There are quite a few promos out right now for buying miles! It seems as if all the airlines want to compete for your money, if you are in the market for buying miles. Before you decide whether you are going to buy miles, I suggest you read this earlier post about buying miles to find out if it is the best deal for you and your situation.
Buy Miles Promo Roundup
Disclaimer: I do receive a commission if you purchase Alaska miles or US Airway miles using the links below.
If you do find that you are in need of miles, here is the list of the airlines selling miles and what kind of promotions they are running.
Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan – Up To 40% Promotion = 2.1 cents per mile
This promo is a tiered bonus offer tied to the amount of miles you purchase. It breaks down like this:
- 5,000 – 19,000 miles, get a 20% Bonus
- 20,000 – 34,000 miles, get a 30% Bonus
- 35,000 – 40,000 miles, get a 40% Bonus
Obviously, the best bang for your buck is with the 35,000 – 40,000 mile range. It is worth noting that the most miles you can purchase at once is 40,000, but there is no limit as to how many you can purchase overall. If you were to max out this promo at the 40,000 mile level, you will receive a total of 56,000 miles at a cost of $1,182. If you are need of Alaska Airline miles quickly, then this is a good route to go, but it is very easy to get 50,000 miles by applying for both the Alaska Airlines personal and business cards. Plus, those cards are churnable, which makes accruing Alaska Airline miles even easier. Alaska Airlines has many award partners across the alliances, so it is an incredibly easy way to take advantage of many excellent award options, especially in premium cabins.
If you are need of miles to top off your account or you don’t mind spending money for your “free” ticket, this is as good as the promos get for purchasing Alaska Airline miles.
Purchase Miles Link – Alaska Airline Mileage Plan up to 2.1 cents per mile (40% bonus) / Expiration – October 14
Avianca LifeMiles – 100% Purchase Promo = 1.5 cents per mile
Avianca LifeMiles
The LifeMile program of Avianca Airlines is a favorite of people who want to redeem for premium cabin travel within the Star Alliance. Until October 15, their award chart is the most generous in redemption levels and they have frequent buy mile promos that put the cost per mile at 1.5 cents.
If you do decide to buy miles through this promo, know that the limit per account is 75,000 miles (plus the bonus for a total of 150,000) and the account must have been open before today. Also, as with all mile purchases, it is good to have a redemption in mind and ticket it sooner rather than later. Avianca has a history of changing the terms without notice (though they did give advance notice of the award chart change coming October 15). Also, you can only book awards in the same class – so, no mixing economy and business class cabins on your award.
Purchase Miles Link – Avianca LifeMiles at 1.5 cents each (100% bonus) / Expiration – September 30th
United Airlines MileagePlus – Up To 100% Purchase Promo = 1.85 cents per mile
United Airlines Purchase Promo
This promo is a little more unique. The maximum bonus offer is tied to how many people actually purchase the miles. It is a neat idea on the part of United as it motivates buyers to rope more people into the purchase promo to get the bonus higher. It is currently at 35% (the lowest amount) and will increase based on the number of people who buy, all the way up to 100% if there are more than 4,501 transactions.
The good part about this is that it is not tiered according to how many miles your purchase. So, if you only need 10,000 miles to top off your account for an award, then you could purchase 5,000 miles (should it get to the 100% mark) and get those miles you need. The bad part is that the lowest possible price you can pay for these miles is 1.85 cents. Since their premium cabin award redemptions were gutted earlier this year, it is really not worth buying the amount of miles to redeem for them. That leaves economy travel and you would have to be traveling to a very expensive place to make this purchase promo worth your while.
For example, if you were going to buy 60,000 miles to fly to Europe, you would only need to purchase 30,000 miles (assuming the 100% tier is met) and that would cost you $1,128. On top of that, you will need to pay around $100 or more for taxes and fees making your award ticket cost over $1,200! Of course, you would also be forgoing any mileage earning that you could get on a revenue ticket, so that means your ticket would need to cost you at least $1,700 (if you were to purchase it outright) to make this promo close to worthwhile (for this particular situation).
This promotion is a short one – it ends in less than 3 days (September 4th at 11:59PM CDT).
Purchase Miles Link – United MileagePlus as low as 1.85 cents each (100% bonus) / Expiration – September 4th
US Airways – Up To 100% Purchase Promo = 1.88 cents per mile
US Airway purchase mile promo
This is another one of US Airways’ mile promos – and it is the same as it always is! It is a tiered purchase promo based on the amount of miles you are buying and the tiered structure looks like this:
- 1,000-9,000 miles = 25% Bonus
- 10,000-19,000 miles = 50% Bonus
- 20,000-29,000 miles = 75% Bonus
- 30,000-50,000 miles = 100% Bonus
There are still some very good uses for US Airway miles as they are in the Oneworld Alliance and there are some great carriers. One such redemption is Cathay Pacific First Class to Asia for 120,000 miles – great carrier and great price. If you max out this promo, it will cost you $1,881 and will give you a total of 100,000 miles. So, you would only be 20,000 miles away from that first class ticket. But, make no mistake – it is certainly not a free award ticket! If you are traveling that way anyway and a coach ticket was going to cost $1,400+, then this would be a good way to travel in style for an extra $500 or so. But, you would need to decide if that is good for you.
Just keep in mind that if you want to do this, the most miles you can purchase is 50,000 miles per account (for a total of 100,000 miles with the bonus) and the account has to be opened for more than 12 days.
Purchase Miles Link – US Airways Dividend Miles as low as 1.88 cents each (100% bonus) / Expiration – September 30
Summary
If your situation fits, buying miles can be a good way to go. BUT, make sure that it is best for your situation. Award availability can be very fickle and there are many fees and taxes that can go along with those awards. However, if you have done your research or you are simply topping up your account, these are the best promos right now.
