When should you buy airline points or miles? Here are 4 times it might make sense

Holly D. Johnson | Bankrate.com (TNS)

There are all kinds of strategies you can use to earn airline points/miles, and that’s true whether you’re a frequent flier or not. You can earn airline rewards by using an airline credit card or a flexible travel credit card for all of your spending, by shopping through airline rewards portals or by joining an airline’s dining club.

You can also buy airline points or miles outright if you want to rack up a stash quickly or you just need to top off your account. But just because you can buy airline rewards doesn’t mean you should. There are only a few situations where buying airline rewards makes any sense at all, meaning you’ll be better off earning rewards in other ways the vast majority of the time.

When you should buy airline points or miles

So, when does it make sense to purchase airline points or miles? Here’s a rundown of the main situations where you might want to consider it, as well as the steps you should take to find out if it makes sense in your situation.

1. When you can use miles for a flight with a high cash price right away

First off, you may want to consider buying miles if you’re planning to book a pricey fare with cash and the cost of purchased miles works out to less than you would pay. This scenario usually makes the most sense when you’re about to buy an expensive international fare in a premium cabin. However, you’ll need to make sure to buy the miles and lock in the award before it disappears, as they often do since award availability can change by the day (and even by the hour).

For example, you can typically buy American AAdvantage miles for a cost of 3.76 cents per mile. While that definitely seems like a lot, it could pay off when you need to book a pricey flight. For instance, maybe you need to fly from Indianapolis, Indiana, to Rome, Italy, this fall and you desperately want to fly in business class with a lie-flat seat. In that case, it may be possible to find business class fares for as low as 57,500 miles plus $23 in airline taxes and fees.

In the meantime, the cash price for this one-way flight works out to $4,585.

So, how do you know this is a good deal? In this scenario, you would subtract the $23 in airline taxes and fees from the cash price to get $4,562. At that point, you would divide the remaining cash amount by 57,500 miles to get a per-mile price.

When you do, you’ll find that this per-mile price works out to 7.9 cents each ($4,562/ 57,500 miles = 0.079). Since you could buy miles for less than 4 cents each, you would get a better value with this strategy than you would if you paid for the flight with cash instead.

2. When you’re short a few thousand miles for an award you want

Another scenario where it might make sense to buy miles is when you’re only a few thousand miles short for a reward redemption you want to make. In this situation, you can still get a good deal on purchased miles whether they’re expensive or not. After all, not buying miles could mean missing out on the award flight you want altogether.

Fortunately, most frequent-flier programs that let you buy miles offer them in fairly small increments so you can easily top off your account. For example, American AAdvantage, Air France/KLM Flying Blue and Delta SkyMiles all let you buy as little as 2,000 miles at a time.

3. The airline is offering a bonus for purchased miles

From time to time, many frequent-flier programs offer a “bonus” for purchasing miles, which typically translates to a discount off the regular rates. Buying during one of these promotional periods is obviously better than buying when a bonus isn’t offered, but that doesn’t mean you should buy miles just for the fun of it.

Unless you have a specific redemption you want to make, you should really only buy miles if you have a goal for them. In any other scenario, you should only buy miles if they’re offered at a price that’s less than what they’re normally worth.

At the moment, the Air France (Flying Blue) program is offering up to a 40% discount on purchased miles (at the time of writing this article). This means that 20,000 miles that would normally set you back $610 are currently on sale for $396.50.

If you need to make an Air France booking anyway and you’re short on miles, the fact a discount is being offered makes this option a pretty good deal.

Then again, the value just isn’t there to make the purchase unless you have a concrete reason. For example, our internal points and miles valuations show that Flying Blue miles are typically worth 1.5 cents each on average, yet the program is asking members to pay $1,830 for 100,000 miles. This translates to more than 1.8 cents per mile, which is more than this type of point is worth.

4. When you need to “reset the clock” so your award miles don’t expire

Buying miles is also a strategy you can use to “reset the clock” when your airline rewards are about to expire. This move can work well when you only have a few days or weeks to show some activity in your account before the expiration date, so you need to make something happen quickly.

However, since there are several free ways to earn more miles — including through co-branded credit card spending, airline shopping portals and frequent-flier dining clubs — you should only use this option as a last resort.

When you shouldn’t buy airline points or miles

For the most part, there are two main scenarios when you should not purchase airline points or miles:

—You don’t need them right now.

—The points/miles cost more than they’re actually worth.

In either case, you’re better off focusing your energy on all the free ways you can rack up airline points and miles. For example, you can look into earning a credit card sign-up bonus from one of the best airline credit cards, or you could explore some of the best flexible credit card rewards programs that let you transfer rewards to your favorite airlines and hotels. You can also look into airline shopping portals and dining clubs, which make it possible to earn points/miles for online shopping and dining out.

Which credit card should you use to buy airline points or miles?

The best credit card for buying airline points or miles will depend on the method you can use to purchase them.

Some frequent-flier programs don’t sell points/miles directly, but you can buy them through a third-party site called Points.com, which features over 60 airline, travel and financial partners. In this scenario, the points/miles you purchased with a credit card would not code as a travel purchase, so you wouldn’t have the opportunity to maximize your purchase with bonus points/miles on travel.

That said, several frequent-flier programs let you purchase points/miles directly on their websites. Some of these programs include Air France/KLM Flying Blue, American AAdvantage, Avianca LifeMiles, British Airways Executive Club, Delta SkyMiles, Southwest Rapid Rewards, United MileagePlus and more.

In these scenarios, you could opt for a flexible travel credit card that lets you earn bonus rewards on all purchases made directly with airlines. Some solid flexible travel credit cards to consider are the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve® and American Express® Gold Card, to name a few.

However, if you want frequent-flier perks like free checked bags or priority boarding, you could opt for an airline credit card that offers bonus rewards on airline purchases. Just be sure to tailor your card selection to the program you use the most and want to buy points/miles with.

If you’re more interested in the American AAdvantage program, for example, consider signing up for the Citi®/ AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®* or the Citi®/AAdvantage® Executive World Elite Mastercard®. If you’re a Delta flier, on the other hand, you may want to look into cards like the Delta SkyMiles® Gold American Express Card or the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card.

The bottom line

At this point, you may have a few lingering questions. For example, is buying airline miles a good deal? Or, is it worth it to buy airline miles at all? Unfortunately, the answer to both of those questions is usually no. Buying airline miles only makes sense in a few situations, and you’ll probably still need to do some simple math before you decide. When you do run the numbers, you’ll almost always find the math isn’t in favor of buying points or miles.

Finally, remember all the ways you can earn airline rewards without paying for them, including signing up for a co-branded airline credit card (where you can earn a sign-up bonus and ongoing rewards on bonus category spending). With some research and planning, you can get all the miles you need (plus some) without paying for the privilege.

Note: The information about the Citi®/AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® has been collected independently by Bankrate.com. The card details have not been reviewed or approved by the card issuer.

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