Flight costs versus Miles Plus Money

There is probably a simple explanation but............

I have just researched flight costs as follows on the VS website:

Las Vegas to London Gatwick (Return) - direct flights in PE

Standard online purchase = $1614 USD: receive 13,056 miles + 6 Tier points

Miles Plus Money = $1707 USD and 7500 miles: receive no miles and no tier points

where is the incentive to use air miles!!!!!

First of all, well done for checking both! ALWAYS compare MPM fares with cash only fares.

All airlines play a balancing act: they have to attract new customers (and as other airlines found out, having a 'better' product doesn't cut it) through offering discount fares, and often the promotional fare will be cheaper than the existing miles plus money fare.

The value of airmiles is usually through using them to upgrade, although you need to ensure that you book a fare that can be upgraded with miles.

[Nottingham Nick]

You will find a lot of discussion of here about MPM fares - they sometimes represent good value - often when booking late.
More often though - they are not good value, you are better getting a miles earning fare,

It is simple a case of making the comparison each time you want to book,

Nick

It all depends on your circumstances, I have just booked 3 x PE MPM tickets to LAX and back from SFO for next summer for £990 each. Worth it on a long flight.
Saved around £350 in total which to me is good saving. I am not interested in TPs or miles, I only manage to accumulate a small amount of miles a year through the use of my VA Amex card.
So unless I wait a few years I will never have enough for a reward flight, especially now L2H jnr is at school and our travel dates are not so flexible.
Just my view..