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You can currently buy Avios for 1.37 cents each through a miles-transfer promotion. At that price:

• A roundtrip from the west coast to Hawaii is $347.
• A roundtrip of less than 651 miles flown each way in the US is $128.
• A roundtrip from Boston to Dublin is under $450.

How can you buy Avios for 1.37 cents? Why would you want to?

Airlines are only too happy to let you transfer their miles from one person’s account to another’s because they charge a hefty transaction fee to do so. Because of that, transferring miles from one person’s account to another’s is usually a bad move, especially since you can usually book anyone an award ticket from anyone’s account.

But occasionally airlines run transfer bonuses, so that you create new miles from a transfer. In those cases, you can compare the transfer fee to the new miles created to see the “price” of “purchasing” miles from the transfer.

My favorite transfer bonus this year was the chance to buy US Airways miles, which I value at 1.9 cents, for 1.1 cents.

Now Iberia Plus has a transfer bonus that means you can buy Avios for 1.37 cents each.

Iberia Plus is the frequent flyer program of Iberia, the flag carrier of Spain that is a member of the oneworld alliance. Iberia and British Airways are owned by the same parent company and both airlines use Avios as their loyalty currency. British Airways and Iberia Avios are transferable between your British Airways and Iberia accounts as long as both are more than 90 days old.

Iberia’ program is almost identical to British Airways’, but Iberia collects lower fuel surcharges on its own award flights. For that reason, I recommend signing up for an Iberia account today to start your 90 day clock.

How to Do This

Key Link:

• Transfer Miles Page

If you currently have access to two Iberia Avios accounts, you want to transfer from one account to the other in increments of 6k Avios, which results in the lowest possible transfer fee of 0.5 euro cents per Avios.

Account 1 transfers 6k Avios to Account 2, which receives the 6k Avios plus a 3k Avios bonus for 9k total Avios. The price is 30 euros, meaning the 3k bonus Avios were generated at a 1 euro cent price. That’s 1.37 (US dollar) cents per Avios.

The transfer bonus lasts until January 5, 2014.

You can get in on this deal even if your Iberia Avios accounts are currently empty. Just transfer your British Airways Avios to Iberia Avios, “buy” new Avios with your transfers, then transfer back to British Airways Avios.

Why Do This?

You should buy Avios for 1.37 cents each if you can get more value than that from them.

Avios are most valuable for short, direct, economy flights on oneworld partners on which surcharges are not collected on award flights. See When Does British Airways Add Fuel Surcharges to Avios Awards?

Some sweet spots are:

• west coast to Hawaii (Oahu, Maui, Kona, or Kauai) for 25k Avios roundtrip on Alaska or American flights
• as little as 9k Avios roundtrip for domestic flights on Alaska or American that are 651 miles or less each direction
• intra-Australia on Qantas
• intra-South Africa on British Airways
• intra-South America on LAN
• US to Europe on airberlin or Aer Lingus

Avios are horrific for other transatlantic or transpacific flights, especially in premium cabins.

Hat Tip Loyalty Lobby