MilesBuzz! - Transfers of AA miles into UA Miles help!

I was hoping someone could help me. I've would like to transfer some miles I have in the AA program over to my United program. I have around 37,000 miles in the AA program but I can't seem to find on their web site how to go about the transfer. I was thinking of either putting them into my Starwood or Hilton program. I assume the Starwood program would be better as I could also claim the 5,000 mile bonus for the first 20,000 miles transfered. Can anybody help?? I had assumed I could do it on line but I've searched high and low and can't find any mention of transfers from airline to hotel programs. Thank you

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Other than Hilton, there are no airline programs, including AA, that you can transfer miles into. No AA to Starwood, the 5000 bonus is from Starwood to the airlines. Laundering points/miles is usually a losing situation.

37000 miles? Fly somewhere!

Thanks.

I didn't know that. I'm still somewhat new to all of this. I would go somewhere if I could but I can't right now and as I'm living in Australia at the moment, AA although tied thru OneWorld with Qantas, is not one of the carriers I use at the moment. The reason for not flying QF and building the points up is that they only credit 70% of the miles from QF to AA. I am a UA 1P and can get double mileage on the MEL/LAX route opposed to 70% on QF.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Jetlag68:
Thanks.

I didn't know that. I'm still somewhat new to all of this. I would go somewhere if I could but I can't right now and as I'm living in Australia at the moment, AA although tied thru OneWorld with Qantas, is not one of the carriers I use at the moment. The reason for not flying QF and building the points up is that they only credit 70% of the miles from QF to AA. I am a UA 1P and can get double mileage on the MEL/LAX route opposed to 70% on QF.</font>

What you can do if you are willing loose half of your miles is:

* Get Diners club card
* Transfer 30000 AA Miles into 30000 diners club rewards points
* Then transfer 30000 club rewards points to 15000 UA miles

There are some fees associated with the transfer. If you need more info you can email me.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by stevenl57:
Other than Hilton, there are no airline programs, including AA, that you can transfer miles into. </font>

Continental and Midwest Express transfer in Amtrak.
Amtrak transfers into Continental, Midwest Express, and United.

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Thank you VENKAT.

Not quite sure I'm willing to lose that many miles. As I mentioned, I'm new to this and from some of the postings on this site, I thought there might have been a easier way to do it. I've got a lot to learn still!

You are much better off trying to figure out a way to use as many as you can then transfering them.

I discovered that at aa.vacations, miles can be used toward land only packages. I don't think the rate is the best but it might be better than convert

I guess there is no real hurry and I could always try keeping them alive as you suggest by dining or taking a cheapy MEL/SYD on QF. It's just that I now have the majority of my miles with UA and QF and would like to concentrate on them. Your suggestion about an AAcom vacation is also an excellent suggestion and worth looking into to. Thank you.

If you want the miles on AA to increase your lifetime total, you'll have to take the 50% hit.

If you want the miles for award ticketing, then you should wait for next year around June. Diners has done a bonus where it transfers points to BA miles 1:1. So all you pay is the service fee. It's a great way for people who has UA miles to get miles for oneWorld airline awards.

Since you have 37K points with AA, then why not earn another 3K and redeem the lot for a business class flight to AKL or NAN? At least you'll have something to talk about.

What ever you choose to do, consider leaving enough orphan miles for a free ticket someplace. You never know when a situtation will come up and you need to get someplace in a hurry, having the miles available at a couple of different airlines gives you some choice in ticketing.

Hilton has lots of redemption opportunities, not just the hotels. So if it were some airline other than AA, I'd suggest you consider a Hilton transfer and leaving them their.

But since the AA to Hilton transfer rate is 1::1, as opposed to 1::2 for most other airlines, it may not be worth it. But even with just 37,000 HHonors points, you may wish to browse the Hilton website (http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/index.jhtml) to see what you can get from them.

Here's a sample of what 40K can get you:
+ Hotel: up to 6 nights (varies greatly)
+ Air: Hawaii interisland fare or US Companion fare
+ Car: two free days

Check out the Hilton forum (http://www.flyertalk.com/forumcgi/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=Hilton&number=57&DaysPrune=5&SUBMIT=Go) to see how to easily get your balance to an even 40K or more, and for more suggestions on what to do with 40K points.

BTW, you can look here (http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/exchange.jhtml) to see that when your Hilton points turn into UA miles, you'd only have about 7,000 miles, so that clearly isn't worth it.

And finally, you just never know about mergers. When TWA was bought by AA, for example, the TWA and AA accounts were combined. Nobody really knows when and if that would happen again, but it could work to your advantage.

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 09-24-2002).]