Originally Posted by
workandski
I believe that you can buy all the miles you want on AS, and sometimes at a discount. I suspect that you get a high value per mile by trading the miles for a first class ticket on a partner airline, such as Cathay Pacific, subject to availability of course.
This is true, and something I did cash in in the past. Back in 2009/2010, my wife and I were planning our first trip to Thailand/Bali. This was before the CC thing became huge, so we were agonizing for quite awhile over how we were going to get there. I really didn't want to do Y. In the spring of 2010, my friend pointed out that AS was selling their miles at a 30% discount. I looked at the fine print and realized AS didn't have a purchase limit (although there is a transaction limit). I was able to get two CX J tickets from JFK-HKG-BKK/DPS-HKG-JFK for $2300/ea. I thought that was a bargain.