Hi all,

And sorry for what I am sure is an easy question, but I am relatively new to the points game. Here is what I am working with

Sapphire Preferred - about 67,000 points
SPG - about 31,000 points
Chase Hyatt card - hit the spending amount for 2 free nights
Wifes Chase Hyatt - hit the spending amount for 2 free nights

We are looking to fly from Vancouver, BC -> London. It seems that tickets run just under $1200 RT/Person. The big airlines on this route are:

Air Canada
Air France
British Airways
Lufthansa
Delta
AA

If I buy the tickets through the UR rewards mall, the 67 UR points are worth about $800. But the transferring to partners is where I become confused. I know I get 1:1 transfers to a lot of these airlines, what I am not sure about is how to know what they are worth to each airline, and if transferring would make my points go farther as opposed as using them in the UR mall.

Also, I do not fly for work or anything of that nature. We try to make one big trip a year if we can so I do not have any frequent flyer rewards programs. Would it make sense for me to sign up for any? Would that help with increasing the value of my UR points for our trip to Europe? I am having trouble finding the value of x amount of points for each airline, and since so many people value them differently I am beginning to see that I need some help on understanding that better. Any help would be appreciated on this, and thank you for reading!

You need to find an award on one of the UR partners before transferring. There is no set value for the mileage programs (except Southwest), so it depends on what you're using them for. It's possible you could transfer to United and get round trip Vancouver-London for 60K flying on Air Canada. Go to united.com and plug in your route and dates and see what's available and for how many miles. Saver level awards will be the best value, and probably the only ones worth doing compared with using the UR for direct booking as you mention.

CoolCalmT Welcome to FT

When you transfer the points from SPG/UR to an airline ffp, you then try to get an award flight using that airlines frequent flyer miles. You can use 1 airline's ff miles with another airline (ff partners). Award availability is always an issue. Note that FF miles are not equal.

For ffp's look here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html Generally you are better to join a USA or Canadian airlines ffp.

This thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...demptions.html links to http://www.economicalexcursionists.com/travelTools/ (but no all ffps are listed). Plug in YVR LHR and also YRV LGW. Also SEA is a viable option. That tells you how many ff miles are needed. So about 25,000 ~ 30,000 miles/avios/points one way.

UK has a tax (APD) when leaving. Some airlines, like BA, have high cash surcharges on awards.

A lot depends on when you want to fly. I have generally found very good award availability on UA (and its partner AC). 60K miles round trip to London, and you can also book one-way award flights. It appears you have enough UR points for one R/T and a One-Way...but would have to pay for the return. But, make sure to compare R/T vs. O/W fares...many times they are not that much different and would be a waste to use miles in that case. I don't tend to transfer hotel points to airline programs because the exchange rate is so bad. Best to use the hotel points for hotel stays, in my opinion.

Others may have additional thoughts, input and suggestions.