Black Friday always brings a few points buying opportunities. Buying frequent flyer miles when they come with bonuses or are highly discounted can bring the opportunity of flying business or first class at a highly reduced cost.
Personally, I don’t recommend buying miles speculatively (usually) unless of course, the deal is good enough to warrant it. Right now there are 2 opportunities you might want to jump on (you snooze, you lose).
Aegean Airlines Miles + Bonus
Aegean who? Aegean is a Greek airline which happens to be part of the Star Alliance network. Years ago I attempted to achieve status with them as they have one of the most generous Star Alliance frequent flyer programs. Their award chart for partner airline redemptions also isn’t anything to be ignored.
Australia to Europe one way in business for 75,000 miles? Don’t mind if I do! There are plenty of opportunities here so have a quick look at the award chart to see what’s on offer. You can check the live award chart here and the countries listed in each zone here.
Note that pricing is for return flights. For one way, just half the cost.
The Deal: 100% Bonus
If you’ve never credited a flight to your Aegean Mile + Bonus account you are limited to buying only 30,000 miles which come with a 100% bonus, so 60,000 total at the cost of 750 euros. However, if you’ve credited a flight to your account in the past, you’re allowed to buy up to 50,000 miles (100k including the bonus). The total price for 100,000 miles is 1250 euro.
As a quick example, it only costs 55,000 miles to fly from Australia to Asia with some stopovers allowed if the connection is less than 24h.
Although Aegean only charges 20 euros to cancel or change an award booking, they do charge ‘fuel surcharges’ just like many other airlines (looking at you Qantas!).
You can buy miles by creating an account and visiting this page while logged in: https://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonus/my-account/purchase-miles/
PS. This deal ends tonight 11:59 Greek time.
American Airlines AAdvantage
Now that we have Star Alliance covered via the Aegean Miles + Bonus sale, we’ll have a look to see what’s on offer over at One World frequent flyer program AAdvantage.
American Airlines is offering a 20% boost in bonus points on the sale they’re already running. This is the second-best price we’ve seen this year so if you have a redemption in mind, now’s a good time to buy.
AAdvantage miles a great for redemption on Etihad business or Etihad first class or any other one world partner such as Qantas, Qatar Airways, British Airways etc.
The best rate can be achieved when buying 100,000 miles or more. At the 100,000 level, you will receive a bonus of 72,000 for a total of 172,000 AAdvantage miles.
As a quick example, it costs 160,000 miles for a one-way flight with Etihad in their first class apartment from Sydney or Melbourne to Europe, after which you’ll still have 12,000 miles left over (Perth to Sydney with Qantas in business is only 20,000 miles). The total cost of buying 172,000 miles is USD 3,206.25, not cheap but it’s a discount of at least 50% on your Etihad first class ticket.
You can find the AA award chart here: https://www.aa.com/i18n/aadvantage-program/miles/redeem/award-travel/oneworld-and-other-airline-partner-award-chart.jsp
To buy AAdvantage miles visit: https://buymiles.americanairlines.com/en/buygift/info
Deal ends November 26 11:59PM (US time).
Other Points Buying Opportunities
The other 2 deals that are still on right now and worth your time are Hyatt points for cheap luxury hotel stays check out my guide on this here.
And the Alaska MileagePlan sale is also still on (one of the best points buying opportunities right now). You can check out that guide here.
