Originally Posted by kapmap

Next year my husband and I would like to go to Australia using miles for business class. At present, I have approximately 320,000 miles and he has 54,000 miles. I think we need to have the 480,000 that the mid range requires.

Right now Delta has a special which allows transfer of miles to another person for .01 per mile and a bonus of 50%. So for him to transfer 50,000 miles to me would cost $530.00 including the processing fee and he would retain 25,000 miles. Additionally, I am thinking of putting $50,000 into a Fidelity account to get the 25,000 bonus miles for him. And I am thinking I could also give him 66,000 miles to have him have enough miles for one way business class which would cost $690.00. 54,000-25000 to me +25000 fidelity +66000 from me would equal 120,000 for one ticket one way.

I would have the 320,000 + 50,000 from him - 33,000 to him equals 327,000 I need 360,000 or 23,000 additional miles that I would get from spending on the AMEX card -- we use it for everything and the miles go to me. I think that this would be good by April or so of next year.

I do not know if he can transfer to me and I can then transfer to him -- did not see a prohibition against it. This would cost us $1,220 to do the transfers -- which is considerably less than the business class tickets would cost.

Is this a good plan? Is there something better that I am missing? We have the Delta Platinum AMEX card and spend the $50,000 plus a year so we get the additional 20,000 miles and that gives me medallion status as well.

Any other ideas to consider?

Thanks much!