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Tl;dr – This piece is a short one. It’s a simple FYI and a call to action. There has never been a better time to buy points due in part to the advancement of award availability tracking tools and the frequency by which points are sold. Nowadays, as you can reliably know what redemptions are available at a given time, purchasing and immediately redeeming points towards travel presents some of the best opportunities to save significant money on luxury travel.
In this Intro to Points and Miles piece, I list purchasing points and miles as one of the best ways to accumulate rewards points. I’ve also covered some of my favorite tools for finding award availability, whether for aware fares or hotel availability. I wanted to combine these two ideas and say there’s never been a better time to purchase points and miles than now if your budget allows it. Why? Read on.
The anti-case to purchasing points largely centers on devaluation – the reduction in the exchange value of a loyalty program’s currency. While this is a real thing – loyalty programs update their award charts to reflect less competitive rates, lose travel partnerships, and reduce routes with some degree of regularity, the bemoaning of this is overblown. Travel providers ink new partnerships, new ‘sweet spots’ uncovered, and even mergers and acquisitions pop off – all of which can bring about new opportunities and add value to points and miles. A cult redemption through American Airlines today may be more achievable with British Airways Avios tomorrow. The point in saying all this is that there are ebbs and flows over time, but what has never been more true than today is knowing where you stand at a given time. 
Purchasing points is significantly less risky because of today’s award tracking tools and the regularity with which you can expect points sales. You can wake up to an email from Alaska Mileage Plan offering a 70% bonus on point purchases, hop on seats.aero, and find a JAL first-class flight from Charles De Gaulle to Haneda 6 months out within minutes. Spend $1500 to purchase enough miles for a $11,500 experience. Rinse and repeat.
This is even the case even if you don’t have an immediate intended use of the points you are purchasing. If you are 1) flexible and 2) after luxury fares or hotel stays, you’re almost sure to find compelling redemption options that are a fraction of the cost of a cash rate – and to me, that’s what matters most. I travel a lot, and it’s not realistic to cover all of my travel through some combination of organic credit card spend, sign-up bonuses, points earned from previous stays, or the like. I buy points regularly because doing so saves me hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars at a time when it comes. I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it: if you think you have enough disposable income for one luxury vacation, check your options for buying points, as you can stretch your dollar to cover a few more relaxing journeys.
