This airline’s miles offer the best value when booking vacation travel in 2025

As a vacation trip approaches, using airline miles and points is a smart way to avoid potentially high prices. However, certain award currencies offer better value for money than others during peak travel times.

NerdWallet, a personal finance website, analyzed airfares for travel between December 22 and December 29 of this year and compared the fares when paying with cash or miles. Of all the major airline currencies, using Frontier Airlines miles offers the best deal because they are worth 1.8 cents each, the company said Travel + leisure.

American Airlines miles ranked second, valued at about 1.6 cents per mile, while JetBlue points and Southwest Airlines points cost 1.4 cents each. At the low end, the study found that Spirit Airlines points were worth 1 cent each, followed by Hawaiian Airlines miles at 1.1 cents and Delta Air Lines and United Airlines miles at 1.2 cents each.

NerdWallet updates its award ratings annually in a rolling guide, taking into account peak and off-peak travel times.

“Unlike many point and mile ratings, ours are based on real data,” the company said. “These are not hypothetical or maximized values ​​based on idealized conditions, but rather actual estimates of how many cents per point or mile you can expect to earn on award bookings.

How exactly is the value of an airline mile determined? Awards flights typically incur taxes and fees, typically $5.60 for one-way flights within the United States. To calculate the value of a mile, these taxes are deducted from the cash price of the flight and the remaining amount is divided by the number of miles required for the same ticket. Multiplying this value by 100 gives you the value of each airline mile in cents.

Calculating these values ​​will help you assess whether you are making the most of your hard-earned airline miles. However, there are also free tools that make the process easier. Points Path, a free browser extension, automatically compares real-time cash prices with airline miles on Google Flights to show whether redeeming rewards is really a good deal.