US Airways 100% Share Miles Bonus Back, Effectively Purchase Miles for Just Over A Penny
Pretty straightforward. US Airways has offered this earlier this year. Essentially, you can transfer up to 50,000 miles from your account to someone else’s and receive a 100% bonus for doing so (meaning you earn 50,000 miles). The cost to transfer those miles is just over $500, or about 1.1 cents per point.
You’ll need to have someone to transfer your miles to (and hopefully they’ll transfer them back so you both get 50,000 miles). Important side note, any account you transfer from and to needs to be open at least 12 days prior to the transfer, so because of the short window this is being offered you won’t be able to open an account now and participate.
If you have an immediate need for miles for a US Airways flight or Star Alliance flight, then this is definitely a great price. I generally value US Airways miles around 1.6 cents. I used to value them higher but there are certain premium cabin options that are no longer viable ticketing options for Star Alliance partners, thus reducing the value for me. And, keep in mind you’ll likely only have until March to redeem these miles for flights on Star Alliance carriers as US Airways is leaving the Star Alliance.
The good news there is that this is probably a better price than you’ll see for quite some time (maybe ever) on AAdvantage miles for American Airlines and oneworld partner flights. You’ll need to hold them until US Airways joins oneworld, which is likely to happen in March (it’s been strongly hinted as such, but sometimes dates can slip). But, there are plenty of opportunities to redeem these miles for significantly higher than 1.1 cents on American Airlines/oneworld partner flights. I generally value AAdvantage miles at pretty close to 2 cents, so this is a great price assuming you make any sort of reasonable redemption choices with your miles.
I’d also guess this is the last time we’ll see the 100% share bonus before the merger, so if it looks tempting, now is the time to jump.
