After taking a few int'l flights without FF miles or even a program, I finally wised up and started.

Currently, I am with United and the *A and have about 35K miles. I am also a HHonors member with about 35K points as well. This is my CC situation right now:

1. Miles Plus w/ United
2. HHonors visa (just arrived) 40K miles after $1K
3. Am Ex SPG (didnt come yet)

My strategy is to put one item on #3 and then convert it to my United miles with the 1:2 ratio. Question: the ratio would be 1:1 if I was to xfter the miles to say US Airways. Could I open up a FF US Airways acct and then afterwards xter the miles 1:1 to my already existing United acct, or can I not do that. I will get 10K points w/o any real spend on this card. Can miles from US AIrways get transfered to United?

I havent charged anything to #2. Is this card a good idea to have...what about the 40K points? Is that offer a pretty good offer? Is it ever a good idea to xfer the points with a 10:1 ratio to my United account?


Finally, I want to open up some other credit cards, but not sure when...how much of a hit will it give me if I open one or two more in the next month? I am thinking about the Sapphire Plus, but I will wait at least 1-2 wks for the spend to get down to 2K. Is this a good card to have...I then want to xfer to my United acct.

So basically, should I work on the HHonors card now to get the 40K miles or simply jump right into the Sapphire Plus card? Currently, all expenses (except gas which is on my 5% discover cash back card) is on the United Explorer card.

What about the HH card that gives you gold status, but no miles? It also gives you 2 wknd stays. I dont really know how much the gold status would help me since I prefer Hampton Inns (already has free BF and Internet) but I like the idea of the two free nights on weekends. Do you think this card is worth it w/o the miles?

Finally, what about other offers from say American Airlines? Should I only concentrate on one airline? I chose United since I booked my overseas trip a few months ago with a friend's FF miles, and it worked out very well for me, as I was able to travel for free, and the website is easy to use, and the dates for the trip seemed very wide open, so it sounds like a good program.

thanks!

You can not transfer miles from us air to united.

oh, i thought all miles were fungible in *A. Guess not.

You can use USAir miles on United or any other Star alliance partner. I strongly advise against transferring SPG to UA, too much devaluation. Most people would recommend using the points for SPG hotels, but transferring 1:1 (to US or other partner) is not a bad second option.

ok, so the miles can be USED but not transferred? If I was to use the miles, do I have to go through the US Airways website/program or can I enter the information into the United program?

Anyone have any comments about the credit card question I have? It sounds like getting the US Airways miles might be more trouble than what its worth for me.

I would recommend applying for the Barclay's US Airways Visa, it gives 40,000 miles on your first spend of any amount. You can then transfer SPG points to your US Airways account. Use the US Airways miles to book seats on any Star Alliance flight, but if you use them for US Airways flights, you save 5,000 miles per ticket for having a US Airways visa. They also have great discounts for flight to Europe in January and February. Barclay's uses the Transunion credit bureau, which hardly any other company ever does, so it is like getting a card that no one will ever notice the credit inquiry on your credit report for.

Next, focus on meeting the minimum spend on the cards you have already committed to! When you are close to done, then consider what cards will most meet your travel goals. Without knowing what your goals are (Coach or Business class? Europe or Asia or South America or Australia? From what home airport?) It is hard to recommend anything else.

No, you always book award flights with the airline that you draw mileage from, either by using their website and/or you may need call them up. Each airline operates their own frequent flyer program and you can not interchange or combine miles from one program to another. In your case, you can redeem US miles for flights operated by UA if and only if you have sufficient miles in your US account to make such redemption. Please invest sometime to read and study the basics about airline mileage programs and airline alliances.

In terms of which credit cards to apply, I'd suggest you first come up with a goal then try to see how many airline miles or hotel points you'll need to support such a goal, either as an learning example (for case study) or real life goal (so that you'd enjoy the travel experience in addition to the learning).

You need do some home work in order to achieve some meaningful goals that are best for you - b/c you know yourself best.

If you hold US Airways miles you must redeem through US Airway's program using US Airway's award chart, rules and availability even if the flights are operated by another airline. The operating carrier is not involved in the redemption process.

You can use miles accrued in any frequent flyer account for tickets on any carrier within their alliance. You can credit miles earned on any carrier within the alliance to the airline of your choice (if you fly on Lufthansa, you could credit miles earned to United or US Airways, but with foreign airlines, be careful because the cheapest fare might only earn 1 mile for every 2 traveled). But you cannot transfer miles between carriers without losing 90% of their value. Frequent flier programs are designed to promote loyalty.

To book using US Airways miles, you can use their website (which only shows US Airways flights) or call their reservation agents to book flights on other Star Alliance carriers (it helps to search the United site to see what is available, then call).

Yes, US Airways miles are a little harder to use than United. If you wanted United miles, you should have applied for the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold instead of the SPG card. SPG is still a valuable currency to have for hotel stays, and it helps to have hotel points in more than one hotel chain, as it gives you more flexibility in finding free hotels in the country you want to visit. SPG has some great values in cash and points redemptions for hotel nighs as well.

And more expensive, thanks to their junk "award processing fee" and high change fees.

Just to keep things in perspective -- every FF program has its gems, specifically in US Airways FF programs their redemption rate of 90K miles for a business class award trip to Asia (round trip) is hard to beat.

ok, well thanks for the comments. I thought I understood everything, at least before when I was only looking at my individual program I am on, with United Airlines. Maybe it is because I booked a FF ticket to China (with a friend's miles) but the system seems infinitely easier with more international options than with other airlines...even with others from the *A. I have no idea why that is the case though.

I understand the concept now totally about not being able to transfer miles from one to another, like say from Turkish Airlines to United.

But, one thing I don't understand is this: I want to book a hypothetical trip from Charlotte, North Carolina to Vientaine, Laos. United seems to allow me to do this without any problems, on their website. When I tried to do the same trip on US Airways, it didnt allow it, but United and US Airways are part of the same alliance, so why did US Airways give me trouble? Of course, this is all academic now since I am already part of United.

I enjoy traveling to Asia, and it seems like a good way to get more use out of miles is to book a flight to a smaller town you want to see (such as Kashgar, China) if you want to see that area of China, instead of simply booking it to Beijing, China and then getting to the smaller city on your own. So, the 32,500 mile for a one-way ticket from Charlotte to say Kashgar or Vietaine seems to be a good value, especially since US Airways (and also American Airlines) did not allow me to book the hypothetical trip.

I am assuming most of you only have ONE carrier you primarily use, right? In other words, it isnt worth it to get a FF card to cover United, American, and US Airways...or is it?

For what it is worth, my current plan is to keep United, use my HH points for some hotels since I need hotels anyway. The SPG card was intended to be dumped in a 1:2 ratio to the United account, but perhaps the best usage out of the SPG card is to keep it to get a few hotel stays.

As to the first question, NO. I would say a plurality of FTers probably have one program that they credit as much as possible of their paid flights to, mostly so they can get status. But when it comes to collecting miles for reward flights, I say collect them all! Well, not really all, but any program in which you can cheaply gather enough miles for a good redemption is worth paying attention to. You never really know which program will have award availability to the destination you want when you want it, although some programs are better for certain spots. If you, for example, have only United miles and want to fly to Buenos Aires, it may be difficult to find an award ticket on *A, but if you also have some AA miles, chances are you'll be in luck, as both AA and their oneworld partner LAN usually have good availability to South America.

As for the SPG card, it would be an extraordinarily poor use of Starpoints to redeem them at 1:2 for United miles. You can easily get 3 cents or more per point when redeeming for *wood hotels, and at least 2 cents per point exchanging for virtually any non-UA airline partner. Putting them into UA, you probably get a penny a point -- not worth doing unless you're like 1k miles short of a good redemption you want to do on UA.

The key word is "website". The United website will show you more options because (in this limited case) it's a better website. The full set of options are available from US; you just have to CALL them. You won't be able to book it online. It's a technical limitation, not a program limitation.

If an airline in each respective alliance offers that flight and shows availability for lowest-tier redemption, then it SHOULD be bookable using any airline's miles in that alliance. But you will generally have to call. So, for example, if Cathay Pacific flew to the small town, and had availability for low level miles redemption, you should be able to CALL American and book it.

Many of us accrue our miles using credit card signups. It's a very good idea to diversify if that's how you earn. If you are flying one and only one airline, it might be a good idea to use only their program. If you fly on several, it's a good idea to pick one airline in EACH alliance so you can accrue on all the flights you fly.

The primary reason to earn in a single airline's program is to work toward elite status. For redeemable miles, most of us take them in whatever program is offering them via non-flying methods (credit cards, promotions, car rental bonuses, etc.) even if we concentrate our flying miles in one particular program. You never know when you might need to get somewhere and your primary program/alliance doesn't have availability, after all.

It may very well be. A transfer to USAirways is still an option, but you'd need quite a bit of spending to get to a level that would let you redeem to, say, China. No reason you have to decide now. You can hold on to your SPG points and transfer when there's a bonus promotion.