Hi

I am a tad curious about the wholesale cost of points/miles bought by businesses for use in various promotions.

I have looked around the Internet and from what I can gather miles can generally be purchased for about 2-2.5 cents each.

That is all well and good but I just wonder whether this is an across the board rate. Let me put the following question:

At the moment, if I was a business looking to buy a parcel of miles for use in promotional/marketing work, what is the cheapest package of miles (any airline) on a cents per mile basis that I could buy? Are there any airlines that sell for less than 1 cent per mile?

I realise that airlines would not be keen to let their miles go too cheaply but I am interested in seeing whether there are some real wholesale bargains out there. Perhaps with a biy of prompting Randy can cook us up a deal to take advantage of the wholesale bargains when they arise.

I suspect that some offers may not be widely publicised hence I am asking the question to see if anyone has heard anything through the grapevine.

cheers Peter


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Woof Woof Woof!

Here is Canadian Airlines web page on the subject:

http://www.cdnair.ca/eng/cpi/05points/maine.html

Bear in mind that these are Canadian dollar prices, so if you bought at least 5 million points, you could get them for about 1.3c US per point.

These programs are designed for business to reward their customers, so there are a number of restrictions on how they can be used. For example, Canadian allows a maximum of 35,000 points to be "given" to one account, per year. This precludes someone buying, say, 100,000 points, for $3000, and getting a $10,000 First Class ticket on BA from Vancouver to Istanbul.

Canadian already allows members to buy points for 3c CAD, to top up awards. You can buy up to 10%, 15%, or 20%, depending on your elite level.

Regards,

Ken Hamer

I'm sure that MCI, car rental companies, and hotels pay a much lower rate than 2 cents per mile because of the sheer number of miles they award. The opportunites us consumers see are hardly "wholesale" in comparison to the FF programs major partners.

Delta's nominal price is 2 cents/mile, but they have frequent promotions where if you buy enough miles they throw in some more "free." Typical numbers are pay for 150,000, get 175,000, which cuts the cost to just over 1.7 cents/mile. Other than the US$3,000 cost to qualify for the bonus, the biggest problem is that you can't give more than (I think it's) 25,000 to any one person in the same calendar year.