Re: US Dividend Miles Buy/Gift Miles 100% bonus - Cheap way for F/J *A Awards
I've had more of a play around with the Life Miles booking system today (looking at random dates from SYD and MEL 6 - 9 months out) and here is what I have learnt:
The following burn rates apply (+ minimal taxes):
- AUS - USA J return (NYC as dest) = 135K points ($4050). Max pay + min points = 54K points + $1033 ($2650). Where the min points are bought at a 100% bonus, total cost is $1843 + taxes.
- AUS - EUR J return (BCN as dest) = 170K points ($5100). Max pay + min points = 68K points + $1301 ($3341). Where the min points are bought at a 100% bonus, total cost is $2321 + taxes.
- AUS - North ASIA J return (NRT as dest) = 100k points ($3000). Max pay + min points = 40K points + $765 ($1965). Where the min points are bought at a 100% bonus, total cost is $1365 + taxes.
Half these amounts exactly for one-way, which are allowed (a return is counted as 2 x one-ways).
Also:
- You can search by carrier.
- When no carrier is selected, Thai, Lufthansa, United, ANA, Air China and most importantly, Singapore Airlines were often coming up. Interesting no Asiana.
- You cannot search SQ by carrier which was weird, though it came up in most 'no carrier' searches I did.
- When searching by carrier I could find Asiana availability, but no ANZ,
- I don't think I saw any F availability.
- Stopovers allowed but it will cost you another leg.
- A max pay and min points bought with 100% points bonus is not that much cheaper than using 100% points and no pay if all points were bought with 100% bonus ($200 - $300 per return).
- This is not the sort of program to use if you have an indirect, weird route you want to take because you can only get that by multi-city bookings which will cost a lot more. Or if you want to go F the whole way.
- Plenty of A380 J availability on SQ and Lufthansa (for the moment).
- This is the program to use if you have 1 destination in mind and want to get there on good carriers quickly and cheaply in J. I think this is the sweet spot of this program. USDM is for the more adventurous, flexible and patient.
- I expect SQ availability to dry up very quickly once people realise you can get it on LM.
- I will be buying miles at their next 100% bonus. The fact that you can search and book online (and their website is much better than ANA), do points + pay and, for the moment, there is plenty of SQ availability immediately makes this much, much better than USDM for me at least.
YMMV.
