Since you re restricted to US Airways operated flights, you ll find your destinations limited to the

As you may know, US Airways is offering a 100% bonus on purchased US Airways miles during the month of June .  Essentially, this is like Buy One, Get One Free , which brings the cost down to about 1.88 cents per mile once you factor in mandatory taxes.  The question that s always asked is whether this is a good deal, and the answer is a big fat maybe.   If you re really close to an award say you have 80,000 miles but need 90,000 topping off your account could mean the difference between a free ticket or not traveling.  In cases like that, I think it s worth it.
If you re starting from scratch, you ll watch to compare the implied price through purchasing miles to the actual price you d pay if you bought cheap hotels nyc the ticket cheap hotels nyc normally.  In many cases, buying the ticket with cash will be cheaper, cheap hotels nyc but in some cases (especially for business or first class tickets), you ll find it cheaper to buy miles and use them to redeem for an award flight.  When pricing out the mileage option, don t forget you ll still be responsible for paying taxes on the ticket as well as a potential $25-50 award processing fee .  You also won t earn miles on award flights, so you may want to factor in the amount of miles you re forfeiting when doing comparisons.  In other words, if the price is close, you re better off paying cash instead of redeeming miles.
You can only buy miles if your US Airways account cheap hotels nyc has been open 12+ days.  If you want to buy miles but don t already have an account, open one now so you ll have a  chance to buy miles before the promotion ends.
If you have a specific trip in mind (and I recommend you do instead of blindly buying cheap hotels nyc miles), check for award availability before assuming you ll be able to get tickets to where you want on the dates you want.  The US Airways award search engine stinks, so use united.com to search for award flights.  As a US Airways cheap hotels nyc redemption, you ll have access to any Saver awards displayed.  In fact, once you find award space, you can call US Airways to put a hold on the tickets you want for five days, and then purchase the miles in order to guarantee the itinerary you want is available when the purchased miles hit your account (2-3 days).   The availability trap is frustrating , so don t waste money on miles you can t use.
If you re looking for inspiration on great deals using this purchase promotion, look into US Airways off-peak awards. cheap hotels nyc  These are award flights to select destinations on a limited number of dates at a lower cost in miles.  In some cases, the mileage savings can be quite significant and lead to true bargains.  One caveat: these lower prices are only valid when you redeem for flights operated by US Airways (normal awards will also allow flights cheap hotels nyc operated by Star Alliance and other partner airlines).
Officially, off-peak awards could change every year, but historically there have been discounts from the USA/Canada to the Caribbean, South America, and Europe.  Most of the available dates have already passed for 2012, but some trial searches are showing similar date ranges available in 2013.
EDIT: Some sample searches show reduced prices when traveling in the reverse direction as well, meaning you could fly from Europe to North America in January/February for 35,000 miles in coach or 60,000 miles in business class.
What does this mean?  For starters, it s implying cheap hotels nyc a cost of $470 (coach) / $940 (first) to the Caribbean or $658 coach/$1128 business cheap hotels nyc to Europe and South America.  I m not convinced that the Caribbean prices are all that great, but the prices to Europe especially are a savings compared cheap hotels nyc to regularly-available prices.  If you hold a US Airways credit card , you ll save an additional 5,000 miles off these prices, bringing your cost to Europe or South America down to $564 coach/$1034 business based on the reduced amount of miles you need to buy.  This is your chance to fly in US Airways Envoy suites for the price of a coach ticket during summer.
Maybe Europe cheap hotels nyc in the heart of winter has never crossed your mind before, but remember you ll also find discounts on hotels and smaller crowds during this off-season travel.  Given the huge number of world-class museums, great restaurants, winter sports and options to cuddle up indoors, I think you might find this to be a great time to head there!  And I don t think there s a bad time of year to visit South America, making cheap hotels nyc that a good option as well.
Since you re restricted to US Airways operated flights, you ll find your destinations limited to their hubs abroad, though grabbing cheap hotels nyc a low-class carrier or train ticket in Europe is incredibly easy and usually affordable.  In South America, I think this narrows your only option down to Rio, but in Europe you ll find US Airways options in London, Paris, cheap hotels nyc Munich cheap hotels nyc (New Girl in the Air s pick!), Rome, Amsterdam, cheap hotels nyc Zurich, Dublin, Madrid, Brussels, Frankfurt, and Manchester.
I never buy miles toward a rainy day fund since you ll never know what frustrations cheap hotels nyc you may run into between lack of availability or potential de-valuations, but I think there are some tremendous values out there if you can place an itinerary on hold for dates that work for you and then buy the necessary miles to make that trip a reality.
Any time I can buy miles for less than 2 cents, I am usually very interested. That is because we are all buying miles for that amount when using a reward card in lieu of a 2% cash back card. So I pulled the trigger on this one, as I also needed to meet some minimum spend.
I love the DM Envoy award to Europe for 55k and as someone living in Hawaii, find Europe in the winter to be refreshing. And i get huge value traveling from HNL. Now if i could only find space for the South America off-peak award.
@Carl, I agree with your analysis vs. 2% cashback card. However, it s usually not worth it to me to stock up on purchased miles since my *freely* accumulated miles are enough to cover all my time off from work. Any additional trips that don t require time from work would just be weekend getaways, which likely means I m in the USA. Buying 20,000 miles for a US award would cost $376; I can do better paying cash and earning miles along the way for most destinations. A few exceptions of course
I'm just a girl in her 20s with a huge case of wanderlust. I want to see the world - and I need a little help from discounts and promotions to make it happen! This is my quest to earn free travel in a realistic way. I'll grab the easy airline miles and hotel points for award redemptions, and look for ways to save money while paying for the rest. I'm ready to get out and explore, and am looking forward to all the adventures waiting for me! It might be softcore miles, but it's definitely hardcore travel.