While we don’t normally fly US Airways, we like to use the US Airways rewards program for redeeming miles with their partners or through them for off-peak travel. US Airways is a member of the Star Alliance and through that, you can use US Airways to redeem on premium carriers like Lufthansa to Europe, All Nippon Airways to Asia, South African Airways to South Africa, and many many more.
US Airways has one of the simplest bonus mile offers around – 40,000 miles for the first use! What can you do with 40,000 miles? How about Hawaii? That’s normally about $800 from the East Coast or $400 from the West Coast. But even better redemption options for off-peak travel — 35,00 miles to South America and Europe, if flying US Airways metal (read, the plane is operated by US Airways versus a partner airline). Yes, you can fly from the US to Rio de Janeiro for 35,000 miles for most of March and May. Or fly to Europe in January and February. International fares to South America or Europe, even during off peak months, are usually over over $800 from the United States.
If you just want to use this for domestic travel, that’s OK too. On the 1st anniversary of being a member, you will receive a bonus 10,000 miles along with the $89 membership fee. You would gain 50,000 miles even if you did nothing and just kept this card for a year. 50,000 miles for $89 for 2 domestic tickets on either US Airways or United (they are partners) is a great deal! If you are willing to fly on all US Airways metal, it is only 20,000 miles for a domestic reward ticket. They knock down the reward chart by 5,000 miles for merely having this card!
Another feature we like about the US Airways program is that they let you route via Europe to go to Asia for award redemptions. It takes 60,000 miles in Coach or 90,000 miles in Business to go to North Asia (China, Hong Kong, Japan, and most of Central Asia). But what you get is amazing: you can fly from New York -> Istanbul, stopover for a few days, and then head to Tokyo, and return via the Pacific all for 60,000 or 90,000 miles!
And they run bonuses all the time. The reason why we are writing about this offer is because we received this in the mail yesterday.
15,000 miles for spending $750 a month for 3 months starting September. You betcha we will be spending it! While you probably won’t get this offer if you apply now, you will be setting yourself up for this year’s US Airways Grand Slam promotion.
In summary:
- 40,000 bonus miles on first spend
- 10,000 bonus miles on 1st year anniversary
- 1st year annual fee waived
To apply, go here – US Airways Dividend Miles Premier MasterCard. We know the link says for US Airways Chairman’s Preferred Members. Two of us on the team have applied and received the bonus miles despite having no status with US Airways.
Disclosure: We have zero affiliate relationship with Barclays (the issuer of the MasterCard). This means we have no financial incentive to promote this offer. We just think this is a good deal.
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