A friend wants 2 tickets in Y from USA to SIN (stopover) to PER and back to USA. The goal is minimizing cash outlay and he does not care about "getting the best use of the miles".

So, one possible solution is to transfer his Marriott Rewards points to United. It pains me as we would probably redeem a vacation package and throw out 3 out of the 7 nights (they are only staying for 4 nights in SIN). We can get to 160,000 UA miles.

Since SQ award availability is not shown online, we have to call UA to do this. What I am not sure is how we can do this so:

1 - we can have the seats held before we transfer the points from Marriott - UA 1K agent said they can't book with sufficient miles and can't hold for the points to come in

2 - we avoid the $25 service charges for him (he has no status)

So, how do people get around #1 nowadays?

Now...Marriott allows points to be transferred at redemption. So, what happens if he transfers the points to me on the Marriott side. Then I transfer them into my UA account and redeem them? Does this violate any rules?

Thanks.