US Airways is back with a 100% bonus on shared miles through April 13.
Limited time offer: Give up to a 100% bonus when you Share Miles!
Share miles from April 7th until April 13th 2014 and your friend or family member will get up to 100% MORE in bonus miles – up to 50,000 miles.
The bonus is actually tiered, you need to share at least 30,000 miles to get that bonus. Lower amounts receive a lesser bonus according to the following schedule:
This is effectively buying US Airways miles for 1.1 cents apiece. You transfer 50,000 points from account A to account B at a cost of $567.50. Account B receives 100,000 miles.
If you have a spouse or significant other, transfer 50,000 points to them and they receive 100,000 miles; then they transfer 50,000 points to you and you receive 100,000 miles. You each have 50,000 more miles than before at a cost of ~ 1.1 cents per mile gained.
They ran this offer for a week in December and for the first half of October. They’ve also run it many times before that.
It’s substantially better than their more frequent offer of 100% bonus on purchased or gifted miles, since that is the purchase of miles at nearly 1.9 cents apiece. I don’t do the 100% bonus on purchased miles. I do take advantage of 100% bonus on shared miles — because no matter what devaluations I may fear I’m confident I’ll get back a minimum of 1.1 cents in value per mile, though likely much more (and I already have a very significant mileage balance).
Here’s my guide to using US Airways miles to book awards. While partner airlines have changed the rules and process are pretty much the same.
Award booking calls take awhile, and can be confusing for US Airways agents as they figure out oneworld and its booking classes. Taxes on awards don’t generally price themselves so there can be long waits to involve the rate desk.
But there are phenomenal values in the award chart, some much cheaper awards than what American offers, and with far more generous routing rules. You can book US to Hong Kong for 90,000 miles in business class on Cathay Pacific. You can book US-Asia via Europe with a stopover (American won’t permit an Atlantic routing on an Asia award). You can book US-Africa via Middle East on Qatar, something American won’t allow. You can do Australia via Asia, which American doesn’t permit either (in all cases, of course, except for American’s distance-based oneworld awards).
I don’t expect these exceptional values to last — ultimately US Airways and American will combine frequent flyer programs and I’d guess that moderately more expensive award prices will prevail and that American’s more restrictive award rules as well. But even as a play to buy American miles on the cheap — about half the price that American sells miles for when there’s a ‘deal’ — it strikes me as worthwhile.
No Airfare Spending Bonuses for the Mileage Purchase
US Airways mileage purchases are processed by points.com which means they don’t show up as airfare, and thus don’t earn bonuses from credit cards like Chase Sapphire Preferred (double points) or American Express Premier Rewards Gold (triple points) that bonus airfare spend.
Terms and conditions:
Offer available for share transactions made between April 7th 00:00:01 PT and April 13th 2014, 23:59:59 PT. All transactions are non-refundable. Bonus miles will be awarded upon completion of the transaction. The maximum number Share Bonus miles that can be received by one member for this offer is 50,000 bonus miles. All miles shared beyond this limit will not be eligible for a bonus. The recipient of the share transaction will also receive the bonus miles. All transaction inquiries must be submitted to US Airways Dividend Miles within 90 days from end of promotion. Offer is subject to change. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. Buy and Gift transactions are not eligible for bonus. Only share transactions made online are eligible for the bonus. Please note that Dividend Miles accounts less than 12 days old are not permitted to Buy, Share or Gift miles. For Gift and Share transactions, the recipient account must also be 12 days old. All US Airways Dividend Miles terms and conditions apply.Miles are shared for $0.01 per mile plus a processing fee of $30 and a tax recovery charge of 7.5%. GST/HST will be charged to Canadian residents. Miles purchased through Buy, Share or Gift Miles do not count towards Dividend Miles Preferred status. All other Dividend Miles Terms and Conditions apply. Miles may be used based on award availability at the time of booking. Please note that Dividend Miles accounts less than 12 days old are not permitted to Buy, Share or Gift miles. All purchases are non-refundable.
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Gary, are you personally maxing out this offer; think it’ll be the last one? Just wondering if OneWorld will allow a mileage wholesaler to keep offering penny miles.
@Robert – I am going to max out this offer. I do not know if it will be the last, my hunch is that it will not (that US Airways will continue to offer it periodically while there’s a Dividend Miles program but not once they merge with AAdvantage, but that’s not based on solid intel). I do not think oneworld – or Star for that matter – much cared the price at which US Airways sold miles, despite occasional references to snarky comments from Lufthansa to the contrary.
Anyone willing to share miles with me and I’ll share them back with you? I can send you money through paypal to hold until the transfers are complete…
My glut of Oneworld miles continues to build!
Hi Paul. I’d be interested in talking to you about that. I was going to share with my girlfriend but since she has a zero balance to start it ends up being a bit wasteful. E-mail me at jimlewis42 at gmail.
Curses — have a max of 45K in my wife’s account (after redemptions for this summer) so I won’t quite max out the offer, but close.
I did this last year. T&C’s stated it could only be done once per year. Do you know if that meant calendar year? I don’t want to share miles and then not receive bonus as all sales are final according to the current offer conditions.
Anyone willing to share miles with me? I will also share back!
Jumped on the deal and the first transfer is already done and in my partner’s account. Will wait till tomorrow to do the return trip. Thanks for the alert.
Paul and hp — Looks like you two need to hook up.
Yes! E-mail me at heenapatel22 gmail if youre still interested. Would love to get in on this deal.
@Donna I took advantage of the last one and just did this one.
Am I correct in believing, there is not a limit to the number of people you share with? I.e. if I have 150k miles in my account, and I have 3 family members, I may share 50k with each of them? (Or am I being dense, and mis-reading the fine-print?)
Donna, I did the one in October and in December and had no issues. I’m still waiting to hear back from friends whether they’d do this deal with me (am hoping it will work!)
@Danny,
Email sent. Thanks!
@Fred and hp,
The problem is neither hp or I have 50k miles to start the process.
@Joey
I’d be interested if your friends aren’t.
It is true, I only have 25k miles. I would need someone to share with me first. Willing to send the money beforehand via paypal as well. I haven’t heard from anyone. Please feel free to e-mail at heenalpatel22 gmail if anyone is interested!
How soon do you see the bonus miles? I transferred 50k miles which was instant but I do not see the additional 50k bonus miles? Does it take a while? Did I do something wrong
By tiering the bonus and capping it at 50,000 miles, aren’t they limiting the value for those of us who may have created a dummy account?
Before, I could transfer 25k into an empty dummy account, giving me 50k in the dummy account, then transfer the 50k back to my primary account, making me 75k points richer for 1.1 cents per point.
Now, if I transfer 25k, I only get a 75% bonus.
If I transfer 30k-50k into the dummy account, then I’m stuck with extra widowed miles in the dummy account, right? Could I later merge the accounts, or what’s the best value for those of us with a dummy account?
If I already had a million AA miles between my spouse and myself, would you still recommend purchasing them? Let’s assume the million mile balance would last me 3 years at my planned travel rate.
@beachfan I already have more miles than that and I’m doing it because I’m confident that even on a risk-adjust net present value basis my redemption will provide greater value to me than what the miles cost at this price point.
@gavinmac – can’t create a dummy account because those have to be open 12 days before receiving shared miles anyway.
@caveman – mine was instant, give it a day and then follow up
@Gary – I plan ahead!
I have 80,000 USAir miles and Iam interested in doing a few back and forth exchanges. Please e-mail me at erikharveybp.com if you are interested.
@Erik, Interested in sharing miles. What is your correct email? You just posted erikharveybp.com, it is missing @…?
Erik: send me an email at mattson(at)netscape(dot)net
Data point: mine was instant too. Both my wife and I got email showing we gave, and another showing we received.
I don’t understand your math. I paid $567.50 and got 100,000 miles. I didn’t pay 1.1 cents per mile, I paid half that. And so did my wife =)
@Kevin you transferred 50k to your wife at a cost of $567.50 and she received 100k. That’s an increase of 50k miles, between the two of you the total miles have gone up by 50k. That’s just over 1.1 cents per mile.
You have 50,000 fewer miles than before, and she has 100k mile.
Then transferring points back, your wife sends you 50k. And you get 100k.
On net she has 50k more than before. You have 50k more than before and you’ve each paid $567.50.
Trust me, you’re each coming out 50k miles ahead and you’re each paying a little over 1.1 cents apiece for the privilege.
What do you think the chances are that these purchases might count toward lifetime status in the combined program? I’m recalling how UA & CO applied CO’s more generous lifetime miles rules retroactively to both programs’ balances (all EQMs counted, even bonus EQMs and partner EQMs), and I’m wondering if AA will do the same thing, given how long they allowed all miles earned to count.
I was thinking of going over to FT to find partners who is willing to share Miles. But it seems this comment section will do. Anyone willing to share 50K miles, please email me at sam_hoq(at)hotmail.com
@Sam I highly doubt it. American ended the practice a couple of years ago, so I doubt they’re going to resurrect it and add in all the lifetime miles earned from any source like purchases and Grand Slam from US Airways. They dropped the practice on purpose and only took so long to do it for IT reasons. Truly, I would be shocked.
@Gary Thank you.
@AST, I am interested in sharing miles. I currently have 29K leftover from the last Grand Slam promo. So, unfortunately, you will have to initiate. Feel free to let me know how we can get this started.
Thanks,
Sam
sam_hoq(at)hotmail.com
We have 2 accounts with 35K each, and want to buy miles for both of us, plus 4 kids with no miles. How to best share miles?
#1 shares 35K with #2
#2 now has 70K, shares 50K with #3
#3 now has 100K, shares 50K with #4… and so on
Is this the right scenario?
I’m also looking for friendly someone to share with me and share back. My email is bavftw.b2 AT xoxy.net. Thanks.
Does the processing by points.com also mean that it is not considered a US Airways purchase, so using a US Airways credit card does not accrue double miles?
@L – that’s correct, and my point exactly
I am looking to share miles back and forth with someone before this deal ends. Anyone still interested? Please shoot me a note – howleyr gmail. Thanks!