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TAP Air Portugal is running a Black Friday promotion that’s going through November 30. They’re offering the opportunity to buy 150,000 miles for $999 which reduces the cost to 0.67cpp (cents per point). Sounds great, huh?
Well, not so fast. That’s because although TAP is giving you the gift of bonus miles, they’re also giving you the gift of delayed gratification this holiday period.
The Deal
- Earn 150,000 TAP Air Portugal miles when subscribing to their Club Platinum tier.
- Direct link to offer.
Key Terms
- Join by November 30, 2023.
Quick Thoughts
TAP Air Portugal runs a subscription service called Club, with there being four different tiers – Basic, Extra, Top and Platinum (I guess ‘Top’ means something else in Portuguese – perhaps ‘Penultimate’ 😉 ). Each tier level offers bonus miles and additional perks like status miles, extra miles on paid TAP flights, Silver status (at the top Platinum tier) and more.
The Club Platinum level is the one with the most generous offer at the moment as it’s giving a total of 150,000 miles for the cost of a $999 annual subscription. While that’s a fairly hefty annual fee, it could certainly be worth it for the right person. TAP charges an ordinarily uncompetitive 100,000 miles one-way between the US and Europe in business class. With them charging $999 for 150,000 miles though, your effective cost for 100,000 of those miles is $666 – not too shabby, even if TAP’s business class product isn’t the best in the skies.
There’s a pretty big catch though which is something I alluded to above. Club is a subscription service which means you don’t get those 150,000 miles in one go like you would with normal ‘buy x miles for $y’ promotions. Instead, you get 54,000 miles when you subscribe, then 8,000 miles per month for the next 12 months. That means it’ll take six months before you’ll have enough miles for a one-way business class flight to Europe provided TAP doesn’t devalue their program between now and next May and/or remove award availability. If you’re not planning on booking any flights in the next six months this might make sense, but it does mean forking out $999 in the meantime.
Something else important to consider is that TAP Air Portugal’s miles expire 3 years after their date of accrual. That means that in 35 months time you wouldn’t be able to extend the life of all your miles by transferring in miles from Capital One (the only transferable currency with TAP as a partner). Instead, those initial 54,000 miles would expire if you hadn’t redeemed them, then you’d lose 8,000 miles every month for 12 months if you hadn’t redeemed them by then. I guess it’s apt that your TAP mileage balance might spring a leak after too long.
There’s therefore a decent amount of risk involved with this promotion, but there is some value to be had nonetheless. If you happened to already have 50,000 miles in your TAP Miles&Go account, this offer could make even more sense. That’s because you’d get an immediate boost of 54,000 miles, thereby giving you enough miles to book a flight to/from Europe in business class now, then you’d accrue enough miles over the course of a year to do the same again.
h/t Marcos
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I did this – twice. Ended up with a total of 290k miles. Back then you could go round trip from North America to South America in business for 100k, so I burned 200k on two roundtrips to Bolivia on AC and AV. Still have 90k floating about and trying to figure out a good use.
That South America sweet spot is now gone, so not nearly as good of a deal nowadays.
Go ahead and buy. I did last year and was sorry to make this purchase. It is the worst deal of all the frequent mileage programs. It is worst than delta pesos
Caveat emptor when it comes to TAP business practices.
For those of us on the USA East Coast, It makes more sense to use 35,000 Avianca miles to go One-Way in business class to Lisbon and then to use the TAP miles to return.
Some other things to consider: 1) TAP is in the process of being sold so there is a good chance these points will be worth more 12 months down the road (also might not happen, and they could somehow be worth less), 2) If you aren’t using these points in the next 3 years you shouldn’t be buying them, and even then there are ways of delaying the expiration (by having status or rejoining the club), 3) The purchase codes as an airline purchase per TAP so some incremental value there potentially
Why do you think a potential buyer (of the airline) would give those miles a higher value?
The interested buyers are Air France/ KLM, the Lufthansa group and and the IAG group (BA/ Iberia etc), so you would likely end up with a more valuable currency (lots of ifs and buts so YMMV)
What’s TAP J availability like, for members of their own program?
TAP releases some saver space to partners and has some rewards only available at a higher price to TAP members. Think of it similar to TK.
You don’t even have three years. A portion of the initial miles are bonus miles, so they’re actually only valid for a year.
That said, there is a way to extend validity of the miles, and that’s being a Club TAP Top or Platinum member at when the miles would expire. They automatically extend for a year at that point.
What if we transfer from Capital One now , combine with the 54k initial deposit.
I guess even then at 108k per award it is a hefty price ( redemption)