dukerau

You can't turn Amex points into UA miles without a major hit, something like 10K MR = 2K UA. Ouch. You'd be better off paying fuel surcharges and using ANA or Aeroplan miles. If you can find award flights where the transatlantic flight is on UA, SK, SN, TK, or SR, then you can use Aeroplan/ANA without paying fuel surcharges. LO is another option with modest fuel surcharges. If you can find an award on such flights, I would do 90K UA to get 3 one-ways and 30K Aeroplan to get the 4th one-way. Unless the route you find costs only 43K ANA round trip, in which case I'd consider doing all of it with ANA miles (86K total for both round trips). For example, if you could find EWR-BRU-BUD and then return AMS-BRU-EWR, you could use 86K for both round trips and then use your Southwest companion pass for MSY-EWR. Keep in mind that SN award seats don't appear on united.com - use aeroplan.com or ana.com to search SN. All other European carriers wills how availability on united.com.

beckoa

Welcome to Flyertalk jkoj. Since this post is specifically about Membership Rewards (MR) from American Express we'll try your post over there. If you want to develop your discussion more for the other programs please hit the triangle to alert us for a move, or open a thread in the forum you want to know more about.

For those replying, please note this thread originated in the Flame Free Information Desk

~beckoa, Information Desk co-Moderator

DealAddict

They don't appear on aeroplan.com either, just ANA.

dukerau

Interesting - I had to check because I remember seeing SN flights for BRU-FCO yesterday on aeroplan.com. It looks like international SN flights (at least US-Europe) do not show on aeroplan.com, but intra-Europe SN flights do.

februaryfour

I know how many miles I need to use when I redeem my United miles for business class or first class tickets. However, in order to make a valid comparison between United and Amex, I'd like to know how many miles I need to use to redeem my Amex points for a business class or first class ticket. For the record, let's say we are looking at 60,000 United Miles for a business class trip to Asia. (Possible with saver awards.) I have the United club card, giving me 1.5 miles/$, so this is $40,000 in spending. What's the equivalent spend to get the number for Amex points needed for a business class ticket to Asia? (Or, how many Amex points does it take?)

As a follow on point, I usually get tickets in pairs, because my husband and I usually travel together. I know that Amex Platinum has some kind of a companion fare thing. How exactly does that work?

I'm sorry if these questions sound very strange to long time Amex card holders, but I have never had an AMEX card before, and I don't know if it's worth plopping down the $495 fee just to compare the United Club and Amex Platinum cards.

mia

To redeem for business class tickets you would transfer Membership Rewards points to an airline frequent flyer program, and the number of miles required would be determined by the program not by American Express.

I suggest that you begin by reading the Wikipost at the top of this thread to understand the programs to which you can transfer, and the airlines on which you can fly. You cannot transfer to United, but you can still fly on United.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...l-program.html

You can read about the companion benefit here. It is of no interest unless you typically purchase unrestricted full fare tickets.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...n-members.html

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

And note that some Amex MR airline transfer partners will assess surcharges on award travel. Be sure to take all costs into account when making any comparisons.

februaryfour

Thank you! I was unaware it worked this way. I guess for United-centric flyers, the UA MP program is still the way to go. Thanks in particular for the links, I had no idea that was actually THE way to do it and not an option.

miasmal

Didn't AMEX end points transfer to United a long time ago? Also, you don't need to spend $40k to get 60k points. You can pretty much buy them outright at $0.019/mile or $1140 from United.

I never saw value in AMEX airline ticketing - either through points or companion fare program. Or is it just me?

februaryfour

That's $1140 more than I would like to spend. The $40k is from spending we would already be making anyway (including charging college tuition).

ETA: $1890 for 60,000 miles. (Just to confirm my math.) That's $3780 round trip. Not really a savings. ^_^ Also, apologies, it was 80k miles for a business one-way award in saver. But I'm off-topic. Thanks for the info!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

While it's true that you can't transfer Amex MR points to UA, you can still transfer MR points to other FFPs (like Aeroplan and ANA) that permit you to redeem for award travel on UA flights.

In some cases, it's cheaper to redeem for award flights from a partner's program than from the program of the airline you actually want to fly. For example, a nonstop award flight on AA (which is not an Amex transfer partner) from NYC/PHL to YUL/YYZ would cost 12,500 AA miles in Coach or 25,000 AA miles in Business, one way, as a "SAAver" award. The very same award seat would cost just 4,500 BA Avios in Coach, or 9,000 BA Avios in Business. (BA is an MR transfer partner.)

eajusa

I really got to check these BA Avios out. I will be flying AA more now with the merger with US.

mmjaysee

Sorry for a newbie style question, but I'm not familiar with either MR or UA programs. If I see a United domestic award flight available for 10K miles (economy saver award), can I book that using MR points via Air Canada or ANA or Singapore? Which one would be the best to transfer to? I don't have any Star Alliance frequent flyer accounts (except UA) so I'd have to create one. Any advice on which one allows this sort of transfer/redemption would be greatly appreciated!!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Yes, you can; but you'll pay the redemption rate of whatever program you redeem from, which will likely be more than 10K miles that Mileage Plus would charge. I know that Aeroplan specifically allows one-way redemptions; not sure about the others.

What route?

sdsearch

Why MR then?

If you act quickly*, you can probably get a UA card which will give 5 times as many real UA miles as you need (ie, 50k bonus miles) for a 10k UA redemption:
(*That 50k bonus miles offer for anyone ends 6/2, ie in just over a week. It's normally 30k for people without UA status, and only 50k for people with UA status.)

And there are other (though all Chase cards) that earn Ultimate Rewards points that can be transferred 1:1 to UA itself.

So if you're not familiar with MR, it sounds like you therefore don't already have tons of MR points sitting around, so why collect MR points iwith Amex cards if your goal is UA flights?

Then if you only need one or two 10k flights for now, just learn how to inexpensively keep your UA miles for expiring, and you'll have some more real UA miles the next time you eye 10k flights you want.