Originally Posted by
safari ari
Or use the money to buy the miles when they have a sale. $6k will get you 2 R/T tickets on partners in F/J.
You hardly have to be limited to buying AS miles either (and soon unless you have AS status you WILL be limited in how many AS miles you can buy at a go per year). AV is pretty easy to come by at ~1.5 cpm. Other programs are competitive with AS at around ~2 cpm.
AS MP has some neat features: one way stopovers that can be used creatively, sweet spots in the award chart, the only US based program left where a mile flown on the airline is a mile earned, nice earnings rates in some partner premium cabins. But it also has downsides; the smaller booking window means QF and CX can get sniped from you, you can't combine partners on a one-way routing, very weak options for bookings that don't touch the USA (basically CX + QF Australia + Europe connecting on AY), AS's web booking engine produces
on JL sometimes and lack of SQ redemptions is a running joke, Europe is very weak compared to *A/ST and even OW programs, just BA and a random assortment of LCCs, and other than Marriott and Diner's Club there's no real entry vehicle for flexible points currencies ala AMEX MR/Chase UR/Capital One/Citibank.
All told as a mileage piggy bank it's OK but how much a premium would I pay to get AS miles over (insert reasonable *A/ST/OW program option here)? That's a pretty dollars and cents equation.
Originally Posted by
safari ari
Unless the cheapest J flights aren't on AS partners. You can usually find some very good fares on airlines like Xiamen or Air Canada for ~$2k to Asia. TAP/TK/AF/QR to Europe and the ME for $2.5k. These would all present better options, in my opinion, than paying for a flight to get MVPG+ status just to get 100% more miles, which wastes time and money which I value quite highly. Then you make yourself more captive to finding AS partners to get the 100% bonus you just spent money on to earn. But again to each their own, and I understand the thought, just one thing to go from 0-100% to get a small additional bonus, versus actually using the other benefits flying organically.
And it's not like you get 0 miles in any program if you fly TP or TK to Europe, or AC to Asia.