Originally Posted by
Mountain Trader
Key to stevens397's case were two factors:
1. Immediate, specific, available use for the purchased miles.
2. Not enough existing miles in the users' accounts.
With the above two conditions, purchasing miles is just another form of currency and can save money, as it did for stevens397.
With all the front-end bonus giveaways these days (not to mention the likely future miles devaluations they will bring), buying miles otherwise is just a bad call.
You do NOT buy miles unless you have an immediate / not too distant future need for that.
I cannot see why anyone would buy miles for the hoarding sake. Such argument would be more academic than what is happening in real life.
Those who buy always have a purpose to serve - for award flights that would work out cheaper than buying revenue tickets, for AA's unpublished unofficial Lifetime Status, are most likely the 2 major reasons for folks buying AA miles for example. Taking advantage of US Airway's 100% bonus offers can be another. There is a guy posted somewhere on this forum on a similar thread that he routinely buy US Airways miles during the 50% bonus promo because it is much CHEAPER than his 5 to 6 times a year Transcon First Class r/t. He is very happy to be able to buy the miles for this purpose needless to say.
Actually there are other promotional opportunities to amass miles for very low costs. A friend amassed over 1 million US Airways miles during various promo last X'mas for a cost just about $5K. It is a well-worth cost to him for the miles can be used to fly SQ TPAC or LH TATL, in business class - several r/ts can be made from that.
You dont go out to buy miles blindly - you put in time and effort to monitor promotions that would work for your own scenario and acquire the miles at the cheap.
It really boils down to "Do the Math", as simple as that!