Hey Jocelyn, I also used to think 1 airline mile = 5,280 feet of air travel when I first began in the miles and points hobby. Devastatingly, that’s not the case. Some airlines price their awards based on the geographical zone to which you plan to fly, others tie award prices directly to the cash price, and others charge according to mysterious algorithms that we’ll never understand. American Airlines, while it doesn’t have an official award chart, tends to price their awards fairly consistently. For example, you’ll likely pay 30,000 miles one-way to get to Europe in coach — whether the cash price is $200 or $2,000.

Hey Pamela, just divide the cost of the ticket by the amount of miles you’re using to find the value. For example, if you flight costs $950, just type into the calculator 950/45,000, and you’ll get 0.21 dollars, or 2.1 cents per mile.

You’ve completely missed the point. He was illustrating different values of the miles based on how much they cost in cash and how much they cost in miles.

On #1: Lowest price for CLT-ZRH-CLT 6/6-6/14 w/1 stop in each direction and <13h duration (much better than your example) is $2065 in regular Economy. Google Flights is telling me that's "normal" for those dates, and also that <$1800 is "low."

I generally find that prices bottom out at somewhere between 50 and 80% of the "low"/"normal" split in Google's graph ($900-$1440 in this case). I think that's a better metric for figuring out what the miles are worth, not whatever they're charging today. No one is forcing you to book June flights this second!

You also haven't looked at alternative dates. Neither have I, you're the one getting paid for this.

On #2: I'd never pay cash for Business Class, so I don't use the cash price. I use 150-300% of the Economy fare, depending on the quality (LH 150%, UA 200%, etc.).

Also, RT international is usually much cheaper than OW international.

Also, prices are dynamic (see my first point).

On #3: I don't really have a problem with this one. $414 is okay for MIA-SEA-MIA midweek shoulder season. Current lowest price is $373 (Economy) for direct flights, which I imagine is what you were looking at there, and which Google says is "low."