The typical redemption estimate of a mile is 1 cent. Often $250 tickets are 25,000 miles, $500 tickets are 50,000 miles, etc. When you find a $1000 ticket for 25,000 use miles. I've seen $600 tickets for 125,000 miles. That's a bad use of miles.

Many credit cards give you about 1% bonus (points, miles, whatever) and miles cards give you a mile per dollar spent. 1% of a dollar is 1 cent. So this math makes sense.

He got 1000 miles for 2.50. If each mile is worth 1 cent, that's a 4x benefit. Great, but not amazing. He got a tax deduction too, so maybe it was a 5-6x benefit. Sounds like a bit of a hassle, but the other perks sound great.

Anyway, the article should say $15,000 worth of miles. The airline might sell them to you for $150,000 but that's why you should never buy miles unless there's a tiny gap in what you have/need for a flight. For example, United will sell you 50,000 miles for $1881.25 which you can then redeem for a ~$500 ticket and not earn miles on that flight.