Which credit card should I use to buy miles.

[morgacj2004]

So I am wanting to take advantage of the current AK airlines mileage promotion. I am currently offered up to 50% bonus miles when I purchase miles. I am planning on buying 60k miles and will get 30k miles free. This will cost me $1650.   The cards I have available to use are my BC Arr+, CO-Venture, CO Venture One or Discover card. I could also use the  STASH Visa that I recently got as I need to spend 3k to get 10k bonus points. What do you all think? 

[Anonymous]

I don't get the buy miles thingy. Just churn baby churn.

If you price it out, it will be cheaper paying cash.

[morgacj2004]

I ended up buying 200k miles on AK air with a 50% bonus. So 300k miles total. Will use those miles to get 3 RT business class tickets to Asia next year via Cathay Pacific. My total cost will be less than 5k for all three tickets which in my mind is a great deal. Buying those same tickets would have cost me approx 18k total. .

[Anonymous]

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@morgacj2004 wrote:

I ended up buying 200k miles on AK air with a 50% bonus. So 300k miles total. Will use those miles to get 3 RT business class tickets to Asia next year via Cathay Pacific. My total cost will be less than 5k for all three tickets which in my mind is a great deal. Buying those same tickets would have cost me approx 18k total. .

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Wow thats a great deal, we must love the business class seats , well worth it  

[longtimelurker]

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@morgacj2004 wrote:

I ended up buying 200k miles on AK air with a 50% bonus. So 300k miles total. Will use those miles to get 3 RT business class tickets to Asia next year via Cathay Pacific. My total cost will be less than 5k for all three tickets which in my mind is a great deal. Buying those same tickets would have cost me approx 18k total. .

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RIght, but buying miles is a profit scheme for the airline.   As bob.. says, churning or other creative ways gets the same miles much cheaper.

[morgacj2004]

It takes an awful lot of spend or churning to get 300 k miles.  

[Anonymous]

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@longtimelurker wrote:

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@morgacj2004 wrote:

I ended up buying 200k miles on AK air with a 50% bonus. So 300k miles total. Will use those miles to get 3 RT business class tickets to Asia next year via Cathay Pacific. My total cost will be less than 5k for all three tickets which in my mind is a great deal. Buying those same tickets would have cost me approx 18k total. .

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RIght, but buying miles is a profit scheme for the airline.   As bob.. says, churning or other creative ways gets the same miles much cheaper.

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While I agree it is awfully difficult to get that many miles in any other way.  You can only churn so often and the other creative ways are quite limited these days

[morgacj2004]

Exactly right!  When I was a road warrior I could easily accumulate tons of miles as I was able to charge all of my business / travel expenses on my personal card. Now that I no longer or rarely travel for work my earning possibilities have greatly decreased. I am more than happy to save 50-70% on leisure travel as I routinely do now.  

[galahad15]

I have a Cap1 card that is the equivalent of the Venture, except without the annual fee...I love using it for travel-related purchases, as the Purchase Eraser feature is a wonderful and super-easy tool to use to redeem for all of a portion of miles spent on travel expenses.  I also have a BoA Travel Rewards VS, although that is a relatively new card addition for me and so I have yet to try it out on a regular basis thus far.  Based on my own personal experiences, I would highly recommend the Venture, due to just the Purchase Eraser feature alone, especially since I am not a fan of AF-based travel rewards cards, even if churning them gives you a ton of free miles (as the -- usually very high -- AF in itself is a no-go, for me).