US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards

[QF029]

I have signed up wife mum and two girls . I checked the qantas award for flight and found possible 1 adult and 1 child. I can not find 2 and 2 . I would love to fly QF J for 120 AA miles but seems to expensive compared to US DM which runs better promotions.

I really want to understand this method to satisfy myself. I have never been overseas or any of my family we don't even have passports.

Yes I'm waiting for the next promo AA have a current one with extra 25% miles but someone told me I can only buy 40k max per calendar year so not worth it I guess I have to stay with flying Thai I can't find any SQ or LH from SYD to Europe in J Next year may / June

I'm not sure that this is the way to go for someone that has never been overseas before. Most of the people on this site (or at least regular posters) are hard core travellers with 10's if not 100's of overseas trips and even then it's not always easy to get your head around the concepts, permutations and combinations. Of course, anything is possible but it's a lot of pressure to put on yourself. And to do this successfully you really do need to read a lot of the information on this site, and from your questions I don't think you've done enough of this.

As an example, I'm travelling to the US for the 1st time in 14 years next year. I've just worked through 26 pages of AA threads because I wanted a good understanding before I started making plans for flights (eg award booking v online fares v kup etc), and particularly asking questions here.

My advice is just to read, read, read for the next month or two and then see how realistic your plans are.

 

[hummel]

For the UK that taxes figure is more like $400...UK APD alone for a business class booking would be about A$270 at today's ex rate.

That's why a lot of people fly into FRA or FCO etc

I know that is my plan. Then just catch a LCC to the UK if needed.

 

[hummel]

My advice is just to read, read, read for the next month or two and then see how realistic your plans are.

+ 1

I am definetly no hardcore travller.. OS maybe 3 times in the last 18months and 1 coming up next month. I started reading up on the US Airways program in Jan/Feb when I believe there was a 100% promotion going on. I didn't jump at it as I wasn't confident in myself that I knew enough. I then waited to the June promo to pull the trigger.

 

[Alanslegal]

That's why a lot of people fly into FRA or FCO etc

I know that is my plan. Then just catch a LCC to the UK if needed.

The UK APD is a departure tax only, so fly into LON and then people fly out of FRA or FCO or wherever else

 

[sr81]

The UK APD is a departure tax only, so fly into LON and then people fly out of FRA or FCO or wherever else

This is what's called an open jaw. Fly into one city in a region then depart from another.

With USAirways you can have an open-jaw OR a stopover with your reward redemption.

Open jaw EG. MEL-BKK-LHR//FRA-BKK-MEL. Fly stright through don't stop in Bangkok.

Stopover e.g. MEL-BKK-LHR-BKK-MEL. You can stop once, either to or from London, in Bangkok. No real restriction on how long you can stop for but you would need to find availability for the home leg.

 

[Shanye2233]

So flying open jaw into LHR and out of say FRA lowers the taxes you pay by about half ?

I have done many hours reading I found a point on miles point saying about 40% off redemptions with LH does that help us it's for J as well 40% discount

Can't point the link I'm using phone ,sorry

 

[hummel]

The UK APD is a departure tax only, so fly into LON and then people fly out of FRA or FCO or wherever else

Learn something new every day

 

[Shanye2233]

Could someone explain this to me please :

If you buy fully refundable F on a route like LAS-LAX and then do the 3x multiplier, you might find your CPM is even cheaper...

 

[bcworld]

Could someone explain this to me please :

If you buy fully refundable F on a route like LAS-LAX and then do the 3x multiplier, you might find your CPM is even cheaper...

Refundable first class fare.

You pay to increase the miles you will earn on it - those extra miles credit straight away.

You then cancel the flight and get the cost refunded (but not the extra you paid to multiply the miles) - you keep those miles you already got credited.

CPM = cents per mile (earned) i.e. each mile cost 1.9 cents etc

There is a big gotcha for you...paying with a non USD credit card you will incur foreign currency conversion losses and fees on both the payment and the refund. This will increase your CPM.

 

[Shanye2233]

I understand . What if u join the 90 day trial membership for preferred members and get even more extra miles ? Paying 10k+ per ticket is a big risk to earn a few thousand extra miles

 

[points]

It's on

 

[kpc]

It's on

Slightly different spin:

Special offer: get up to a 100% Bonus
Buy miles between August 8 and September 15, 2011 and get 10,000 bonus miles for every 10,000 miles purchased.

For example:
Buy 10,000 - 19,000 miles = 10,000 bonus
Buy 20,000 - 29,000 miles = 20,000 bonus
Buy 30,000 - 39,000 miles = 30,000 bonus
Buy 40,000 - 49,000 miles = 40,000 bonus
Buy 50,000 miles = 50,000 bonus

I need to buy 50K more to get to 150K for an F award to Europe but looks like I need to buy 30K with this promo (not 25K)...the AUD is USD1.036....may have to wait for the AUD to go up a bit more

 

[travelislife]

kpc I am in the same position as you. Unfortunate about the slide in the dollar this past week, losing 6 cents! Not sure if it will recover to those levels again especially with the signs of the reserve bank cutting interest rates which is a definite sign of the currency dropping against the greenback.

I don't get how US Airways can keep doing this so regularly, surely other *A airlines will kick up a fuss soon.

 

[anat0l]

the AUD is USD1.036....may have to wait for the AUD to go up a bit more

Damn....since when did we get hammered so hard. Hope it will go up.

In any case, the fact that it's back is a riot (still good value even at the "sub-optimal" exchange rate). How can some airlines not feel nervous at all of this....


I'm debating whether to organise with my sister to buy miles for a nice itinerary for our parents, given its their 30th anniversary next year. Or, just tell my parents and all out right to grab some miles. The problems are:

• They will think it's too risky
• They will more than likely still just burn for Economy
• They won't understand that buying miles and redeeming them this way is still probably cheaper than buying an outright cash ticket, even if you factor in the miles you make from the cash ticket

The problem also is that I can't pull this all off myself, since I don't have a spare $4-6k lying around to buy/gift miles for them.


On another note, the wording on the new promo doesn't explicitly talk about a cap on bonus miles. Don't know if the old promos were displayed in the same way. Otherwise, that implies you could stockpile a lot of points and keep earning bonuses. You just have to keep buying them in lots of 50k (incurring the service fee and tax charge each time, but that's it).

 

[anat0l]

I don't get how US Airways can keep doing this so regularly, surely other *A airlines will kick up a fuss soon.

I guess US Airways (and many USA airlines) sell miles because it's a fast way to make some money. Mind you, even though there are millions of members in their FFPs, most American people aren't smart like us with seeing through these promos. (Otherwise, we may never find premium award space at all!)

Now how do these airlines manage to convince their partners to offer up seats is a whole different thing. I think SQ took a bold move early to aggressively block their premium inventory. LH I thought was going to try for a while, but it seems there are the odd F and J seats popping up here and there, and according to some recent blog activity it may be loosening up even more (implying it was US doing the blocking, not LH).

As it stands, the pundits aren't giving US a positive outlook on the future, so perhaps this is a knee jerk fundraising reaction. After all, it isn't Christmas yet...

 

[sr81]

The old promos used to say that you could only once partake in the bonus. Maybe this will be different.

The buy page usually prevented me from any bouni the second time around.

Shame that all my travel is sown up for the next little while.

Re parents. They thought that economy was good enough for them until they flew J. Given the price difference in Y vs J this is when you, as the responsible son, puts the foot down and makes them do it.

 

[travelislife]

As it stands, the pundits aren't giving US a positive outlook on the future, so perhaps this is a knee jerk fundraising reaction. After all, it isn't Christmas yet...

I guess this is where we all need to be careful, wouldn't want something Ansettesque where you have a couple of hundred thousand bought miles there and they go under.

 

[travelislife]

The old promos used to say that you could only once partake in the bonus. Maybe this will be different.

Same conditions as the other promos as stated at the bottom of the buy miles page, maximum 50,000 bonus points to be awarded.

 

[anat0l]

I guess this is where we all need to be careful, wouldn't want something Ansettesque where you have a couple of hundred thousand bought miles there and they go under.

I don't think it's as dramatic per se as Ansett. It's not as if they are in death mode at the moment. Besides, if they were going to go under, you'd probably hear about it quicker than Ansett going under (there was always some silent optimism that Ansett would "survive"), so you'd have some opportunity to burn points fast (I don't know if you had US tickets and then they fold what would happen, but I'd assume the ticket would stand, as it's "paid for" already - you just might not be able to change it, that's all).

Certainly for many here who have cashed in on the last promo and are using this iteration primarily to "top up", I don't think the longevity of US is not an issue right now.

 

[kpc]

If you bought the miles with a credit card, could you not do a "chargeback" if US airways went belly up and you lost your miles?