Free mags for Flyer Miles?
 

I received an offer in the mail recently which offered free magazine subscriptions in exchange for some accrued miles. Has anyone cashed in their miles this way? Whats the cash value of a mile? Is it worth it?

Please forgive the naivete, I'm a newbie.

In my opinion after looking at a few of these offers, I's say it's not worth it. If you had some miles in an account that would not likely ever accumulate enough for a flight or an upgrade, then perhaps something is better than nothing.

As a general rule, FF miles are deemed to be worth $0.02 each. Our firm buys miles from AA and have been solicited by CO to buy theirs and that's the going rate. (Plus tax of course) Recently we got a notice from AA advising of a 10% increase in mid-Sept.

You may want to check out the following URL for a comparison....
http://www.webflyer.com/@flyer/arcdo....htm#mileworth

Welcome, REB, from another (relative) newbie.

I got an offer a year ago for magazines for miles through my AA acount. Don't fly them hardly at all, so it seemed like a good use for my measly 5000 mile balance. Got all the subscriptions with no problems, and felt the value for miles was reasonable.

Most folks here value miles at between .01 and .02 each; my number comes in at .015 per.

Rationale: a 25,000 mile award equates to about a $375 ticket. If a fare is much less than that, I keep the miles in the bank, buy the ticket and earn more miles on the paid fare. If the ticket is way more than that, I just smile and book the award travel.

Hope you have fun and learn lots on this board. I do.

Welcome, REB, from another (relative) newbie.

I got an offer a year ago for magazines for miles through my AA acount. Don't fly them hardly at all, so it seemed like a good use for my measly 5000 mile balance. Got all the subscriptions with no problems, and felt the value for miles was reasonable.

Most folks here value miles at between .01 and .02 each; my number comes in at .015 per.

Rationale: a 25,000 mile award equates to about a $375 ticket. If a fare is much less than that, I keep the miles in the bank, buy the ticket and earn more miles on the paid fare. If the ticket is way more than that, I just smile and book the award travel.

Hope you have fun and learn lots on this board. I do.

These days there are several offers in the internet for free one year magazine subscriptions. I also got an offer from my credit card company for two magazines free for one year. You have to call in and cancel at the end of the year. If you can find such offers, why waste miles for something you can get for free.

We have a US AIR FF program we haven't used in a long time and they sent us a blurb stating that we could buy magazines with the miles. Since we had no near term plans to fly with them anymore, we took them up on it. We got subscriptions to at least a half dozen magazines that we were interested, bot not interested enough to plunk down hard cash. Some are very interesting, such as National Geographic, Islands, etc., and some are mildly interesting, such as "Walking", and "Home Companion". All in all, we are happy with what happened. If we didn't do anything, the miles would have "dissappeared".

DD

A few years ago my wife recieved a similar offer from TWA for her unused miles she had recieved from a long ago trip to Europe. We also had no plans to use them for future travel so cashed in the miles for a half dozen subscriptions. Was it worth it? Yea, I guess it was - Forbes, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated vs. (at that time) miles about to expire.

I had the same situation with UA a few years ago. I ended up taking magazines that I wouldn't have necessarily wanted to spend the money on--but was curious about reading on basically a 'trial' basis (Coastal Living, Self, and a couple others).

[This message has been edited by mauld (edited 09-01-2000).]

Does anyone know if Delta has a magazine subscription redemption program?

The onyl way to really know whether magazines are worth it is to use actual magazines you'd buy. I ran the numbers on Business Week, and the rate was about 2.5 cents/mile.

You don't have to be solicted to buy magazines with miles. Here's a listing from Mileageworkshop.com for various airlines. Just call and get a catalog:

Alaska Mileage Plan: 800-861-1470
American Express Mileage Rewards: 800-297-3276
America West FlightFund: 800-961-8505
American AAdvantage: 800-961-8669
British Airways Executive Club: 800-586-9309
Continental OnePass: 800-961-8697
Delta SkyMiles: 800-961-8702
TWA Aviators: 800-961-8721
United Mileage Plus: 800-961-8723
US Airways Dividend Miles: 800-586-9632

Does CO offer such an offer? Have never seen this deal.

See the post right above yours. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif