Update 3: This is now dead, unfortunately. Melia is devalued the transfer ratio now to 6:1, which makes it rather economically unfeasible.
Update: Commenter Alice says “Just got off the phone with Melia Rewards and they told me that the promotion for “buying” points is only good for hotel stays NOT for transfer to an airline partner. I called them at their Canada # 1-855-269-5374. Bummer ! Anyone hears different please post.” (YMMV)
Update 2: Frequent Flyer Bonuses posts a screenshot of Melia replying on facebook that purchased miles are eligible to be transferred. See the comments below. (YMMV!!!)
I did do the exact same type of post back in June (see here) and the transfers did get processed, make sure you’re aware of the risk associated with purchasing these miles.
MeliáRewards, a hotel chain with many hotels in Spain and in the Caribbean is selling points with 30% bonus, when you buy 20,000 miles or more. You can sign up here. To buy miles go to this page. The promotion to buy miles is until October 31.
Promo
The lowest amount of miles to purchase to get the 30% bonus is 20,000 miles, which means with the bonus you get 26,000 miles. This costs 160 euros or 224 CAD. This means essentially one Melia mile is 0.86 cents. This is even better than the promo back in June.
Why is this important? This might be extremely lucrative for premium class travel within one country, because Melia points transfer at a 2:1 ratio to Miles & More, which requires only 17,000 miles for a one-way trip in business class. This means you can buy Miles & More for 1.72 cents, since you are buying Melia miles at 0.86 cents.
Convert Melia to Miles & More
The Miles & More Award chart is as follows for a domestic award:
You need 34,000 Melia miles to transfer to 17,000 Miles & More, so this will cost you around 310 dollars:
Price
I have confirmed that the domestic awards apply in Canada and the US. This is a fantastic deal if you do want to fly domestic first as this would require over $2000 on a paid ticket (on select routes such as UA PS J), 34,000 Aeroplan miles, or 25,000 United Miles.
Sample revenue flight
Thus, the best routes these would be redeemed on would be United Premium Service LAX-JFK or Air Canada Executive First to the Maritimes where tickets usually run at a extremely high price. If you can find award space, the price is thus capped at only $310. A quick reminder is that the limit to buy per member is 100,000 per year.
United p.s BusinessFirst
Buy Melia Miles Here. This is fairly complex, so if you have any questions let me know in the comments!
Warning:
The only qualms I have about transferring is that this Flyertalk thread mentions that people have had their Miles & More withdrawn from their account for no apparent reason. But I’m pretty sure that there is nothing contravening the Terms & Conditions in both programs so if you are willing to take the risk of having your miles/money held up for a bit it is still a fantastic deal.
As far as I know the transfer option to Miles & More is still open (as of time of post publication):
Transfer
Other Uses:
If you already have some Miles & More, you can top up for an LX F or LH F redemption if that’s worth it to you.
Summary:
I am buying miles at a discount, transferring to a good airline partner, and then redeeming for a sweet spot on the chart to pull out this deal. By tackling the sweet spots of three promotions this is why this kind of deal can appear. Here is the process if you are numbers person:
216 Euro = 303 Cad$ = 35,100 Melia Points = 17,000 Miles & More = 1 domestic business redemption = lie-flat bed/pod = deal!!!
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Under Melia Rewards Website – Promotion Conditions it states:
“It is also strictly prohibited to transfer points obtained from a promotion and not coming from a booking to any other programme or companies associated to the programme, including welcome points, bonus points for registering online, points plus euros, member get member bonuses or any other promotion that may come into effect in the future”.
I’ll try to contact Melia Rewards to get a straight answer.
Just got off the phone with Melia Rewards and they told me that the promotion for “buying” points is only good for hotel stays NOT for transfer to an airline partner.
I called them at their Canada # 1-855-269-5374. Bummer ! Anyone hears different please post.
Interesting. That’s the first time I’ve heard of that as I wrote the same post back in June and people did manage to transfer to Miles & More. I have no idea how they’d distinguish between purchased miles and earned miles however.
I’ve tried to test-transfer 1000 melia points to M&M accounts well over two months but have never received the 500 miles to my account – to do honest, I don’t particularly trust these guys… when I called the EU support, they didn’t even speak english ffs.
Minimum to convert is 4000.
AFAIK many many people tried to transfer melia points to UA, and both their UA account and melia account got revoked.
Ok, I did this back in June and promptly transfered to M&M; in September all my points vanished from my M&M account but did not reappear in my Melia account. It took a month of emails and phone calls to get it sorted. Now they offer it again?! I would be very cautious/sceptical that it would go smoothly, and for those of you that do try, remember Melia can have those points revoked, so they may not be there the instant you want them.
Precisely the type of disclaimer/warning I put at the top!
I’ll do the test, buy, transfer and immediately book award..
Terms & Conditions have not been changed, nor does this promo mention that it would not be allowed.
Some telephone operater that says
“buying” points is only good for hotel stays NOT for transfer to an airline partner.”
BS imo, (I mean I believe she/he said that), why would we believe telephone operators? eg Us Airways…
Jeff,
As you know I had this issue with Melia & M&M, I got my miles back yesterday from this hick up, it took some time, but all turned out well. 😉
I have a screen capture from Mas’ Facebook page stating that you can transfer to airlines. Feel free to take a capture of my capture if any dispute arises:
http://blog.frequentflyerbonuses.com/2013/06/melia-international-25-bonus-on-buying.html
Well well, the T&C have changed:
“13. Point validity
Meliá Hotels International reserves the right to offer different expiry conditions for points awarded in promotions.
Specific conditions of promotion points
If a cardholder is awarded promotion points and then decides to leave the programme, these points may not be transferred to another MeliáRewards card or exchanged for points/ miles of cards or companies associated with the programme.
It is also strictly prohibited to transfer points obtained from a promotion and not coming from a booking to any other programme or companies associated to the programme, including welcome points, bonus points for registering online, points plus euros, member get member bonuses or any other promotion that may come into effect in the future. Each of the promotions will have a specific validity. After the expiry date of the points they will be withdrawn from the account without warning, with the cardholder waiving any right to any related claim.”
so again:
“It is also strictly prohibited to transfer points obtained from a promotion and not coming from a booking”
I’d be interested in hearing more about this one. Sounds like a good deal but the risk that the bought points never make it into an M&M account is rather nasty. The comments here indicate it’s probably not working for large transfers. Is there a silent minority for whom it work?