Via Online Travel Review anyone can sign up for the Delta incentives program where you buy miles to give out to customers or others as incentives for doing business with you.

There’s a $75 setup fee, and then anyone can participate. The straight-up purchase price is 2.2 cents per mile with a 60,000 mile minimum purchase. That’s far less than the normal consumer price of 3.5 cents per mile. Through September 30 there’s a 100% bonus on purchased miles which brings that cost down in half (to 1.75 cents, but of course there’s also 7.5% tax on top).

Turns out that the Delta incentives program has a bonus going on too, through November 30th.

• Purchase 60,000 – 149,999 miles, receive a 10% bonus
  
• Purchase 150,000 – 249,999 miles, receive a 20% bonus
  
• Purchase 250,000 or more miles, receive a 30% bonus

With a 250,000 mile purchase with 30% bonus you get 325,000 miles at a cost of 1.6923 cents per mile (plus 7.5% tax).

Miles purchased in the Delta Incentives program must be awarded to Skymiles accounts within two years of purchase.

Now, I’m not rushing out to buy large quantities of Skymiles at over 1.5 cents apiece. But for anyone who was interested in the 100% purchase bonus, this is worth considering, and folks could certainly pool together to meet the minimum purchase threshold for best bonus. Living in DC as I do I would think it would actually be a reasonable deal, if I had frequent need to hope over to Europe, since Washington Dulles – Paris is available in business class as an award most days of the week, and Air France offers pretty good award availability for destinations beyond Paris.