50% US Airways Shared Miles Bonus Now Through June 30th
Update: Some offers mentioned below are no longer available. View the current offers here.
Now through June 30, 2013, US Airways is currently offering a 50% bonus on shared miles that equates to spending about 2.15 cents per mile, and the airline is waiving the $30 transaction fee that is normally charged for transferring miles.
You don't have to register for this, just go to the Share Miles page and you'll see the bonus is automatically offered. It is valid from June 1- June 30, 2013, and the maximum bonus is 25,000 miles (for sharing 50,000 miles).
You can share miles at a cost of 1 cent each plus a 7.5% tax. If you were to share the maximum of 50,000 miles, you'd be spending a total of $537.50. By paying that, you're earning 25,000 new miles with the transfer bonus, so your new miles will have cost you 2.15 cents each. That's still well below the usual cost of buying miles at 3.5 cents each plus the same taxes and fees, but nothing amazing.
Just some other key rules to keep in mind if you are considering this:
1) You must be a Dividend Miles member for at least 12 days, so sign up now if you are not and want to take advantage (sign-up here for a free account). This promotion limits mileage sharing to 50,000 miles (75,000 miles with the bonus).
2) The 100% bonus goes to the person who receives the miles – not the one transferring them.
3) The maximum you can transfer out of an account is 50,000 and receive is 75,000 (which includes the bonus miles).
4) For each Share there is a 7.5% tax recovery charge and GST/HST will be charged to Canadian residents.
5) This transaction is processed by points.com so it won't count towards airfare multiplier categories like the 3x on the Premier Rewards Gold or 2x on Sapphire Preferred.
If you are looking to consolidate miles from different accounts or are looking to buy some extra miles to top off an account for a specific award, this could be worth taking advantage of.
This could also be a way to get some American AAdvantage miles, since with the upcoming merger, it's likely you'll be able to transfer miles between programs until they are finally merged in 2014 or 2015, as was the case with Continental and United.
When it comes to some good US Airways redemptions, 90,000 miles for business class to Asia and 110,000 miles to the South Pacific come to mind. Also note that you do get 5,000 miles off US awards if you have the US Airways MasterCard. I won't be taking advantage of this promo myself since it's not as lucrative as purchasing miles with a 100% bonus, which US Airways ran fairly frequently this past year, but for consolidating random accounts or just topping up with a few extra miles, it's something to consider.
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