I’ve written a few times about US Airways’ “buy miles” promotions which are offered several times a year and are a fairly decent way to get cheap business class fares to Buenos Aires. Through those offers you can buy 100,000 US Airways miles for U$S 1881, or about 1.9 cents each. Now that’s a pretty good deal, but this new promotion is even better…
US Airways is offering a 100% bonus on “shared miles“ until October 15, 2013. That means that when you transfer miles to someone else’s account, they’ll end up with double the amount that you transferred. Send 10,000, get 20,000. Send 20,000, get 40,000. And so on.
The maximum amount of miles you can send is 50,000. This would cost you $567.50 and give the person you sent miles to 100,000 in their account. This works out to buying 50,000 miles at 1.13 cents each. That’s an incredible deal!
60,000 miles is enough to get you a round trip coach airfare from Buenos Aires to the States (or vice-versa).As US Airways does not fly to Argentina, you’ll have to use those miles on a Star Alliance partner like United or Copa. Since you have to pay the phone booking fee of $50 for this award, your total cost would work out to $706.00. That’s a pretty substantial savings from normal coach fares which are $1200+. If you transfer the 50,000 miles from one account to the other and then back again, you’ve just got an extra 100,000 miles – enough for a business class ticket to Buenos Aires for only $1185 ($567.50 1st transfer + $567.50 2nd transfer + $50 phone booking fee). Now, that’s an awesome price for a business class ticket!
To take part in this promotion you’ll need to have an account that been open at least 12 days and you’ll also need the initial US Airways miles in your account (or a friend’s or family member’s) to share. If you do not have US Airways miles, you can transfer 40,000 Starwood points to the US Airways program and get a total of 50,000 US Airways miles.
I have already done this three ways: from me to my wife, from my wife to my daughter, and then from my daughter back to me. That means that as a family we’re now up 150,000 miles for only $1702.50. The points posted instantly.
I’m also hopeful that the US Airways and American Airlines merger goes through. If that happens, it would mean that these miles will convert to American Airlines miles down the road. I find American Airlines miles to be much more valuable and their off-season pricing to South America starts at only 20,000 miles one way!