nyttro

Hi everyone, I have two friends who each flew a quite long (for them ;D )multiple city flight but will most likely not fly again in the next few years. But they would let ME use their miles for myself.
So my question is how to maximize their miles on a new account to make at least one free flight out of it. They were flying AF with DL code share on these routes:

TXL-CDG-ATL-CLT-ATL-AUS-SLC-SFO-CDG-TXL
K T T U L Q Q V V

dont know if this is of any importance at all for my question but I thought I mention it.

So, should I both sign them up on DL Skymiles and then transfer the miles to one account? As far as I know Skymiles is the only FF program that lets you transfer miles to another account.
Should I sign them up to some other FF program where they will get so many welcome miles or member gets member miles so both accounts will have a free flight?
Or should I combine the two options above as far as possible?

Thanks for any tips
Regards
Max

sbm12

Welcome to FlyerTalk!!

You can transfer miles between accounts in a couple different programs, including Continental OnePass, but you pay a fee to do so. This makes the transfer option less than ideal.

The fare classes for the DL flights within the US are the lowest ones DL offers, so getting credit for the flights in a non-DL program may not yield 100% credit.

And the routing they took is actually about 14,000 miles so neither of them has enough miles for a redemption. Combining the two you probably would, but you'll pay a couple hundred bucks to combine them, significantly cutting into the value of the "free" ticket.

I'm not sure that there is really a good way to get use out of the miles. Sorry.

dvs7310

Most US based programs allow transferring of miles, but the cost is too high to make sense typically. I have found that I can usually take a well thought mileage run for a similar price as I can transfer miles. With the mileage run I get my elite miles in additon to the RDMs.

Considering that most 25,000 mile level tickets can be purchased for $200-500, then I'd feel pretty stupid for paying $200 in transfer fees to get some of those 25,000 miles transferred into my account.

If you're going to do this then I'd probably use NW Worldperks. Overall I think worldperks is a better program for redemption (in its current form) and you can get some bonuses in the current Miles to Go Promo for transferring miles.

This also will depend on what programs you currently have miles in. If you already have 200,000 miles in Skymiles and none in Worldperks then it will make more sense for you to have them use and then transfer into that program then cash in for some higher dollar international Business Class awards rather than a low dollar domestic coach award.

nyttro

It was originally an AF flight. And with FB there is often these web awards for 10000 miles for some intra european flights or something like that. Usually it's not worth using these because paying the ridiculous fees just makes me fly easyjet (where it usually is direct too).

But sometimes it might be still getting more expensive on easyjet than paying the high fees for an award ticket.

Is there any program that gives you 5000 miles as a welcome bonus on top? This would make 19000 miles out of this flight, then Ill make them rent a car and itll be 20000 which already would make it a free flight inside the US.

I guess then FB is the best way still, is there any member gets member promotion for FB?

Thanks

dvs7310

Flying Blue used to have a sign up bonus for the new member if they took a flight within a certain amount of time after singing up. You might still see it that exists.

None of the US based programs have a 20,000 mile award for intra-US travel anymore, now its 25k to start and goes up from there.