Looking for advice on using the Cash + Miles option
 

Hi All,

Looking for some advice on using Cash + Miles on a one-way Flight from Milan to NYC.
I currently have about half the miles I need (80,000) and was thinking about purchasing more miles to lower my final cash price.
I know there are several websites (One Mile At A Time etc) that help you value all of this...but It gets a little confusing for me.

I am concerned, that I will spend $ 2,700 to buy 90,000 miles, but upon checkout...discover that my mile redemption is only worth XXX dollars...and I still owe $ 2,000K for my tickets (two Business Class).
Has anyone had any experience with Cash + Miles and has used this to their advantage?

TIA
Dwayne

The cash and miles offer will be listed upfront, for example 50,000 for $500 off (not real)
If you can see it at flight selection then once you have the miles ready you can go ahead with it

What is there to be concerned about? The maths is up front and wont change whilst in booking stage

Hi. Thanks for responding.

I guess my fear is the value of the purchased Miles vs. the Cash + Miles. Right now, I have 80,000 miles. I need about 170,000 miles total for my wife and
,
to travel with 2 Business class tickets from Milan to NYC. I would need to purchase about 90,000 (if this was a reward ticket).

When I go through the booking process, I get a $ 380 reduction in my tickets, if I apply the 80,000 points/miles. Using that logic, I will spend $ 2,700 for those miles.

If I only get another $ 400 reduction in my ticket price...then I guess I will not be worth buying a additional miles then, correct?

Dwayne

all depends on your perspective. A J flight from London to Dubai one way is over £2000. If you benefit from upgrading Y to J for less than the cash value its a good return

Generally speaking, buying miles is expensive and only done when you need a relatively small amount to get enough for an upgrade or award. PLUS: cash + miles is one of the worst uses of miles, only recommended if you need to use the miles before they expire (sometimes you get a ‘special cash + miles offer’ in which case it is not that bad). It seems very very unlikely to me that the combination of buying miles plus cash + miles would ever be attractive but I have never actually done the sums.

Emirates aren't going to sell you miles that you can turn round and use to get a "cheaper" ticket (unless it's in a big miles sale). It doesn't make sense.

Buying miles can be handy if you just need a few to top up an existing balance to get a reward, but not for using to purchase flights outright.

If I understand your proposal correctly, you would need to supplement your existing 80k of miles with a purchase of 90k of miles, you then you would then have enough points to redeem for your needed 2 J award tkt (assuming that there is award availability). If this understanding is correct, then you would not be using the Cash + Miles option... the 2 tkts would be covered by the required miles for the award redemption. Therefore you out-of-pocket cost would be utilizing your existing 80k of miles plus the cost of purchasing 90k of miles plus whatever the surcharges (taxes/fees/etc) amount to. It probably only makes sense if you can purchase the miles with a significant amount of bonus miles ( like maybe 100% bonus).

Like others have pointed out.... buying miles to apply against a Cash + Miles purchase almost never makes sense. These are not exact numbers, but I seem to recall that you can purchase the miles for something 3.75 cents/mile, but the value you receive on miles applied to a Cash + Miles purchase is only 1 cent/mile

Thank you for your response. As you might have guessed, I was cheaper just to pay using my existing miles plus cash (Cash + Miles option).

All booked! Looking forward to the trip!

D