I think it's more accurate to consider where your money would be if it wasn't in BankDirect. If it would be in the stockmarket, then yes you should compare against that. But if you have decided your money wouldn't be in that (either because you are planning to buy a house soon, or already have say 90% of your assets in the market and want to hold some risk-free money), then compare against a CD or money market or whatever else you would be putting that money towards.

I'll add my experience to those numerous reports: I had a Fidelity account in 2007 for 25K UA miles. I closed it at the end of the minimum term. A few weeks ago I opened a new account with them, transferred assets and after just a week received 50K AA miles. Will close this one as soon as permitted.

I'm amazed that they (brokerages) don't require any cash deposit. I just transfer assets from one firm to another. They regretfully don't get a penny for all these miles they give me.

I wouldn't say never . But devaluation is certainly a risk that needs to be considered and discounted. It's much better if you have an immediate need for the miles

In general I agree, but there's a reason why these companies are yielding 5%. Don't want to get into the efficient markets debate, but there is risk both of the stock decreasing in price and the companies cutting their dividends. That's not to say there aren't good buys out there, but there are people selling these companies with these yields also. Also don't forget that starting in 2011, tax rates on qualified dividends are set to go back to the ordinary levels unless things change.

I probably wouldn't either at my costs. However, I've personally been using up pretty much all my airline miles (pretty much just left with spg points at this time), and I am spending some real $$ on leisure travel so would like to get miles ready for my next fun trip. Or to share w family & close friends

Cheers

Doing the math, US with the 100% bonus is about $0.01/mile, which undermines the historic value of 1.5 cpm. I was tempted to get these miles for over the water business tickets, since US has done a lot of these trips in the past while for me while my half million and growing DL miles languish.

On a separate note, we FTs should support those that overpay. I willingly wait until the last day to see if I got upgraded for the overseas trip. Those that shell out thousands for their tickets for business or first is what keeps the airline going. I'm OK with the morsels in J that trickle down. Reading those testimonials in the thread about all the deals are amusing, since thru my FT experience, I had often taken the deal to even better values that the posters bragged about.

YMMV
outoftown

The discussion is now well over my head. I generally pursue pretty much any mileage opportunity for AA that I qualify for, unless it's a real PITA or the cost or opportunity cost is too expensive, or I can instead get spg points instead of AA points for the same value. (Thus, I have done brokerage deals, but for SPG not AA, which I then converted to AA during the 35 percent bonus.) While there are plenty of ways to accumulate AA miles for less than 1.9 cpm, which is pretty much what I'm considering doing by paying $1105 for 56k miles, I'm not really sure what that has to do with my current situation. There are lots of ways to accumulate miles in general and one doesn't really affect the other in the main -- for example, I would gladly pay $25 for 2500 AA miles even with no immediate use for the miles. I would do this even though I could join netflix and get the same number of miles for free. I would be happy to do both!

I don't need the 56k immediately miles to book travel. I have enough miles to do it. But I have a genuine need, right now, for tickets that would cost $1020 that I could get for 50k miles. I also have a promo that I'm eligible for, right now and for the next 8 days, that would give me 56k miles for just $85 more than the cash price of tickets I need to purchase. To me that seemed like a simple analysis. Rather than spending the money on tickets, I could spend it on miles, and, in so doing, get the same tickets, get 6k extra RDM miles, 56k more miles toward status, and also use miles in an account that otherwise won't get much use. I have to admit that many of you have convinced me that I should look at this primarily as separate transactions, but I'm also not entirely sure of that. The fact that I could possibly accumulate miles on AA some other way that would end up less costly than 1.9 cpm doesn't really seem to matter to me -- I will do that every way and anyway possible until I reach 1,000,000, although at that point I'll probably go for 2M.

This might be considered a double post but it was buried inactive in the bottom of the forum. So i thought this might be a good idea to bring up my concern on purchasing mileage topic.

Here's my understanding of the buyAAmiles program. After getting a price quota from aa.com for flight JFK-ORD-PVG round trip, the ticket face value for Economy Super Saver is $848, Business Special is $5410 and First Class is $16364. Aside from the promotion, it costs $1105 for 40,000 miles in buyAAmiles program. $1105/40,000=$0.027625 (Cash Value per Mile).

Redeem MileSAAver Peak for One-Way

Enonomy Super Saver - 35,000 miles
Business Special - 55,000 miles
First Class - 67,000 miles

Redeem AAnytime for One-Way

Enonomy Super Saver - 70,000
Business Special - 110,000
First Class - 135,000

Economy Super Saver = 35,000 x $0.027625 x 2 Round Trip = ($1934 Mileage Value) vs. ($848 Ticket Face Value)
Business Special = 55,000 x $0.027625 x 2 Round Trip = ($3040 Mileage Value) vs. ($5410 Ticket Face Value)
First Class = 67,000 x $0.027625 x 2 Round Trip = ($3700 Mileage Value) vs. ($16364 Ticket Face Value)

So we can see here that buyAAmiles is never smart for redeeming Economy but definitely save money for redeeming Business or First Class, espcially First Class

Redeem Miles for Upgrade

From Most Discount Economy - 25,000 + $350 (Mile & Co-Pay)
From Business Special - 25,000 + $550 (Mile& Co-Pay)

Business Special = $848 Economy Round-Trip Ticket + 25,000 x $0.027625 x 2 Round Trip + $350 x 2 Round Trip = ($2929 Mileage Value) vs. ($5410 Ticket Face Value)
First Class = $5410 Business Round-Trip Ticket + 25,000 x $0.027625 x 2 Round Trip + $550 x 2 Round Trip = ($9892 Mileage Value) vs. ($16364 Ticket Face Value)

So we can see here that it is definitely worth it to use buyAAmiles program as an alternative method to purchase either Business or First Class ticket.

That is very interesting view. I suppose majority frequent travelers must be redeeming miles for business or first class. If they can book ahead of time and can get around with all the black out dates. But with AAnytime, I say it's not worth it unless those miles are earned not bought