Is buying frequent-flier miles ever a good idea?

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Airlines are eager to sell you frequent-flier points and miles. Their latest sales pitch: buying airline miles on a monthly basis.

Paying cash for miles doesn’t guarantee a bargain, so be sure to do your homework before taking up any offers. Even as shoppers say they are growing tired of seemingly endless subscriptions, more airlines are betting that travelers want to guarantee access to a steady stream of loyalty points to subsidize lavish trips. Air France-KLM’s loyalty program Flying Blue is the latest to offer such a subscription service.

United Airlines and Southwest Airlines launched similar services in 2021. Between these services and the more typical offers to buy miles and points, it’s easy to feel pressure to scoop up what seems like a deal. But buying miles often doesn’t mean spending less on flights.

And money used on points might be better put toward an investment that earns interest. At virtually any point, “there are good odds that someone will be having a sale on points," says Tiffany Funk, co-founder of point.me, an award-travel search platform. Some airlines, including Hawaiian and JetBlue, have advertised bonuses upward of 100% for these transactions.

Southwest has offered discounts on buying points with bonuses ranging from 40% to 50% on seven occasions in 2024, Funk says. Flying Blue rolled out its subscription plan, called Subscribe to Miles, last week, following a soft launch. For a monthly fee ranging from roughly $30 to $200 a month, people who sign up can receive a monthly allotment of up to 17,000 frequent-flier miles.

Subscribers can cancel at any time. Buying miles or points to use at a later date comes with risks. The value of those points can decrease