swimfinz

I'm sure someone must've posted this deal before but I couldn't find a thread so point me in the right direction if this is a dupe.

Got an email saying American Airlines have a promotion on where if you buy 100,000 points, you get an extra 60,000 bonus points. So for US$2,950 you can get 160,000 points.

Promotion runs from March 31 to April 30.
https://buymiles.aa.com/en/buygift?c...rigA_EN,US_BUY

Does anyone think this is a good deal?

I'm a total noob so appreciate any comments from those familiar with AA points and if I should spend money on buying points as I joined AA recently.

mia

It looks as if you have not yet added the taxes and fees to see the total cost.


Threads about American Airlines are here:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...s-airways-744/

At least two relevant threads:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...promotion.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...ose-miles.html

KenfromDE

A reasonable deal as long as they don't increase redemption mileage (like DL)

HMPS

I look at the cash price of J seat on a long haul , compare it to the cost of buying miles, $2950 here as you say.
if you buy on speculation, watch out devaluations may bite you in the backside !

mia

$3,201.25 after including tax and fee.

Middle_Seat

I think that "is it a good deal or not" depends upon what you plan to use the AA miles for. If domestic travel and or travel in Coach, probably not. If planning to travel First, then probably yes.

A search for what various bloggers have calculated as the worth of FF miles may help you decide.

glennaa11

160000 miles still gets you to Asia 2 and back in CX F, so yeah I think that's a good deal if you plan to use the miles for something like that and relatively soon.

drvannostren

I'd be interested to see if any NON-AA members did this. Just thinking for myself spending like $3600 CAD, if that got 2 CX F flights, that's a great deal. But I have no status with AA, so how hard would it be to get the rewards, is there scam charges, what's the availability like out of my city, how fast would I have to use them before a potential deval...for me there's probably a few too many question marks to pull the trigger on a deal like this, but if you were an AA elite and had better access to awards it might totally be worth doing, especially if you have some destinations in mind.

tng11

I've done it once before. What I did was put the awards on hold after searching for availability on the BA engine (CX and JL have great availability in F/J.)

A round trip to Asia from Canada should come in at about $100 CAD in fees.

The only thing is - if you use a Canadian credit card you're billed another 13% HST. That can be solved by using a US credit card with a US billing address.

flightmedic

I don't see how this is worth it. You can open the AA Citi executive card 3 times at 50,000 miles each. Spend the required $5k per card and now you have 165k miles. Each card has an annual fee of $450 which you can get back if you make the spend and cancel the card. The on,y cost for me is the $5 per $500 to buy the gift cards to meet the spend, basically $50 per card or $150 in total for 165k miles.

tng11

For people who don't have access to those crazy sign-up bonuses in the US - this isn't a half bad way to effectively buy J & F tickets at a huge discount (very few opportunities in Canada to earn AA miles.)

javabytes

If you have a definite and immediate use for them to obtain travel at a solid discount below current cash prices, then why not. But otherwise paying 2cpm+ just to have them sit in your account for some undefined future need is unreasonably risky.

Keep in mind the opportunity cost of miles that would be earned from a cash ticket and factor that into your equation also. A long TPAC coupled with premium cabin and elite bonuses can mean you're foregoing tens of thousands of miles when you buy an award ticket instead of a cash ticket.

drvannostren

The difference being for me, I can't/won't pay for premium cabins. I don't have that kinda cash, so that's probably why I wouldn't do this. That said, the opportunity for me is to get premium cabin without paying premium price. I use my Aeroplan points to book premium cabins when I can because it makes sense and it's an experience I know I wouldn't otherwise pay for.

So spending $3,500 CAD and getting 2 roundtrip F tickets to asia (if I read it correctly) might be totally worth it, hell, even if it was just J it might be worth it.

1 round trip in F? Wouldn't bother because then I'd kick myself for paying $3,500 for 1 trip rather than $1,150 for 3 separate trips. As much as I value the comfort, I value the destination much more.

If nothing else though it's an interesting proposition.

JamieDee78

Not worth it at all, especially for flying in economy. That's well less than 1 cent per mile. If it was 160k for $1,600 then maybe...

HMPS

How do you and another poster figure TWO Round Trip in F to Asia ?
For that I would jump for two sets of purchases !