oneworld frequent flyer program airberlin topbonus offers discounted economy award redemptions starting at just 1500 points.
Over 600 routes are on sale, book by March 16 for travel through June.
These aren’t expensive routes to buy but you can get these flights just for the taxes more or less since you receive 500 miles just for joining the program, and I regularly write about small free mileage offers in the program.
The problem is that for most of these flights fees and taxes alone are more expensive than cash tickets, so you have to know which ones to go for. Here’s a list of great airberlin topbonus redemptions (link to a german blog) http://meilenoptimieren.com/beste-airberlin-topbonus-praemienfluege/
I just registered – thanks for the idea. However I got only 50 miles (which is still “up to 500 miles” I guess !!
Last year I got 70k miles for 350 EUR in a promo AB/HG ran. JFK-HNL round-trip in economy cost 40k / person and the taxes&fees on AA are laughable. Definitely a better deal than wasting miles and cash for intra EU flights which cost <100 EUR on FR/U2
Apologies, once I “confirmed” my new account I got the balance of the 500 miles.