MileValue is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.

Note: Some of the offers mentioned below may have changed or are no longer be available. You can view current offers here.


There were some great deals this week:

But there were also a few bad deals that superficially looked a lot like the good deals that I want to warn you about.

What are the bad deals to avoid this week?

Southwest is offering a 40% bonus on purchased points through October 17.

Why it’s a bad deal:

Even with a 40% bonus, the Southwest points cost 1.96 cents each. Southwest points are only currently worth 1.69 cents each toward any Southwest airfare. (60 points per dollar on redemptions, but tax and other issues make the value about 1.69 cents) And starting March 31, they’ll only be worth about 1.44 cents after the recently announced massive devaluation of Rapid Rewards.

And these aren’t traditional region-to-region miles where they may only be worth X amount normally, but you can redeem them for international first class and do better. These are fixed-value points. You will never get 1.96 cents of value for Southwest points, so buying them for that amount is burning money.

TACA Transfer Miles with 100% Bonus = Buying TACA Miles for 1.5 Cents

Why it’s a bad deal:

The US Airways 100% bonus on transferred miles gets you US Airways miles for 1.13 cents.

Through February 20, 2014, the TACA 100% bonus on transferred miles gets you TACA miles for 1.5 cents. There are near constant promotions to buy TACA miles for 1.5 cents. Those are a decent deal if you want to book a TACA award right then, though I wouldn’t stockpile TACA miles because I don’t trust the airline to give fair notice of devaluations.

So this isn’t actually a bad deal, it’s just a near-constant deal that runs through February 20 that you don’t need to get involved with unless and until you are ready to redeem the TACA miles.