What Is The Most Valuable Use for Spirit Miles? Cause It Isn’t Flights!

What Is The Most Valuable Use for Spirit Miles? Cause It Isn’t Flights!

We preach and preach and preach about using your points and miles for travel purchases. That is because it almost always brings you more value than using them for cash back, gift cards, or merchandise but Spirit seems to be the exception.  Their miles are worth so little towards most flights that this is one airline I wish went revenue based for their redemptions! I had a small stash of Spirit miles and it left me wondering what is the most valuable use for Spirit miles?

A More Valuable Redemption

I have recently preached my love for Spirit.  The prices are cheap, the process is efficient, and to many’s disbelief they are the most on time airline.  I am also able to knock another $40 off their already cheap prices with the airport trick.  I even enjoyed using their skip the security line perk for an extra $6, the big 3 would probably charge $25-$50 for the same thing.

That doesn’t mean Spirit doesn’t come with its own issues.  The main one being their miles are near worthless.  Even if you add in cardholders and the limited 2,500-7,500 mile redemptions they can be difficult to use.  Often the prices are 25K each way and it would 100,000 miles worth of flying to earn the 50K needed for a roundtrip flight.

I have kind of been collecting miles with no expectation of ever using them.  I was up to around 5,000 miles after 5-6 roundtrip flights.  That is when I received a mailer for magsformiles.com that said I could use them on magazines. This is nothing new, pretty much every airline lets you redeem their miles for magazines but it isn’t always a great deal.  But with Spirit it was offering me at least some value for my miles, and surprisingly it was a lot more value than I thought it would be.

What Kind of Value Does Mags for Miles Offer?

I had assumed that the miles needed for magazines would be astronomical since the value of Spirit miles is next to nothing.  Man was I wrong!  Here is a sample of some of the prices I saw:

• 39 issues of Sports Illustrated – 200 miles
• 46 issues of Entertainment Weekly – 200 miles
• 11 issues of Golf Digest – 200 miles
• 10 issues of GQ – 200 miles
• 12 issues of SI for Kids – 200 miles
• 12 issues of Wired – 600 miles
• 12 issues of In Style – 900 miles

Those offer some great value and there are quite a few more options too.  39 issues of Sports Illustrated is $20 if you sign up on their website.  If I told you that you could get 10 cents per mile for your Spirit miles would you believe me?  Even if you don’t want/need magazine subscriptions these make great gifts or donations.  Or you could put them in your office waiting room etc.

UPDATE: It appears the mailer I received was some sort of targeted mailer offer.  A reader let me know that the prices they see when clicking through are different.  Be on the look out for a mailer. The normal redemptions seem to be closer to 1-2 cents per point range which is still a lot better than the value you get for booking flights unless you are a credit card holder.

Final Thoughts

As I said above this is nothing new for airlines to pair with magazine companies to offer subscriptions for miles.  But the fact that they give the same prices for Spirit miles that they do for other airlines, or maybe even better prices, is pretty crazy.  I will continue earning my paltry 500 miles per Spirit flight (or whatever it is I get) and use them on magazines.  At least that gives me some kind of value for them.

Have you come up with another way to use Spirit miles outside of on flights?

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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