Originally Posted by
guv1976
Agreed. But the FA's statement was true, if somewhat beside the point.
Most people would only buy AA miles at 3.5¢ apiece if they needed a small amount of miles to reach a redemption level. When miles are on sale, they can provide very good value -- especially when redeemed for premium-cabin travel on partner carriers where redemption rates are still fixed. JFK-TYO on JL for 60K AA miles in Business, or 80K AA miles in F is still a very good deal, even if you're buying miles for, say, 2.0¢ apiece on sale.
When US miles used to go on sale for 1.3 cpm, it often made sense to buy 80k-120k outright (j to Europe was 80 and F to Asia was 120, etc) for specific trips. In any event, apart from topping off 5k or less, 3.5 cpm would have been ridiculous then, and is downright insane now.