Originally Posted by
Happy
Of course 160K BA miles worth more than $1500 when you can redeem in one-way tickets - meaning you can go on one-way on BA then return on one-way on AA, or UA/CO... all in J or even F. 75K on CX F to Asia from NA using BA miles for example.
If I am in need of miles I definitely would look at US Airways' various promotional offers first. Its program has the better mileage cost and routing allowance than the UA/CO for the Star A redemption. The major draw back is the $250 change fee while UA/CO is mostly free. Otherwise you get more bang for your mileage bucks when redeeming US Airways miles, not to mention that you often can obtain US miles at a cheaper cash cost than other programs. The 100% bonus offer, the holiday promo, etc all let you obtain miles with a reasonable cash outlay when you redeem it in J or F to Asia and Africa.
Thanks. So what would you do? Use BA miles, 160K with the 2 for 1 to india and pay 2K in taxes/fees? Or purchase 250K US Airways miles for use from West Coast to India at the cost of $3500 (J travel).
Assuming we can put saved miles to good use and use BA miles for something else, what would be the more optimal use? Or does it vary person to person? Just pondering over this pending decision for us. Looks like the answer would be to buy US miles for West Coast to India (via NRT, FRA, or MUC) and save BA miles for something else.
Which translates into to this - the 2 for 1 is not necessarily a good deal even for West Coast to India.