Buy American Airlines Miles for ~2 Cents

In one of my first getting started posts, I provided an overview of how buying miles direct from an airline can be a useful tool.  To that end, American Airlines is offering a substantial discount on purchased miles selling them at about 2 cents each.  This is the cheapest I've seen them offered in a long time.  Keep in mind, you can only (at the moment) buy 80,000 AA miles per year per account.

Apparently, American wants you to go surfing and rent a VW bus

To put it in perspective, you can fly one-way to Hong Kong in first class on Cathay Pacific for 67,500 miles.  You can essentially "buy" that fare for $1,350 by purchasing miles during this promotion which is way cheaper than the $4,000+ the ticket would retail for.  I wouldn't recommend purchasing miles just for fun but if you are close to an award, this is an easy way to get there.

I will be taking advantage of this promotion (purchasing around 20,000 miles) so I can book an award for later in the year.