New Mileage Program Exploit Nets Savings Up to 86% with Seven Airlines

September 2009
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Mexicana goes its own way, in that it’s not part of an alliance, yet it offers mileage redemption with 12 airlines. That means it can be your ticket into the front cabin through MexicanaGo, the carrier’s new mileage program for travel on partner airlines, among them American, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, LAN, Lufthansa, Qantas, and Singapore. (Frecuenta, the carrier’s old mileage program, is still in effect for travel on Mexicana.)

The strategy discussed today is simple: Buy miles through MexicanaGo at 2.5¢ each, a good price, and cash them in for upgrades on Mexicana’s partners. The first 40,000 miles must be bought through the Mexicana website: MexicanaGo Subsequent purchases are made through MexicanaGo, at the same price, by calling (877) 801-2010.

Potential Strategy Savings

Let’s say you want a First Class ticket from New York to Buenos Aires. American charges $12,240. If you buy the 140,000 miles needed for an award seat on American from MexicanaGo, the cost is $3,500, a savings of $8,740 (71%). There are similar savings available to many other destinations with the other 11 partners.

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[["<strong>Route<\/strong>","<strong>Airline<\/strong>","<strong>Miles Needed<\/strong>","<strong>Cost @ 2.5\u00a2<\/strong>","<strong>Published Fare<\/strong>","<strong>Savings<\/strong>"],["Boston - Shanghai","American","140,000","$3,500 ","$22,426 ","$18,926 \/ 84%"],["Dallas - Frankfurt","American","140,000","$3,500 ","$11,220 ","$7,720 \/ 69%"],["Los Angeles - New York (JFK)","American","66,000","$1,650 ","$5,016 ","$3,366 \/ 67%"],["New York - Su00e3o Paulo","Japan Airlines","110,000","$2,750 ","$8,896 ","$6,146 \/ 69%"],["New York - Tel Aviv","Lufthansa","200,000","$5,000 ","$11,262 ","$6,262 \/ 56%"],["New York - Tokyo","Japan Airlines","120,000","$3,000 ","$20,893 ","$17,893 \/ 86%"],["San Francisco - Johannesburg","Lufthansa","200,000","$5,000 ","$14,589 ","$9,589 \/ 66%"],["San Francisco - London","American","140,000","$3,500 ","$9,477 ","$5,977 \/ 63%"]]
<small><em> Fares do not include taxes.</em></small>