Glossary
Every term this site uses, defined without assuming you already know the others. If we use a word on a page and have not defined it there, it is here.
- Award chart
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A published table saying how many miles a given route and cabin costs. Programs using a chart give you predictable pricing and the chance to find genuinely good value.
Many programs have replaced charts with dynamic pricing, which removes most of that upside.
- Award space
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Seats an airline is actually willing to sell for miles on a given flight. It is a separate thing from whether seats are for sale in cash - a full-looking flight may have award space, and an empty one may have none.
- Cents per point (CPP)
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How much cash each point saved you on one booking: (cash price minus award fees) divided by points used, times 100.
It measures a single redemption, not what your points are worth in general.
- Devaluation
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When a program raises what an award costs, drops a partner, or worsens a ratio. Usually announced with little notice, sometimes with none.
This is the main risk of holding miles rather than transferable points.
- Dynamic pricing
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Pricing awards against the cash fare instead of a fixed chart. The miles cost moves with the ticket price, so a mile ends up worth roughly a constant number of cents.
- Fuel surcharge
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A cash fee some programs add to award tickets, sometimes running to hundreds of dollars on long-haul routes. It comes straight off the value of your redemption.
Always enter it in the award fees box - a redemption that looks strong before surcharges can be poor after them.
- Increment
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The fixed step a transfer moves in - often 1,000 points. If your intended amount is not a multiple of it, you cannot transfer exactly that amount.
- Loyalty program
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The airline-run scheme that issues and redeems miles: Delta SkyMiles, United MileagePlus, and so on. The airline sets all the rules.
- Minimum transfer
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The smallest number of points a route will move at all. Below it, the transfer is simply not offered.
- Partner award
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Booking a seat on one airline using another program's miles, usually through an alliance or a bilateral partnership.
Airlines release less award space to partners than they sell their own members.
- Redemption
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Spending points or miles on something - normally a flight. The opposite of earning them.
- Reference value
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An estimate of what a program's points tend to be worth, averaged across many real redemptions. We use AwardWallet's published valuations, with attribution.
It is an estimate for context, not a price, not a cash-out rate, and not a promise.
- Transfer bonus
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A temporary promotion adding a percentage to what you receive on a transfer - typically 20% to 30%.
MileVerdict does not track live bonuses at launch. Enter the percentage you have been offered.
- Transfer partner
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An airline or hotel program a bank currency can move into, at a published ratio. Partner lists change, so every ratio here carries a verification date.
- Transfer ratio
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How many destination miles you get per source point. 1:1 is most common; 1,000:800 means you lose 20% in the move.
- Transferable points
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A bank currency that can move into airline or hotel programs - Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Capital One Miles, Citi ThankYou, Bilt, Wells Fargo Rewards.
They are not miles until you transfer them, and the transfer is one-way.