While there are usually ways to buy points, it is often not a very good value. You will usually pay 2.5 to 3 cents per point. If you have 98,000 points and need 100,000 for an award, and don't want to go through the credit card routine or try to find something at the airline's "points mall" to buy, it can be very sensible to buy the missing points. As a rule though, you will rarely want to buy points just to turn them around for awards.