Star Alliance would be great because Lott is part of it. I have a little under 100k United miles and 300k+ Amex points.
I was once told that ANA lets you get Amex pts into the StarAlliance system, but calls to UA, Lott,and ANA go nowhere.
I am frustrated and just do not know enough about the 'system.'
Can I move Amex pts? Would it pay to buy another 100k UA miles?
Lott has direct flights from ORD and JFK and both are easy to reach from Ft Myers.
Can you help me out??
Thanks!!!
Given those amounts of points, your best bet is going to be moving points from Amex to a Star Alliance carrier. You can move from Amex to Continental or Aeroplan (Air Canada). Looking at your desired location, it's going to be cheaper to go through Aeroplan.
Also, you don't need to learn ANA, since your redemption is not super complicated.
1) Open an Aeroplan account (
www.aeroplan.com).
2) Use the Aeroplan website to search. Break it apart into RSW to EWR, then EWR to WAW. If you can leave midweek, I found Business class availability from RSW to EWR, then from EWR to WAW. (For instance, leaving April 21 and returning May 4.) On an international flight, you're allowed to stay overnight in New York. That might help find evening flights.
3) Call the Aeroplan centre with some options that you found. You'll need to call unless you can get the website to do RSW to WAW in one selection, which I wasn't able to do. Make sure they find the whole thing.
4) Transfer 160,000 points from Amex to Aeroplan - there's online instructions at the aeroplan site.
5) Book it online, or through the call centre.
You can do the entire thing online through Continental - they have a good rewards website - but their cost is 105K miles each. I don't think a couple of phone calls are worth 50,000 points (210K vs. 160K).