Purchasing Miles from a Broker: Good Or Bad
 

As many of you out there are milage experts i do not see any threads about purchasing miles and the pro's and Con's of the situation. There are a plethora of milage brokers out there who can sell you a ready account I.E. some one else's account with the needed amount of miles or fill your account with points Depending on the type of account you have.

First off I would like to state typically when you are in a bind most airlines will sell you the additional points at 0.03 per mile depending on the airline and most have a limit to the amount you can purchase in a given year. On the plus side of thing you can get an unlimited number of points from a broker between 0.018 - 0.02 dropped into your pre-existing account. and when you need 100K points the difference is a whopping $1000 dollars. What are the draw backs you ask.

Well when signing up with any airline loyalty program in the terms and conditions you agree to never purchase points from anyone except who the airline deems reputable. another words they are getting a cut of the action. So how can they catch you you ask?

They do yearly scans to see who has flown on what points and how they fly. Details are complex

What happens if you get caught? Well First the airline will cancel any existing award reservations, most likely cancel your account. :( So all that hard work to get to your status is now alllllllll gone. Any future award reservations made by your exact First Name Last Name and DOB will be canceled. This is not some thing you want to risk.

So what do you do? Well Every Airline has a back door. Tune in later to find out how to be 100% safe

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...hey-legit.html

I wouldn't do it.

"Tune in later" sounds like someone (who didn't do too well in high-school English) is running a scam and is trolling for suckers.

(At this point the OP has two other FT posts. One is similar to this. In the other, s/he claims to be a travel agent.)

This sounds like someone is trying to go through a "back door" and act as a 3rd party to "legally" sell miles.

The profile says that OP is a Travel Specilaist. Is that a fancy travel agent or a mileage broker?

I've both sold and purchase miles, but it's from UR/MR directly into a UA/Avios accounts. Nothing suspicious IMO

Please follow the discussion in the above thread.

Regards Oliver2002
Mod EM&PR

mileageclub.com to buy miles?
 

Hi all,

My family and I are planning to fly Korean Air this summer but are short on miles. I was thinking of buying miles on www.themileageclub.com ($0.02/mi). Has anyone done this or have other thoughts on getting miles quickly? I have a week to finalize my flight payment.

Thanks!

Buying miles anywhere other than approved sites - essentially the airlines directly or points.com - is a risky proposition. Odds are you'll be fine. But there's a very real chance you will not.

I do not think it worth the risk, especially given the variety of ways to legitimately acquire points.

Thanks for the info. It doesn't look like Korean Air sells miles. I went to points.com and it looks just like a way to manage your points -- not to buy points.

I would love to legitimately acquire miles, but i'm stuck on how to for Korean Air quickly. Perhaps there isn't a way...

Chase Sapphire Preferred is a Korean Air partner - if you get a card and hit the spend bonus quickly that should do it (even if you don't if you are short just a few miles less than the minimum spend bonus should still be sufficient)

Thanks for the suggestion but we already have the chase Sapphire card.

Do you have enough points to transfer to KE for your award tickets? If you're close, can you direct spending there quickly enough to get the miles you need? [This is likely to depend on your billing cycle.]

No, we're over 100k miles short across our tickets.

Then it sounds like you need to purchase one or more tickets with money.....or leave part of your family at home.