I’m relatively new here and I’d appreciate some advice and comments. Although I’ve redeemed my share of international premium seat awards I’ve also saved lots of miles, more than a few hundred thousand on each of United/Continetal, American, US Air and Delta. I’m not a business traveler yet I’ve managed to maintain Premier Executive on United for several years by doing a couple of MRs each year and taking advantage of credit card EQM promotions. I’ve got lifetime Gold on American mainly through BD and Credit Cards bonuses (THANK YOU FT!). My plan is to achieve lifetime Platinum and then not worry about maintaining status with United.

I just signed up for the Amtrak and Choice Hotels programs, I don’t have any plans to actually travel or stay with either of them. I’m thinking about transferring 300,000 or 400,000 or 500,000 United/Continetal miles to Amtrak then to Choice then to American. As far as I can tell I’ll lose 40% of the initial miles in the process but it might be worth it to me. (A quick search for Amtrak and Choice credit cards didn’t reveal any major (>50,000) sign-up bonuses so I’m not certain getting either of their credit cards would be helpful and worth the hit to my ability to get other credit cards.)

I’m wondering if there’s a flaw in my understanding of the transfer process that I’m not aware of. Do the Amtrak or Choice programs require any “real” participation (a train ride or a hotel stay)? Is there a limit to the number of miles or points that can be transferred? Is the process highly time consuming? Is there a significant $ cost? Anything else?

Thank you very much.