Rather than offering a straight 100% bonus on purchased Dividend Miles this month, US Airways is offering anywhere between a 25% and 100% bonus on the purchase of miles through March 31, 2013.
Just log into your Dividend Miles account here and you’ll get a prompt telling you which bonus you’re eligible for.
My account was only eligible for the 50% bonus.
While another account I manage was eligible for the 100% bonus.
US Airways miles ordinarily cost 3.5 cents per mile to buy, plus a 7.5% excise fee, for a total of ~3.76 cents per mile after tax.
That means the new all-in costs factoring in the bonuses are as follows:
With a 25% bonus: 3.29 cents per mile
With a 50% bonus: 2.82 cents per mile
With a 75% bonus: 2.35 cents per mile
With a 100% bonus: 1.88 cents per mile
Of those bonuses I’d say the only amount at which it can make sense to proactively purchase miles is with the 100% bonus. US Airways seems to offer a 100% bonus on purchased miles on an almost monthly basis, so if you’re not eligible for this promotion I’d suggest waiting till next month in hopes of a 100% promotion.
And if you can redeem your miles for a 90,000 mile business class award between the US and North Asia via Europe, I’d say it’s almost always an amazing deal to purchase US Airways miles.
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March 4th, 2013 at 11:09 am
Grant said,
I’m waiting for their 200% discount. How do you calculate that price? 3.76 / 4? = .94?
March 4th, 2013 at 11:11 am
lucky said,
@ Grant — LOL, keep waiting!
March 4th, 2013 at 11:53 am
Alan said,
Do you think they’ll have a transfer promo?
March 4th, 2013 at 11:54 am
lucky said,
@ Alan — A 100% bonus on transferred miles? I doubt it.
March 4th, 2013 at 11:54 am
Ben Hughes said,
I really don’t know how they can afford to do this. Just last week I used 140,000 miles to book a five leg first class redemption on Asiana, Thai, and ANA to Sydney with an outbound stopover in Bangkok and an inbound layover in Seoul – $29,000 “worth of” first class flights. At the rate they are selling, they’d only make $2660 for those 140k miles.
I’ve been thinking for a while they are going to either devaluate the chart of crack down on the crazy routings people are doing, but neither seem to have happened with no end in sight…
March 4th, 2013 at 11:55 am
lucky said,
@ Ben Hughes — I’m sure the devaluation is coming eventually, but in the meantime I a) doubt that most people are redeeming miles quickly, so it’s cash upfront for them and b) I doubt most people are redeeming miles as efficiently as you.
March 4th, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Miro said,
I am waiting for their “share” promotion… it is now a couple of months from the last one…
March 4th, 2013 at 1:36 pm
John said,
Lucky, you said that sometimes you can route via Europe to Australia. I take it you have to get lucky with that agent. If you do get lucky, can you have a stopover in Europe?
March 4th, 2013 at 1:38 pm
lucky said,
@ John — All comes down to the agent. In theory I’m sure some agents would allow it.
March 4th, 2013 at 6:14 pm
Neal said,
I got the 100% bonus offered to me. I bought 100K miles in the middle of last year (for a BusinessFirst ticket to Argentina) and I bought 90K miles in January for a Business/BusinessFirst ticket to Hong Kong with a stopover in Honolulu. Buying these miles at 100% bonus is a great deal. Anything less – not so much.
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