You can earn 25,000 United miles for buying a used Mercedes.

You can also spend miles for cars, for instance you can spend 11 million Miles & More miles for a BMW.

Miles & More’s online shop values the vehicle at 45,740 euros, which is US$51,127.

That’s $0.0046 cents per point in value.

You can convert 8,800,000 Starwood Starpoints into 11,000,000 Miles & More miles. Bear in mind:

• You cannot transfer points into more than 99,999 miles per day
  
• You do not want to move more than 60,000 Starpoints (yielding 80,000 miles) per day in order to maximize transfer bonuses.
  
• So this would take transferring points for 147 days in a row

In case you haven’t guessed, this is a very bad deal. It’s akin to the LCD toaster problem.

When you redeem your miles for merchandise, the frequent flyer program has to spend real cash to buy the item for you (usually at a modest discount). You’ll always do much better redeeming points in travel programs for travel.

Whatever you do, please do not spend money on a mileage-earning credit card and then redeem points this way. You’ll be far far better off with a 2% cash rebate card. Then use the cash to buy the car, and have plenty left over…

(HT: FrequentFlier.com)