The Curious Implied Valuation Of Miles When Redeemed For Magazines

I think the biggest news here is...people still pay for magazines?

I miss being able to redeem for The Economist. THAT was an actual good value.

I almost never actually get the magazines if I use this option. I use it to create activity if I don't have the relevant credit card.

But whatever company runs this promotion are a bunch of lying, thieving assholes.

@GoAmtrak - You can occasionally see Economist subs on mags for miles, but they're usually only there briefly.

Years ago, I had some AA miles expiring and decided to use some for a Bloomberg businessweeek subscription. I forget the miles required but it was around 1000 or so, for a two year subscription. excellent value. I have renewed the subscription every time after that paying cash, so what started as a casual buy has me as a regular reader and ongoing subscriber. I can't be alone in that, so there must be a discount offered for points.com that is anticipating recurring subscriptions.

How about the possibility that your 'gedanken-experiment' yielded more reliable values than those peddled by travel bloggers, which are largely subjective [e.g., I'll drop the value a Chase UR point...hmmm...let's see...1/3 of a cent because they parted ways with KE]? 😉

I used miles to subscribe to a unique mag called "Garden & Gun"
It was a fun conversation piece on the coffee table ... beautiful pictures

Beside Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly is surprisingly cheap using AS miles (200 vs 1300 UA/DL/AA). I've been subscribing for many years so far.

Interesting. I just assumed the 200 was a typo and that the real price is 2000...

I know people who have used magazine redemptions to keep an account active. (Southwest doesn't count redemptions as activity that counts to keep an account active).

DCS -- Too bad there's no Mags for Hotel Points!

Travis, actually there is Magsforpoints.com (just a select few hotel programs participate, though). I redeemed 900 expiring LaQuinta points for Conde Nast Traveler (300 pts), Money (300 pts), and Sports Illustrated (300 pts) last year. In checking just now, the point redemptions are still the same. It did take like 2-3 months to process the subscriptions and get my first magazines, but well worth it in my opinion.

Oh wow, I didn't know this was a thing. I wonder how they'll survive when everything inevitably turns digital?

@ejg239, well, if they don't pay they are missing out. Magazine subscriptions (except The Economist and some "specialist" magazines) in the US are extremelly cheap and provide an amazing dollar-for-dollar value.

Too many self centered gen Y to millennial thinks everything is digital now. Guess what, until this whole age group turns 70 there will still be a market for printed materials. What is more surprising is I get MORE junk mail these days than decades ago. I've never seen 50+ credit card application a month in those days. There is probably 200,000% more spam if I include my email, and count the stuff I was forced to sign up for.

@Travis - I am a United 1million miler, who had patronized MP for a few years before joining a hotel program and settling on Hilton Honors as my numero uno. So, I am fine with your exercise exactly as it was done.

My tongue-in-cheek observation/question was actually elicited by the fact that last week @Lucky had rated a UA mile (1.4cpp) less than an Alaska mile (1.7cpp), a valuation that was contradicted by your gedankenexperiment. 🙂
My own view is that bloggers make too much of the redemption values of points, whose a priori estimates are usually so way off as to have no practical utility.

Anyway, as has already been pointed out, hotel points (in fact, even more obscure points currencies) can be used for mag subscriptions.

This should be a nice mag

"Travis & Leisure (12)"

Awesome read. Had around 2K Alaska points that I accrued by chance, and knew I was not going to redeem them in a million years. Send an all-department email, sign people up. Thanks again, I normally never consider redeeming points for non-airline rewards.

got Barrons several months ago to keep an account active-- very good deal. (sorry, don't remember airline & price, but it was cheap.)

The best deal is usually the Wall Street Journal. It usually costs several hundred dollars per year for a sub, but a couple thousand miles. At a penny a mile as a guestimate, that's a ten-to-one payoff.