Hi all,

I have 116k Avios I got from a Chase+BA credit card offer a while back. I need 34k more in order to fly 2 people from NYC to HNL with American Airlines in May 2014 (Business/First MileSAAve).

Here are the ideas I had:

1. My fiancee never had the Chase BA card. This means she can sign up for one, get the 50k bonus and then we can join our accounts to a family/household account and we should have enough miles. Does anyone have experience with joining accounts with miles in both? There is, of course, a risk of the flights no longer being available when we finally receive the bonus miles

2. I have seen many people advertise on the net that they're selling miles. I've contacted one person and they offered to sell me 34k Avios for $450, which is a great price, but I'm wondering how are they able to transfer the miles to me if BA's limit is 24k per year? How "legal" is that? What are the risks? I don't want to find out a month before our trip that my ticket has been canceled by the airline.


Any other input would be very welcome. Thanks in advance.