100% Bonus on Purchased US Airways Miles in June

by Gary Leff

US Airways is offering a 100% bonus again on purchased miles during the month of June.

The maximum number of bonus miles awarded is 50,000 with this promotion, and accounts have to be at least 12 days old in order to purchase miles.

Back in October US Airways raised the price of miles from 2.75 cents to 3.5 cents apiece. That had been an increase over the previous 2.5 cent price.

Buying US Airways miles used to be an amazing deal, not just because miles were 2.5 cents apiece three years ago but also because award chart prices were lower.

US to Europe at 80,000 miles roundtrip in business class, with a 100% purchase bonus (which seems to be going on more often than it isn’t), and a 2.5 cent per mile price plus tax meant you could buy that ticket for a bit over $1000. That tax ticket is around $1900. Huge jump!

And of course award availability was better in the depths of the Great Recession than it is today.

But it’s still a deal, especially for topping off towards an award, even at nearly 1.9 cents a point all-in inclusive of tax.

There’s no question that the annual US Airways Grand Slam can acquire miles more cheaply, and so can signing up for the churnable US Airways Mastercard with 40,000 bonus miles after first purchase. But buy miles is instant.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Pingbacks

Comments

  1. I think it is time for people to ignore this type of promotion to let the airlines know that we are not happy with the obvious devaluations. We are not lemmings and the value is getting steadily worse – why support this? They will only continue to devalue in the future…let the inventory pile up and see how US responds.

  2. I believe it’s 100,000 miles US-Europe in Business Class, not 80,000 as you state…

  4. @Andrew the 80,000 miles was a reference to the old award chart… that is, it was lower # of points AND lower price per point, hence the huge contrast in cost

  5. No longer interesting. I agree with Stephan. The points are worth nowhere near what they charge for them.

  6. True, however they can be very valuable to someone who wants to fly on a $5000 ticket for less than $2000, or someone who needs to top off an award to Asia or the South Pacific, say maybe in 1st class, which often runs between $10,000 and $15,000. A deal like this is a steal in those cases.

  7. I think another issue is with all the blocking of seats now on US. It really cuts into the value IMO, but I agree that it certainly can help someone needing to top off their miles.

  8. Oh ok. I haven’t tried to redeem USAir miles for a while and therefore haven’t faced the issues. Believe it or not, lately I’ve been successfully redeeming Skypesos. 🙂

  9. With a terrible track record for award availability and the inability to book one way awards
    I see US Scare miles as an Albatross around my neck when compare to my other mileage currencies
    eeek

  10. Yeah, not being able to book one-way awards really is a thorn in my side, along with no changes after the itinerary has been started.

Comments are closed.