Travel web vs card web

[juniornj23]

So let see if I can explain myself.
You want to take a vacation outside USA
How you used your card points to get the ticket cheaper since most webside like (Expedia travelocity bla bla bla ) has better price than your amex travel United or chase ,JetBlue delta you get the idea

[wasCB14]

Keeping the explanation simple and skipping over a few little details like extra taxes...

If you search on an airline's website, you'll see two options to book the same plane ticket:

a. The price in cash (paying by credit card, debit card, gift card, PayPal, whatever).

b. The price in airline loyalty points (generally called "miles").

Let's say a Delta flight costs either $200 cash, or 10,000 Delta loyalty points (also known as "Delta Sky Miles"). If you have 10,000 points from a card like Amex Platinum, you can tell Amex to take back some of the points they gave you and replace them with an equal number of Delta Sky Miles instead (which appear automatically in your Delta account, since you told Amex where to send the Delta Sky Miles).

You then use the Delta Sky Miles to book the flight.

[juniornj23]

I understand that but I'm talking about webside like Expedia, travelocity they usually has better deal than AA.com or JetBlue.......

[wasCB14]

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@juniornj23 wrote:
I understand that but I'm talking about webside like Expedia, travelocity they usually has better deal than AA.com or JetBlue.......

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When you pay with miles, you are paying with reward points. You're not paying cash.

Expedia's cash price is lower than Delta's cash price, but miles mean free flights. "Free" is better than Expedia.

Again, I'm simplifying a bit. Award flights aren't completely free. There can be taxes, surcharges, etc.

[SBR249]

If you are trying to compare paying with points to paying with cash then it can be a bit hard to compare as both costs fluctuate with many many different factors. 

However, that said, if you read the many travel blogs out there the method that they generally use is to look at the the cost of a particular ticket in a particular class of service at a particular time in points and then look at the same exact ticket's price in cash (maybe subtracting out the potential rewards you can get by paying in cash). With that, you can calculate a $/pt ratio. Some of those same websites also publish data on historical average valuation of different types of reward points based on past reported redemption ratios. And if your current ratio is equal to or better than the published historical valuation data, then I'd say that you are getting a good deal by redeeming points regardless of what the actual prices are. It's all about maximizing the return value per point spent. 

That said, I believe a common advice on these website is to avoid redeeming points for economy class travel if at all possible. You get the best value from these points by redeeming them for premium class travel or by using them to upgrade a lower class ticket. In that case, if you look at third party travel agent sites, their premium class tickets are often not that much cheaper than buying straight from the airline. 

Another thing to consider is that there are subtle differences to buying tickets from online travel agencies vs. straight from the airline. You can spend a long time researching these by reading websites like FlyerTalk but some of the biggest differences are travel websites often sell tickets in discount fare buckets that may come with more restrictions. Sometimes they even sell basic economy fares as regular economy because they don't make that distinction. Another difference is that airlines will often allow upgrades to tickets purchased directly through them, but many have rules that say any changes to tickets bought from a third party must be made through that third party until 24hrs before departure, by which time the upgrade chances are much lower. Expedia or Travelocity is unlikely to help you try to upgrade your ticket with points or w/e. 

A final point is that in recent years, I've often found that the price difference between these online travel agencies and the airlines themselves is not drastic most of the time. I usually don't see the <$10 savings to be worth the risk of not being able to deal with the airline directly in case problems arise. 

[staticvoidmain]

It doesn't work like that. You pay in either of two ways: cash or miles.

For cash, you can buy it in airline site, or travel site. For miles (or points), you can buy on airline site. There are no deals when paying with miles, and miles is not a 1:1 ratio with cash anyway. You do not use miles as cash. A "cash deal"  anywhere is not covertible to miles. Think of miles as a airline rewards, which is exclusive to airlines. (Points can be convertible to miles, but not miles to cash nor points to cash. Converting points to cash usually means you "buy" cash which is generally more expensive than miles.)

[redpat]

For the most part fight cost booked through OTAs or direct isn’t much of difference anymore, especially if you stick w/ one airline, IMO. 

OP, I have no idea what your trying to say but I don’t see any value for myself using OTAs other than RM, Amex and Chase’s travel websites because I hold those card and have MR & UR points.

[Anonymous]

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@wasCB14 wrote:

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@juniornj23 wrote:
I understand that but I'm talking about webside like Expedia, travelocity they usually has better deal than AA.com or JetBlue.......

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When you pay with miles, you are paying with reward points. You're not paying cash.

Expedia's cash price is lower than Delta's cash price, but miles mean free flights. "Free" is better than Expedia.

Again, I'm simplifying a bit. Award flights aren't completely free. There can be taxes, surcharges, etc.

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Well,  ideally you need to take into account that by going for earning miles you have given up a cashback choices, so in that sense they are not free either, so the redemption ratio matters!

[juniornj23]

Well I think I didn't explain myself
Can you used your miles or points when you are booking packages vacation with travel webside ?

[redpat]

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@juniornj23 wrote:
Well I think I didn't explain myself
Can you used your miles or points when you are booking packages vacation with travel webside ?

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No. 

MR and UR points w/ Amex and Chase travel portals.