Originally Posted by
AirFjord
Regarding redeeming flights from CMH to AES (Alesund, Norway), Hipmunk suggests the following layover scenarios:
United: CMH - Newark - Oslo - AES
Air Canada: CMH - Toronto - Copenhagen - AES
SAS: CMH - Chicago - Copenhagen - AES
Swiss: CMH - Chicago - Zurich - Oslo - AES
Lufthansa: CMH - Chicago - Frankfurt am Main - Oslo - AES
Using points from United Airlines (Mileage Plus), will it matter which Star Alliance airline I choose? Regarding points transfers, award redemption, fuel charge, etc … will one option cost more points than another?
Using miles from United Airlines, it's United Airlines that determines the mileage requirements. So you should be able to figure it all out on their website.
From a miles collecting perspective, it's irrelevant right now which one you'll choose. One might cost a bit more fuel charge or be easier for award redemption, but both of those can change a lot between now and when you're ready to book. And you'll be using the exact same miles to book in any of those cases.
The only difference is that,
if you cannot find "saver" availability on any Star Alliance carrier (when it comes to redeem your miles), only a United Airlines "metal" routing (ie, flying United as far as possible) qualifies for "anytime" availablity (which cost double the miles). (You have to have "saver' availability for the last leg on SAS, but IME that's never the problem, it's getting across the Atlantic that's the problem and/or getting from CMH to the domestic hub that's the problem, if any.)
So if you have enough miles for an "anytime" award (and you actually want to use them that way), that would only be availbe on the first routing you choose. In any other case, all those routings and even more* might be possible, but which ones are possible can't be determined until you have miles in hand and the acceptable travel dates in your mind and are ready to book.
*By "even more" routings, I mean that you have to accept that while you may want to go straight from CPH (Copenhagen) to AES, and there is such a flight there, the avialability on a given day might only be CPH-OSL-AES. Or if you want to go straight from OSL (Olso) to AES, and there is such a flight there, the availability on a given might only be OSL-CPH-AES! Keep this in mind ahead of time, so you don't reject a "good" routing, if that's avialable for your best travel dates, in search of a "perfect" one which might not exist.