DrRodneyMcKay

So, although I've been flying since I was about 5 years old and a member of frequent flyer programs since about that age, I must admit no one in my family has ever redeemed miles on a partner airlines. Our strategy has always been "earn points with X airline, redeem points for economy tickets on X airline." I've been getting into miles and points and trying to move past that, but that is what I grew up used to.

So, I have an incredibly simple and dumb question about redeeming miles on partner airlines: how do I know how many miles I need? For example, I have a lot of Delta miles; if I wanted to redeem them on a skyteam partner, how would I know how many miles i need for that redemption? Do they transfer on a 1:1 basis? Or do I have to call and ask how much a particular fare would be? I know most airlines have awards charts, but those are for redemptions using their own miles, not partner miles.

jadecocoa

No transferring of miles to book partner awards. Rules and mileage costs are determined by the program in which you have miles. Book with the airline with which you have miles ie Delta in your case.

Delta doesn't publish award charts, so you have to do dummy bookings on their website to find costs or call. Example searching DTW to ICN will show KE options and pricing.

Most other airlines publish award charts for partners. Example United: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/app...ardTravel.aspx

Check the program forums on FT. All of them discuss partner awards.

Efrem

Specifically as regards Delta, there's a wealth of information in the:

Using SkyMiles on SkyTeam & Other Partners Master Thread

It's a "sticky" so it's always near the top of the Delta forum's main page. It's a long thread, but information on how to use it is at the beginning.

DrRodneyMcKay

Thanks you both in this particular case, I'm not asking about Delta - I have a lot of Turkish miles from reviewing hotels on gezi.com that I'm considering using on a United flight (or perhaps SAS), but a)Turkish's website is the worst thing I have ever seen so I don't even know where to start and b)not all airlines include partner flights when you do a search. For example, if you search for Turkish flights in the U.S. it won't show you United availability. Similarly, if I had miles with Alaska, how would I go about knowing how much they go for for an Emirates fare? Does it require the same number of Alaska miles as Emirates miles? I realize using the word "transfer" was probably not the best choice of vocabulary, as I do know I"m not actually transferring miles from one program to another. Perhaps a better word would be "convert" - i.e. do Turkish miles "convert" at a 1:1 ration when booking flights on partner airlines?

Basically, my question, to sum it up in a different way, is - not all airlines show partner airlines flights when you search for flights - in money or miles - so how would I go about knowing how much that ticket would cost in that partner's miles currency?

Mwenenzi

No transferring or converting of miles to book partner awards.
Rules and mileage costs are determined by the program in which you have miles. (a minor rewrite of a reply above)

You must use the ff currency you have. If you have AS miles and want to use on an award on EK you use the AS chart. Is irrelevant what EK freq flyers would pay in miles & cash for an award flight. AA-QF sample here

Freq flyer miles are not equal to earn or use
Most of the sub forums have threads on awards.

guv1976

Many airlines display partner-award redemption charts on their websites, even if you can't book a partner award on the website.

sdsearch

Those are two separate things.

How much the ticket would cost in miles is determined by award charts (except in the case of Delta), specifically partner award charts (which are often different than award chart for the airline's own flights). In the case of Alaska, the chart is different for each partner (it takes way more Alaska miles to book a flight on Emirates than a flight on other Alaska partners).

You can only redeem through the airline with which you have miles. So to use Delta miles for Delta partners, you still redeem through Delta. To use Alaska miles for Alaska partners, you still redeem through Alaska. (There is no "transfer" or "convert" possible.) So it's not that the partner has different currency, is that the program whose miles you have prices partner flights differently than they price their own flights.

But the totally separate other question is how to search for availability. Just because you have the number of miles required from a chart, that only applies if there is availability (at the lowest level, if applicable) for that flight.

A site which can help you deal with "awful" airline websites is www.awardnexus.com (click "more signup options" under the green Purchase button to sign up for free as a FlyerTalk member). Award Nexus uses a single consistent user interface to search and show availability results for oneworld, Star Alliance, or SkyTeam availability (plus one or two non-alliance airlines). This way you can see which partner flights are available, but you need to combine that with the award chart (and maybe routing rules*) of the miles you're using to know how much that will cost in miles.

* Even the award chart as such doesn't always tell the whole story. To use an example I'm most familiar with, American Airlines has various routing restrictions on awards, such as USA to Africa can only connect through Europe or the Middle East. If the only availability you find from USA to Africa is through Asia (and you don't mind since you're on the USA west coast), that would require two separate AA award (as far as award pricing), USA to Asia and then Asia to Africa.

Also, there may be restrictions you have to now besides the award chart, such as at Alaska that each award booking can only use one partner in addition to Alaska. So if you don't live somewhere where Alaska can connect you, and you have to connect from one Alaska partner to another, you can't do that on one Alaska award booking.

Mwenenzi

A little more on award cost. Freq flyer miles are not equal to earn or use. Some awards can have cash surcharges, in addition to real taxes
Awards assistance tools.
Use at your own risk. These may not be up to date. If a multi segment award check the rules/cost carefully. (These are not recommendations).
- AwardAce: Compare Award Redemptions Across Airlines In Seconds -->http://www.awardace.com/
- Economical Excursionist's Tools to compare Frequent Flyer Mile Redemptions --> http://www.flyermiler.com/
- http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...ast-miles.html --> http://www.awardhacker.com/

dukerau

Turkish is in Star Alliance, so IMO you don't need Award Nexus or any other paid search service. Search for award tickets on United.com. Anything showing saver availability there should be bookable via a phone call to Turkish, and you'll pay the rates according to Turkish's award chart so ignore prices on United.com.

sdsearch

Award Nexus doesn't have to be paid. After signing up for free with my FlyerTalk login, I have used it for 2 years now without paying a penny. You start with 200 points, and then every 90 days or so you can reload 100 more points for free if you are below 10 points. So it depends on how many (or how complicated) searches over how many dates you need to do and how often you do them as to whether you need to start paying or not.

Anyway, my points about AwardNexus is that it's a single user interface for all 3 alliances, and the OP is not tied to *A (their first mention, in fact, was Delta miles). Yes, if someone is only interested in *A for a particular redemption, then United's site is definitely all you need. But if someone doesn't even have a United account yet, then it's not quite as obvious.

In other words, if you want to do it completely free, you can learn the user interface and tricks of half a dozen different airlines' websites, and sign up for all their frequent flier programs, just to do their searches, with a vastly different user interface for each. Or you can do it all through Award Nexus with a single user interface.