When you want to save on air travel, one of the best tricks in the book can be to buy frequent flyer miles. Situations arise where the cost of buying the miles you need for a “free” flight is actually a lot cheaper than just booking the flight with cash. Aeroplan offers some of the best rates for travel in all cabins to top destinations around the world, and thanks to a limited time aligning of opportunities, you can buy their miles on the cheap!
Have Amex points, but not enough for the flight you want to book? Have Aeroplan miles but need more miles to fly in a better cabin? Want to fly business or first class for a fraction of the cash price? Or perhaps you’re just a crazy points hoarder who never passes up the opportunity to acquire cheap miles? Buying points during a huge sale such as this one, can be just the trick you need to maximize your miles.
Two Opportunities
Aeroplan is the spun off loyalty program of Air Canada. You can use Aeroplan miles on Swiss, Lufthansa, EVA, ANA and other top Star Alliance Airlines in economy, business and first class for flights all around the world. To unlock cheap Aeroplan miles, you’ll first need to utilize two timely opportunities. You need to buy Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points during the current 35% off sale and then you need to take advantage of a generous bonus for transferring those points into Aeroplan. It’s easy, we promise.
Doing The Math
The sweet spot is to buy 20,000 Starwood Points for $455. When you convert 20,000 Starwood points to airline miles, you get 5,000 bonus points, creating 25,000 airline miles of your choosing. The same applies for every 20,000 you transfer, so always transfer from Starwood to an airline in blocks of 20,000. Yep, 40,000 Starwood points would convert to 50,000 airline miles. But thanks to an opportunity from Aeroplan, you can take things even further.
Aeroplan is offering a 25% bonus when you convert hotel points, such as Starwood points into Aeroplan miles before April 16th. Starwood points transfer at a 1:1 ratio, so your 25,000 Starwood Points will become 31,250 Aeroplan miles. The bonus applies to any amount you transfer, so if you have more than 25,000 Starwood Points, you can really benefit. One way between the US and Europe in First Class is just 70,000 points. The bonus is automatic, so simply transfer your points a few days before the bonus ends and the bonus will apply.
Putting It Together
Transferring Amex or SPG points to Aeroplan to book first or business class flights is a great way to maximize value. 55,000 points for business class or 70,000 for first is excellent value in todays points and miles world. By taking advantage of a sale such as this one, you’re able to pull points together from a few different sources, making points and miles easy. Enjoy!
Are you taking advantage of this great value?
HT: OneMileAtATime
