I am in the process of redeeming a 200K award from Marriott (just waiting for some Amex points to post). I was waiting to see how the US/UA merger would work out, but have decided to get the reward now. (I need the hotel portion of the award for May and the 'rumble' about Marriott changing requirements for this award has made me nervous).

I have a bit of a quandry. I can't decide where to put the 120K miles from this award. I am 2nd tier elite with US, but the way this award is structured, I would not get the full 120K if I send the miles to US. I am not elite with any other airline.

My primary purpose in accruing these miles would be use them on long-haul (Asia, South Pacific, Africa) FC tickets for my wife and myself Essentially, my choices are United, Delta, American or Continental.

I have just a few miles with United and if the merger doesn't go through, the miles would be orphaned. I have the ability to accrue more miles on AA, CO, and DL and currently have 10K miles on CO, 70K miles on AA and will soon have 100K miles on DL. I have only flown US metal for the last several years and accrued these miles through other programs (A big thanks to everyone here).

So, my question is this. Where should I put the miles? I've done some checking of the various awards available, both the named airlines and their partners and alliances but still can' t decide. It's amazing how complicated this is when considering all the possibilities.

What do you think?

I'd put them (120,000) in AA. You'll be close to 200,000 (sign up with MCI or VISA will put you there) which will be enough for all sorts of awards. One that I think is very good - AA/TAM First class from the US to just about anywhere in Brasil for 100,000 per ticket or 5 coach tickets at 40,000 each.

Happy flying

I'm going though a similar dilemma. For me it probably comes down to AA, UA, or CO - I have 125k AA already and about 225k toward lifetime gold so 120k more is nice. UA flies more international routes directly from WAS than the other airlines. However, CO is running some incredible award sales right now.

After giving this some thought, I have decided to move the miles to AA. CO was never really a consideration as I don't currently have any significant miles there. Also, I still think the UA/US merger is too iffy to use UA.


That left DL and AA. I finally decided to go with AA the following reasons:
-if I have orphan miles, I would rather have them with DL. DL has a better conversion factor (1:2) with HHonors than AA (1:1).
-I can use Amex MR points to top out my DL acount for an award if needed
-any miles with AA count towards their Million Miles status
-AA's alliance partners are superior to those of DL's alliance. Their non-alliance partnes seem to be better also. (IMHO)
-Until 8/01, I can still combine AA and US miles for awards on US & AA metal. Certificates issued in 8/01 should be good thru 8/02. Also there is a possiblity that if you have an award issued on US and decide to return it (for a fee), the AA miles would end up in my US account. (the same may apply for US miles for AA awards purchased this way)
-AA has some awards where the miles needed for 2 tix is better than other airlines.


At this point, I'm still about 65K miles short of the awards on AA (or its partners) that I'm interested in. My MCI account is already with AA; but I'll be changing my Hotel & Car programs to accrue AA miles as quickly as I can. Also, I'll be doing my best to take advantage of their dining program.

[This message has been edited by BillMorrow (edited 03-16-2001).]

...and don't forget, there's always Nutri Grain bars !!!

If you think that you can get a better deal buying the airfare, then park the miles in a FF account that you will never fly and sell them to a broker. 120K miles should get you around $2000.

Then use the money to buy a ticket on your favorite airline and get even more miles.

Bill, Sounds like you're on the fast track to 1M lifetime miles on AA. Quick question, where did you tell Marriott you were going to get the max AA miles out of them?

I settled on AA as well. I redeemed the 713 award late Friday afternoon and the miles showed up in my Aadvantage account this morning. I requested Europe which yielded the maximum, 120k miles.

In case you haven't heard, there are strong indications that Marriott will change this award soon:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum63/HTML/000643.html