AJ747M

When buying top up miles on most frequent flyer programs, you must already have half the miles in your account; or else you won't be able to book an award ticket. Is this true for Mileage Plan? Or if I have zero miles and just joined, can I gain miles solely through buying and redeem an award ticket?

travelmonkey05

You can try, but I seem to remember some issues with people who filled up with miles and the bought an awards ticket getting their accounts shut down for fraud.

See the other threads (this one and ones linked a few posts in) Risk analysis of buying AS miles to issue award tickets

3Cforme

For what frequent flyer plans is this a rule? Various U.S. plans may have annual purchase limits and transfer limits but your suggested 'Can't buy more than half for an award' rule is new to me.

pinniped

I've never heard of the 50-50 rule. Airlines aggressively market the sale of their miles - it's a huge profit center for them - and that definitely includes ME getting direct emails from Alaska in the past 90 days when I had 0 lifetime earned miles on them. (New account, which now has 37k miles in it from one EK trip, and is about to become base MVP from my first credited AS trip next week.)

As long as it's your account, you purchasing the miles, and you flying, I don't see how this is a problem. If it's you buying and redeeming for a bunch of other people, then they are probably going to smell a broker.

I've redeemed tons of awards over the years where *all* of the miles involved were deposited into an otherwise-dormant or new account from an external (non-flying) source, usually Marriott, and immediately redeemed for J/F travel. Granted, never Alaska (yet), but I've never hit a 50-50 hiccup anywhere else or seen any indication that some level of BIS activity is needed to redeem awards. Airlines simply love selling their miles - to hotel chains, to banks, to Points.com, to whomever - and this will kill off part of that golden goose.

skimthetrees

There is no requirement to have any miles in your account to buy miles. You can buy starting from 0 and buy as many as you want. You can only buy 60k (pre-bonus) per transaction but you can have as many transactions as you want. Alaska uses points.com to process the purchases and I think they used to have some limits (like max 4 transactions per credit card per month or something like that) but I do not know if that is still in place.

As previously mentioned there were some reports of account shutdowns for misuse. Review those. I notice your location is HK. AS seems to look much more closely at activity from overseas accounts. If you could credit a flight from a partner to AS (like from CX) that may look better if they decide to review your account but my opinion FWIW is so long as they let you buy the miles and you use them for yourself, family, or friends and do not take compensation for them you have a right to use them. If you are traveling on the awards you book I would not expect a problem. If you buy a bunch of miles and book only for others from an overseas account they might take a close look at that.

travelmonkey05

I know Aeroplan does this... it just means you need to already have at least 50% of the miles in your account already when you buy the ticket... doesn't mean they haven't been bought though.

If you try to buy a 25k ticket with only 10k in your account it won't let you... you need to go buy/earn 2.5k... wait for them to post... and then you can buy the other 12.5 when you go to buy the ticket... it's a pretty silly rule.

AJ747M

SQ has the rule, and Qantas as well (20%). I'm not sure if what travelmonkey05 said is the rule with QF/SQ as well, but that may be the case. See screenshot from Krisflyer form below.

I am planning to buy the AS miles and use them for my own redemptions, so all should be fine. I have also changed my FF number on an upcoming QF flight so it will credit to Alaska (crazy that an economy saver ticket credits 100%!!) Thanks for the info everyone!

trooper

True..but there is no restriction on that "50%" ALSO being purchased miles.....Those restrictions are talking about a top up for an immediate award redemption....

pinniped

Could you buy the first 50% in one transaction and then, five minutes later, "top-up" the rest? Or would the first "buy" have to go through something like Points.com that might take a while to post.

It reads like they intend to require 50% of the miles to come from BIS (or perhaps their credit card or whatever), so it would seem like the loophole wouldn't be that easy... But I have no experience trying...

beachmouse

Considering how many people, including me, came away with enough miles for a free domestic one way ticket on AS solely by having a Virgin America account with a few hundred points in it as part of the merger, I really hadn't given much thought to if there were BIS requirements in this program. And hope that doesn't pop up because I've now grown that little flower of an AS account from 13K to 30K by way of e-Rewards transfers and a few partner points promotions, and want to keep going with it long enough to get a couple of domestic economy round trips on American from my usually pretty expensive home airport.

Flying for Fun

Are you located in a city serviced by AS/VX? 30K is already enough for three return "hop" awards or 2 return "skip" awards. You could also get 1 return "jump" or "leap" award with miles to spare. Any AA flights you may have before December 31st can be credited to AS as well. You are 60% of the way to a 50K CX J award from NA to SE Asia.

beachmouse

I think my closest city served by their metal is New Orleans, and that airport is just shy of four hours one way by car from home. Usually we stick with Delta for cash flights out of VPS that’s 20 minutes down the road because the three legacy carriers tend to price within a few dollars of each other and you’re more likely to get mainline service with them than an Embraer 135.

So because of the bit about not combining partner airlines on award tickets, it makes sense for me to just burn on AA out of VPS or PNS if I’m trying to keep my cash or total miles used outlay low. And while AA is nor my favorite airline if I’m paying cash, it’s a good enough redemption value when I can get a 2 cent per mile return on one of their award tickets

AJ747M

Just an update here: bought the miles after having the account open for around 14 days. They deposited within 24 hours, and I redeemed them the next day (flights in a few months time). No problems with account blocking at all.

3Cforme

The OP asserted this is a rule with most FF programs. So far, people have named 3 carriers out of the IATA's list of 280+, and AC's inclusion is qualified. Relevant to this forum, AS Mileage Plan doesn't appear to have such a rule.

jhneoh

I managed to buy AS miles on the same day I created the Mileage Plan account, during the 40% bonus sale. Managed to get tickets on JAL for my wife and I a couple days after that,