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Old Sep 6, 2008 | 1:49 pm
  #3  
MarkXS
10 Countries Visited20 Countries Visited30 Countries Visited15 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Atlántida, Canelones, Uruguay (MVD) and rarely GNV
Programs: AV LifeMiles, CM ConnectMiles, BA Exec Club. Former:ex-ASGold, ex-UA1K, ex-COPlat, ex-NWGold.
Posts: 2,672
Moving forward, you really need to learn and understand about alliances. It makes no sense that you have tiny balances in airline programs that are partners with other airlines where you have large balances and/or status. It is 100% impossible to move these miles after the fact, but it doesn't make any sense to keep up the insanity.

Spanair, United, and US Airways are all in Star Alliance. Unless you have very unusual travel patterns, it never makes sense to actively belong to more than one program within an alliance. Since you are primarily in US Airways as your *A program, when you flew UA or JK (Spanair) you should have given them your US Dividend Miles number rather than joining their program.

Likewise Delta and Northwest have been partners for several years (ignoring the upcoming merger, they're both in Skyteam already). You should have given Delta your Northwest number instead of your Delta number. Also Korean Air is Skyteam and should have gone into your primary Skyteam account, NW.

Alaska (AS) is like Switzerland - it's not in any alliances but it is friendly with all its neighbors You could have credited your Alaska flights to your Northwest account (or Delta, but we've established that NW is your main program in Skyteam.). However, you also could have credited instead your AS flights to American, as they also cooperate. Or you could have credited your AA flights to AK.

There are quite a few FTers who don't use an AA, NW, or DL account and instead credit all those flights to Alaska due to its wide range of US and international partners which cross alliances.

At this point, once you figure out which programs to earn in going forward, there's not much you can do with the small balances other than get magazine subscriptions or maybe some $25 dining card or gift cert depending on the program. I'd suggest you keep using the NW program for all your NW and other Skyteam airline earnings, along with any other future flights on AK. Don't worry about the orphaned 10,400 in DL because within a year or less after the merger, the NW+DL accounts would be combined. I would make sure you buy something through the DL mall or do some small activity to make sure those DL miles don't expire.

You could keep the AA account for the apparently rare times you fly AA or other oneworld alliance carriers. Maybe even credit any future Alaska flights to it to help top it up to a reward level, instead of crediting those AK flights to NW. Or dump that account and do the reverse, crediting AA and other happen-to-be-oneworld flights to AK instead, building that up. But you really don't have enough miles in either of those programs to care about.

Hotels - given you have low bals in all but HHonors, I'd change your earnings preference at the other Points-OR-Miles chains to earn airline miles instead of points. For example Choice Hotels gives 250 miles for each stay; I find that more valuable to feed my NW or UA programs per-stay than saving up Choice points, since they're maybe my 5th choice hotel program. Otherwise don't think you can do much useful with those other low balances. As far as Hilton HHonors, I don't know if you're earning Points-and-miles or Point-and-Points. If you value the miles more, you probably want HHonors set up to feed your primary airline program (which looks like it should be NW). If you are saving up for Hilton stays, then probably Points-and-Points is a better deal going forward, at least until you hit your target HH award level.
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