The charm of collecting and redeeming points and miles is when you book those coveted seats in First and Business class cabins. Having said that, those can cost a pretty penny, compared to redeeming for Economy class seats.
Most programs allow you to buy miles and points when you need to top up in order to redeem for a flight. Often you will find promos where you can buy miles offering 40-50% more miles or points or cost to purchase lower by 40-50%. This is most common with Hyatt and Alaska to name a couple.
Currently, Aeroplan has a targeted offer where you can purchase
aeroplan miles for 2.5c v/s the normal 4c plus tax. This offer ends on
June 24, 2019.
This offer is not that great really as their last
promo in the last week of March 2019 was where you could buy Aeroplan
miles for 2c plus tax
So, is it a good idea to buy or not?
You need to consider a couple of things:
1.
Primarily, it makes sense to buy a few more miles/points to top up in
order to be able to book that elusive First Class seat before the
inventory dries up.
2. Never buy speculatively for future use as devaluation can happen any time.
3.Compare
the cash price v/s cost of buying miles. Sometimes, its cheaper to buy
miles and redeem for First Class instead of paying the cash price.
4. Sometimes you have more flexibility to cancel an award ticket and get your points back compared to a cash fare.
5. You will lose out on earning miles and points when travelling on a reward ticket.
The first two rules are the ones that I always follow.
Instead of buying miles/points, the situations/promos I always look for are when there are bonus miles/points earned when you do a transfer between programs i.e. Marriott to Aeroplan that ended a while ago, Marriott to Alaska, Amex MR to Aeroplan etc.
Image courtesy of Aeroplan.com
Written by
Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy