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You can get a 100% bonus when you buy US Airways miles through September 30, 2014.
But I do NOT think it’s a good deal for most folks!
US Airways 100% Buy Miles Promotion
Link: US Airways 100% Bonus Buy Miles Promotion
You can buy US Airways miles and get up to a 100% bonus through September 30, 2014.
The bonus depends on how many US Airways miles you buy:
- 1,000 to 9,000 US Airways miles – get 25% bonus US Airways miles
- 10,000 to 19,000 US Airways miles – get 50% bonus US Airways miles
- 20,000 to 29,000 miles – get 75% bonus US Airways miles
- 30,000 to 50,000 miles – get 100% bonus US Airways miles
You can buy a maximum of 50,000 US Airways miles. So if you buy 50,000 US Airways miles, you get 100,000 US Airways miles for ~$1,881 ($1,750 cost to buy 50,000 US Airways miles + ~$131 tax).
Buying US Airways miles normally costs 3.5 cents per mile, but with this promotion you’re paying ~1.88 cents per mile (~$1,881 cost to buy 100,000 US Airways miles / 100,000 US Airways miles).
But, your account has to be at least 12 days old!
When you buy US Airways miles it does NOT count as a travel purchase because Points.com processes US Airways miles purchases. So you do NOT get extra points for using a card that earns points for travel such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, US Airways MasterCard, Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express, or Barclaycard Arrival Plus World Elite Mastercard.
How to Use US Airways Miles
Link: US Airways Award Chart
Link: US Airways oneworld Partner Award Chart
1. Hawaii
You can get 2 round-trip coach tickets from Austin to Maui for December 5, 2014, to December 12, 2014, for 80,000 US Airways miles.
You would pay ~$973 for the cheapest tickets on Kayak.
It would cost you ~$908 more to buy US Airways miles (~$973 cost to buy 2 round-trip coach tickets – ~$1,881 cost to buy 100,000 US Airways miles). Although you’d have 20,000 US Airways miles leftover because it’s only 80,000 miles from Austin to Maui.
So for those dates it doesn’t make sense to buy US Airways miles.
2. China
Two people can fly round-trip in coach from New York to Beijing, China, on December 8, 2014, to December 16, 2014, for 120,000 US Airways miles.
The cheapest tickets on Kayak cost $1,639.
You would pay $242 more if you bought US Airways miles (~$1,881 cost to buy 100,000 US Airways miles – $1,639 cost to buy tickets). And you would have to use an additional 20,000 US Airways miles to get this award flight that costs 120,000 miles.
Again, for those dates it doesn’t make sense to buy US Airways miles.
Sometimes, you’ll save money paying for a ticket rather than buying US Airways miles. You have to check the dates and do the math to see what works best for you.
You don’t earn US Airways miles on award tickets and there are a limited number of award seats. I’d rather use miles and points from credit card sign-up bonuses and not spend cash.
For folks who are short of the miles they need for award seats, buying US Airways miles could make sense. But you should do what’s best for you.
Bottom Line
You can get a 100% bonus when you buy US Airways miles through September 30, 2014.
You can buy up to 50,000 US Airways miles and get 50,000 bonus US Airways miles for ~$1,881, which is ~1.88 cents per mile.
Sometimes buying US Airways miles is a good deal, but other times it’s cheaper to pay for a ticket. However, if you’re short of the miles you need for an award ticket, it could be worth buying US Airways miles.
Are you planning on buying US Airways miles with this promotion?
Hi Daraius. I have a question for you about using my dividend miles to book a roundtrip business class award from Boston to Beijing( ideally leaving in July and coming back in Oct). I have a little more than 160,000 dividend miles in my account. However, I was not able to find any availability on U.S. Airways for business or first class, only economy. I was able to find some availability on AA.com during low season (Sep-Dec) that I can book once they merge their loyalty programs. But it routes from Boston to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Hawaii, then Hawaii to Beijing. I don’t mind having two stopovers but none of the flights offer good, flat bed business class seats, only recliner seats.
My question for you is: Is it possible to book Cathay Pacific Business or First Class using dividend miles by calling? Or do I need to wait till they merge their loyalty program with AA. I just have a feeling that after they finish merging it will be harder to find business/first class availability since there will be more people looking for it and AA might increase the mileage requirement redemption too. What do you think is the best option to do? Thank you very much for your help!
AA has announced that it will be integrating Dividend Miles with AAdvantage in 2015.
My understanding is that my US Airways miles will become AAdvantage miles in my AA account. As such, don’t you think that makes this a pretty good deal?
@Neil – 2 FC awards will be tough to get.
@Robert – It depends if you have a specific award in mind etc.
My wife and I want to travel to Australia from the east coast, and we’d like to fly first class. Would it make sense to buy the miles during this bonus period? From what I see on the awards chart we’d need 280000 awards miles to do the trip, so if we both purchased the 50000 miles, with bonus we’d have 200000 miles towards our goal. Seems too easy to be right…am I missing something?