Originally Posted by hindukid

Well it sounds like you may actually value your miles at 2 cents a piece. So then I guess if you are buying 56K for $1100 it is a wash. But if you are going to buy miles why stop at 56K. You could buy 100 or 200K.

Well, AA actually only allows 40k per year, plus bonus miles. If I could buy miles from AA a $.02/mile in larger quantities, I'd consider it for the million mile status.

I think you should redeem the miles from your wife's account because as you said those re worth less than 2 cents each. The question then becomes, irregardless of the trip you are making does it make sense to purchase miles from AA at the current cost. IMO, the trip you are making and the miles you are taking from your wife should have zero impact on this decision.

I think I'm coming around to your point. I guess it really is two separate decisions. Heck, the other option is to just buy the 56k miles and pay cash for my trip.

How are you getting 56K anyways? isn't it 40K plus 12K bonus for $1000 plus $30 plus $70ish in taxes. So I see 52K for $1100. I haven't done the math but I suspect you would have been slightly better off buying SPG and converting those to AA when they had the 35% bonus.

Citi AA card holders who use the card get 4k bonus per 10k purchased through the end of August. Purchasing starpoints during the 35 percent bonus was, in fact, a better deal -- because Starwood had a special also going on at the same time; they were discounting starpoints to $.028 per point. So, the final cost, taking into account the 1.25:1 ratio was $560 for 33,750 AA miles -- just a bit over 1.6 cpm, so yes a better deal.