Penny Per Point
I have always come back to an general value of one penny per point. I have used points to get a free night and if the room would have cost me around $100, it cost me 10,000 point. I have always used the rule of thumb of just moving the decimal place two spaces to the right and you convert the points to dollars. When I check in to a Marriott and they give me 500 points, I look at it as $5. I f I accept the gift instead, it is something that would cost around $5. If you check into a Residence Inn, they give you 200 points or something from the market that is around $2.
Granted, you can use your points wisely and get more for you money, like staying four nights and getting the 5th night free. Then you are getting more than a penny per point. I have got 5 nights at the Wentworth Inn at about 150,000 points. The starting rental price is $300 a night, for a total of $1,500. I usually got upgraded and access to the lounge, so it may have been worth twice that.
But it seems when you average it all out it reverts back to the mean of about a penny a point. I use this as the standard I evaluate offers. If they are offering me 10,000 points to take a tour I look at it as them offering me $100. I looked into using my points for a cruise that would have cost me about $2,000. It would have cost me 180,000 points
Well that is my two cents on my one cent per point rule.
Joe