US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - 1500 US Miles - What to do?

Hi, I'm not a regular US flyer & I've got 1500 miles on US that are essentially un-usable to me.

Does US have any transfer programs (like you can transfer AA miles in Hilton at the 5K mark?). If so, which programs?

If there are any useful options to transferring miles at the 5K mark, I may try to do this & earn the other 3500 miles by dining options (if they participate in IDine) or by other non-flying cheap means if anyone here as any suggestions.

Thanks in advance!

The following response won't help:

Honestly, dude, for 1500 miles, why bother?

If it was 15,000 miles, I'd understand.

Now realize this is coming from another frequent mile hoarder. I really hope you aren't spending like 20 hours on this.

Yes they are in idine. But no transfer options, you will need to get to 10K for upgrades or 20K for a off peak saver award.

With my little used accounts, I just make sure the miles don't expire ... usually there's enough free promos and such that it's pretty straight forward to do that. Worst case, I'd credit a rental car or Hilton stay to the account to keep it from expiring. Maybe I'm silly, but I just like having my accounts with some sort of history (admittedly, I have actually flown at least once with the airlines I have accounts with, BA and HA being the exceptions) in case I ever switch carriers. I also have a thing where I like to credit flights to their "native" accounts, even if I could credit it to a partner.

You never know what kind of promos might come up in the future that will enable you to build up account balances quickly (double mile transfers from Diners, AA's 20/20, or NW's Fly Free Faster are examples).

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nawlinsdoc:
The following response won't help:

Honestly, dude, for 1500 miles, why bother?</font>

I agree, I was just wondering if there was anything I could do with 1500 - I figured there wouldn't be much, but you never know - with AA, I could get 10K in Hilton points, but wasn't sure if US participated in anything like that. I'm not going to spend 20 hours, but I got my monthly statement via e-mail & I figured it can't hurt to ask the US experts!

I wasn't trying to belittle you (God knows the things I've done in the name of FF miles).

It's just that for 1500 miles, it's not worth it to do anything if youre never going to fly the airline again.

One suggestion: Delta and AA have sent me stuff in the mail about their magazine subscrption programs (I have low balances in both). I mean, if you get SI or People or something anyway, why not use the miles? I actually don't know if US participates, but maybe this is worth the effort.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nawlinsdoc:
I wasn't trying to belittle you (God knows the things I've done in the name of FF miles).</font>

don't worry! i didn't think you were - i totally understand your logic - I agree with it. I'll keep the account open because as it is suggested above, free promos come around all the time.

I also had about 2k in UA and with the 20K credit card promo & switching of my long distance to sprint, I earned enough to get a free ticket on UA & I actually now have 2 tix booked on UA that I would never have even thought of booking otherwise.

I had the same thing with another airline. Try going to http://www.milepoint.com/. There are always magazine subscriptions available to use up these miles.

US does participate in miles for magazines, and it can be accessed via Milepoint. US does not let you transfer miles to other airlines or the like. Looks like you've gotta earn another 18,500 for the lowest available award. The only other option would be to transfer enough miles into your account from something like a frequent guest program or Diners Club in order to have enough to redeem an award.

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No thanks, I'm just lurking. Call me the Lurker!

www.freebizmags.com (http://www.freebizmags.com) as noted in one of the SPAM threads allows the use of USAir (that's what they call them) miles for certain magazines. Look for the Barrons or WSJ threads in the last week for more info. I think 13 weeks of WSJ is 1300 miles.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by nawlinsdoc:
I wasn't trying to belittle you (God knows the things I've done in the name of FF miles).</font>

Warning: thread creep.

Last February, I was booking a SuperShuttle run up to the airport online, when I saw that they were giving away 50 America West miles with every online booking.

Now I've flown HP just once (and credited the miles to Continental), but I opened a new browser window on my computer, created an HP frequent-flyer account -- spending maybe 15 minutes in the process -- and pluged my brand-new Flight Fund number into the SuperShuttle Web page for 50 friggin' miles. What am I going to do with 50 America West miles? This can't be healthy. But then again, maybe acknowledging the problem is the first step toward recovery.