Airline reward programs offer many great perks, but it takes a lot of time/flights to actually earn enough miles for a full flight. Many airlines will let you buy air miles with cash if you want more, but often this is a terrible idea. You’ll usually end up paying more for miles than you’ll be able to redeem them for. After all, the airlines don’t want to give things away for free. However, there are a few circumstances where you’ll get your money’s worth when buying miles. You just have to choose the right deal. In this article I’ll discuss the pros and cons of buying air miles to answer the question: Is it worth buying Air Miles?
Why would you want to buy miles?
The first scenario where it might be worth buying extra miles is if you want to redeem a full flight and just need a few more to get there. Using Virgin Atlantic for example a return Upper Class flight from London to New York will cost 95,000 + £999 using points. If you only had 90,000 points you could buy 5,000 for £90 from their website (it costs £15 per 1,000 plus another £15 transaction fee). This way you’ll have your 95,000 miles. When I checked their website the cash price for this exact flight was £7,484. By buying those few 5,000 miles you are saving multiple £1,000s in this scenario.
If your miles are about to expire. This does work for some airlines such as American Airlines, however, I’m not sure if it works for all airlines that offer points purchase. Therefore use this method at your own risk. For more detail Nerdwallet.com have a good article that covers it.
If there is a good offer on it also might be worth buying points. Many airlines will regularly run promotions where you could buy miles at, say, a 50% discount to the regular price. I explore this in more detail later in my post but usually it is not worth it. Delta Skymiles for instance usually cost 3.5 cents per mile, even with a 50% discount that’s still 1.75 cents per mile. You’re unlikely to be able to redeem miles at this rate so it would probably be cheaper to just pay for the flight in cash.
Is it worth it?
Buying air miles will almost always cost you more than the equivalent savings you’ll make when redeeming those miles on flights. Simply put, airlines want to make as much profit as possible. It wouldn’t make sense for them to give everyone amazing deals just by buying miles.
Take British Airways for example who let you buy Avios here. Starting off the lowest amount you can buy is 2,000 Avios for £47 which comes out at 2.35p per Avios. The maximum amount you can buy is 200,000 Avios for £3,215 which gives a slightly better 1.6p per Avios. Considering Avios are usually worth around 1p, and the most I’ve been able to redeem for is 1.5p per Avios, this is not worth it. You don’t want to end up spending more on mile than you actually would if you just bought the ticket with cash. I’ll now briefly discuss whether two examples from UK airlines, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, are worth it:
British Airways Avios Subscription (Probably Worth It)
British Airways offer a subscription service where you’ll receive montly Avios for a fee. I wrote a full article about whether the Avios Subscription is Worth It here. Long story short, this is actually a pretty good deal and you should easily be able to redeem these Avios for more than you bought them for.
My only concern is that as shown in the image below this seems to be a limited time offer. Currently 20,000 Avios costs £185 but it also shows £335 which suggests than this may be the future price. There’s no offer end date though so for now at least the deal is still on!
Virgin Atlantic Buy Miles (Probably Not Worth It)
Virgin Atlantic let you buy up to 100,000 points per year, though this is sometimes increased when they’re running offers. Speaking of offers, these typically offer 60% bonus on points purchased but are pretty infrequent, just twice a year or so. Awardwallet.com showed that during one of their limited offers you could buy 320,000 points for £3,015, or 0.9p per mile. I found that redeeming on Upper Class flights can be as much as 2.7p per mile so clearly it’s a great deal. Usually, however it’ll cost £15 per 1,000 miles plus an additional £15 transaction fee. still quite a good deal but if you plan to redeem on an economy flight it is probably not worth it.
However, if you’re already sitting on a pile of Virgin Atlantic miles then you’re in luck! They offer some of the best redemption rates (on business class flights at least) of any airline I’ve looked at. For a full review of the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club Reward Program check out my article here.
Other Airlines
American Airlines often run limited time offers where you’ll get a better rate purchasing miles. At the time of writing at least you can get a 35% discount purchasing miles through American AAdvantage. American Airlines are also part of the Oneworld Alliance so this could be a good choice if 1) you’re American or 2) you fly a lot on their global route network.
United MileagePlus frequently run bonus offers too. One Mile At A Time have a list of recent promotions they’ve run. Generally speaking they’ll have a 100% bonus mileage offer once a month for up to a week at a time. 1,000 miles costs $35 so if you make use of their bonus offer you could get up to 2,000 miles for $35, or 1.75 cents per mile. With United miles value at 1.1 cent according to Bankrate, you’re still paying a 50% premium over what you can redeem them for. Still a pretty poor deal. United have also announced a partnership with the controversial Boom supersonic airliner. So who knows? In 20 years time you might have earned enough United miles to fly on one.
Just to make this list well rounded I’ll talk about Delta Skymiles purchase program too as the third big US airline and a member of Skyteam. Delta offer a pretty dire miles purchase program sadly. With a purchase price of 3.5 cents per mile and maximum yearly purchase amount of 60,000 miles this isn’t a good option for booking large reward flights.
Final Thoughts
Surprisingly I found that British Airways offer the most compelling option when it comes to buying miles. Directly purchasing Avios isn’t very cost efficient but their Avios subsciption offer is a winner. Assuming the current rate isn’t a limited time offer you’ll end up spending ~0.9p per Avios. I’ve been able to redeem for 1.5p per Avios so by buying with this subscription you’re effectively making a 50%+ saving.
Unfortunately all other airlines I’ve looked at are really not worth buying, unless you have a compelling offer. Even United’s 100% bonus mileage offer will still cost you more per mile than you’re likely to be able to redeem them for though.
So bottom line, I don’t recommend buying air miles.
More from me…
For more articles by me relating to earning travel rewards and benefits:
- Best ways to earn air miles in the UK – credit card and bank offers
- Best airline alliance for you – to help decide which one to earn status with
- Best hotel reward program – if you want to earn while you stay on top of when you fly
To earn a massive signup bonus with American Express use my referral codes below:
- The Platinum Card – You Receive 35,000 Membership Reward points after spending £4,000 in the first 3 months: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGgRA5?CPID=100493012
- British Airways Card: You Receive 12,000 Avios after spending £1,000 in the first 3 months, I receive 8,000 Avios: https://americanexpress.com/en-gb/referral/fREDEGuUeO?CPID=100493012