Hi,

As you can see, this is my first post here... so take it easy on me :-) I've been reading the forums for a couple of weeks now after reading rather belatedly about the Westin points bonanza that was to be had by subscribing to the magazine of this site...

I find it very curious that people were clamouring over themselves to buy dozens and dozens of subscriptions in the quest to accrue cheap miles. This obviously shows that there is great demand to be had for offering miles at reasonable prices. What I don't understand is why aren't there more opportunities to simply buy miles w/o the need to buy a secondary product? Surely it would have been in the interests of the owners of this magazine to simply sell the miles rather than include subscription to the magazine? Simply, the magazine must cost a lot of money to print and post, whereas the cost of distributing the miles must be negligible. By cutting out the cost of running the magazine, there must be great profit margins to be had by just selling miles, or the opportunity to pass on cost savings to the customer, who after all is really only interested in the mileage?

Am I missing the obvious? The companies that give miles away as promotions - are they contracted not to sell miles? IF so, what's the issue with selling miles... what don't the FF program administrators like?...inflationary fears, risk exposure to unused miles?

Oh, I hope that this hasn't been covered all before... found the search engine a little unwield!

Cheers,

Morgan!

Welcome to FlyerTalk,

Actually the companies that give out the miles as promos have to buy those miles from the airlines or hotels. They use them to help build their own business, they actually couldn't make much money selling the miles directly, even if they could (which they probably can't, since the terms and conditions of the programs prohibit this).

A magazine usually makes very little if anything from magazine sales. They make most of it from selling ads - and the amount they can charge for the ads is dependent on their circulation. So, if they can increase the subscriber base, even if they break even on that transaction, they should be able to make more on the ads.

You can buy miles directly from some airlines, though they aren't that cheap, and usually the amount is limited. That is why you will find people on FT trying to figure out the best ways to get the most miles for the fewest dollars (or pounds).

Thanks for the explanation. The theory sounds pretty credible, but surely the advertisors aren't stupid and look at what is driving the sales behind magazines they advertise in? Browsing through past posts, it seems obvious that people are interested purely in the miles and not in the magazine. What happens to the magazine when it gets sent out to the subscriber? Many people have bought multiple subscriptions, and whilst they may have friends/families/libraries who can be benefactors I find it hard to believe that the majority of copies are actually eyeballed! If I was an advertiser I would be worried about the numbers and validity of the claimed readership. With the only interest in the mileage on offer, it seems that the magazine could only sustain a level of readership if there were sweet mileage offers around time of subscription renewal, and from the posts on this board next May time there's going to be a LOT of subscriptions up for renewal :-)

By the way, as I haven't read the magazine, I guess the magazine may have awesome content and each subscriber may be happy to renew their two dozen subscriptions each year :-D

Ooops - I'm sorry. Only my second post, and I can't believe how quickly it took me to veer off the topic of miles! hehe. here's hoping that there is another good promotion to get some cheap miles soon... one which I wont miss out on :-)

As an advertiser you would want to see a lot of PAID subscribers, as if someone paid for something chances are better it is read. Advertisers would much rather pay to reach 1 million paid susbscribers vs say 2 million free subscribers, as how do you know if the free subscribers are your target audience, but at least with the paid ones you know they were interested to pay for the magazine.

My organization gives American miles as incentives for some of it's events (we are a non profit and the events are used to raise money). Raise $350 get your choice of a pair of Bianchi Bike Gloves, or 1,000 miles, all the way up to raise $5,000 and get your choice of a Bianchi Mountain Bike or 10,000 miles, with various prizes in the middle. Obviously, this is a bike ride event. After $5,000 you start getting into free trips.

We have to pay for the miles we get from American, they are not free. That being said, if somebody is at the $325 level, they will go out and get the extra $25 in pledges and payments to get those miles. I believe way over 50% of the people eligable choose miles over the other prizes. It's an incredible incentive. We can not sell the certificates directly to people, our agreement is they will only be used as an incentive.

I don't think the demand for miles at inexpensive prices is all that much of a drive. I think for many people, and certainly most of the people here, it's the hunt, not the kill that makes it fun. We can all buy miles from our airlines, they all sell miles. That isn't any fun, it's like hunting in a zoo, it's way too easy. Most of us here have way too many miles to know what to do with them all, and would never hand somebody say $50 for 100 miles. But tell us to collect thirty two boxtops for those same miles, and we will all run out and buy cereal.