Good morning everyone, thank you to the 92 of you who entered my latest contest for a chance to win one of 3 $10 Amazon eGift Cards. I asked you to guess how many miles I drove in the RV from Los Angles to Denver and the correct answer is 1,789 miles. The digital odometer only goes up to 1,000, but I can assure you the distance was 1,789 total miles driven.
Based on my brother’s GPS app on his Android phone, this is the route we took. I don’t know exactly what the pink circles and black circles mean, but that looks like the correct route.
The 3 closest guesses to 1,789 miles were:
- 1,777 miles – Dan
- 1,774 miles – Green Topiaries
- 1,821 miles – Julia Z
I have already sent you three an email with a $10 Amazon eGift Card attached.
I have a question for you guys that I need some help on. Since I was in Denver on Sunday, I needed to get back to San Francisco (by airplane). The only airlines that have direct flights for DEN to SFO are United, Southwest, and Frontier Airlines.
My brother was leaving around 5pm to fly back to Orange County (SNA), so I found a decent flight on United departing around 5:30pm. The price of the ticket was around $250. I didn’t want to pay for my flight, but I didn’t want to redeem 20,000 US Bank FlexPoints either. I searched for first class tickets and found first class seats on the same flight for $544.
I ended up paying 30,000 US Bank FlexPoints to pay for my $544 first class ticket. Do you think that was a smart decision? Would you have paid the $250 cash or used 20,000 US Bank FlexPoints to buy an economy ticket?
As for earning miles, since I have no status with United, I earned 5x on the price of the ticket ($544), so I earned 2,720 United miles, which I value at 1.5 cents each, which is $40.80 in value. If I purchased an economy ticket instead, I would have earned around 1,250 United miles, which is $18.75 in value.
Since I am having second thoughts about my decision, I wanted to get your opinion…
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!
I would have used 20k and added on another united one way somewhere you needed to go in the future for $140-$150, thereby maxing out the value.
That is a good idea. I guess I could have found an SFO-SNA flight sometime but I totally forgot about that.
was Frontier not cheaper?
The flight times did not work for me unfortunately and SWA had really pricy last minute prices.
For myself I’m perfectly happy to slum it in coach for anything under 3-4 hours and tend to use fixed value points for domestic flights (SW or US Bank points to a degree). I don’t see a big advantage to first class for such a short flight. Additionally I’d never redeem other point currencies (united, aa, UR, MR etc) for anything domestically unless the flights were outrageously expensive. You can almost always stretch the points 3x+ farther for INT’L business class, etc if you’re flexible. In those instances coach isn’t an option :)
I probably should have just paid for a coach ticket and saved my US Bank FlexPoints.
I don’t think you made the wrong decision necessarily. It all depends on how much value you place on first class, etc. Or perhaps you are heavy in USB points and so therefore the opportunity cost is lower for that redemption versus using another point currency etc. For me personally, when I sit here with hundreds of thousands of miles and points it’s often difficult for me to justify spending ANY amount of cash on an airline ticket. If you were thinking the same way that I often do, it only costed you 1/3 additional points to fly first class versus coach.
I agree with the saying that often goes around which is that you should do what makes the most sense for you personally.
Thanks Seth. I must say the meal was very good and it was a very relaxing flight.
Mapped your trip wrong…Why did you go so far into Utah!??
Blame my brother. We drove to Monument Valley and Monument Valley (both were not worth the trip).