Even With a 30% Discount and 5,000 Bonus Miles, Sharing Miles Never Makes Good Financial Sense!
Expiration Date – October 13, 2015
American is offering up to a 30% discount and 5,000 bonus miles when you share miles through October 13, 2015. But sharing miles with or without a bonus or discount never makes good economic sense. Let us show you why.
If you transfer miles without a bonus or discount, it will cost you between 1.17 cents (50,000 miles) on the low-end and a whopping 3.25 cents (1,000 miles) on the high-end for each American AAdvantage mile transferred inclusive of the $20 transaction fee. And because you’re simply transferring existing miles instead of buying new miles, you have to factor in the value of the transferred miles (which we value at 2 cents per mile) you lose from your own account. This makes it a very expensive transaction at any level.
Even on a 50,000 points transfer with a 30% discount and 5,000 points bonus, you will pay .83 cents per mile to transfer and you lose the 2 cents per mile they are worth from your own account.
The Wrap-Up:
Sharing miles never makes good economic sense. Instead of gifting or sharing miles, it is always a better value to use your miles to purchase an award ticket for the intended recipient. But if you don’t prefer to purchase an award ticket, you are always better off buying miles to gift (rather than sharing) during an AAdvantage sale if you can buy the miles for close to 2 cents per mile.
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