Originally Posted by
cserrah
... When miles are earned say, with one airline, is it possible to transfer them to another airline flyer program? When redeeming miles for a flight, can you buy a flight for another person but using your miles? Also, If I purchase a roundtrip ticket that is say 6 months apart from departing and returning, do I only earn miles after the whole flight is over? ...
1. You can't generally* transfer miles from one program to another after you earn them. However, you can, within an alliance, (a) decide in advance which alliance member you earn miles with, even if you fly with another; and (b) having earned miles in one member's program, redeem them for flights on another. Since South African Airways is a member of Star Alliance (*A for short), you can (a) choose to credit your SA flights to UA, and (b) redeem UA miles for flights on SA.
Caveats: (a) a given flight may earn different numbers of miles when credited to two programs; and (b) a given award may require different numbers of miles when purchased through different programs. You have to check the Web sites of the two airlines in question to work out which is the better program for you to use.
2. Yes, you can redeem miles for an award ticket for someone else. It makes a nice present.
3. You get credit for each flight as it's flown. In your example, you'd get credit for one direction right away, the other direction six months later.
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*There are sometimes ways to "launder" miles from one program to another. One method is to transfer them into the Hilton Hotels program, then to the second airline. Even when something like this is possible, the ratios are not favorable; you lose much or most of the miles' value in the process.