dependent on the airline what they assign the value to be. This means you can luck out on a good deal or lose out on a bad deal. While miles don’t have an explicit currency, there are predictive indicators of their value. The Points Guy publishes a monthly valuation chart HERE that we always use to help us to determine if we should redeem our air miles. Let’s walk through another scenario.
- Scenario: You want to book a flight to Los Angeles on Alaska and have a good amount of miles saved us. As of April 2022, The Points Guy values Alaska miles at 1.8 cents per mile. The cost in air miles for your flight is quoted at 30,000 miles. If you multiply 1.8 cents by 30,000 miles (.018 x 30,000), you get $540. This means that you should only redeem your miles if the cash price for the ticket is greater than $540.
  Of course, if this is a trip that you need or really want to take and the cash price of the ticket is going to be a financial burden to you, of course, ignore the miles valuation exercise above. This is just to share how to get the best value for your air miles. There’s no point in going into credit card debt just because the air miles valuation isn’t good.
  Even if the cash price of a ticket is low, we always recommend doing this exercise just to confirm. For example, I recently found a flight home to Seattle for only $120 - super low - but when I also checked the cost in air miles, it was only $80 in air miles. Even though the cash price was a killer deal, the air miles cost was an even better deal. We’d recommend getting into the habit of checking every time you book!

Hello HENRYs Verdict: Points vs Miles?

If we could only have one, we’d pick points due to the flexibility offered + the value assigned to them. We like being able to redeem for any airline where we see the best value. While we’d love to only ever fly Delta - we’re not at a point where we’re going to sacrifice cost to do that. There’s also the bonus that we can transfer points to airline miles to increase our redemption opportunity when we see a great value. Sadly, it doesn’t work the other way to transfer miles to points!

At the end of the day, we love + use both! We earn points through our Chase Sapphire Preferred Cards + air miles through our American Express Delta Cards + Visa Alaska Airlines Card.

Some of our favorite spots we’ve traveled to on points or miles include: