New york to Berlin
 

I'm trying to figure out how to get the trip from NYC to TXL with the least amount of miles (I have miles on Ultimate Rewards and MR). Is there a system or anything that I can use to figure out what alliances to look at?

Best as in most direct would be oneworld on AirBerlin from JFK-TXL.

On Star, your best bet is probably Lufthansa via FRA.

Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards both transfer to British Airways. You can redeem through BA for flights operated by Air Berlin (AB).

Thanks. I don't think anything direct is availalbe - at least Ba.com isn't showing anything. Any "tricks" i can use? Book with another airline's program?

Thats what I planned to do. For some reason, BA doesn't show any availability, while AA does. Is this a glitch?

You could search on Air Berlin's own site for award seats on your dates. If there are none for members of their own program there will almost certainly be none through partners.

If ba.com does not show availability, but aa.com does, I would call BA to book by phone. There's no way to be sure which site is correct.

Another option is United as they fly TXL-EWR. Chase UR points should transfer to United.

Availability is the first consideration. Least miles is one consideration. Cash co-pay is another consideration.
FF miles in different ffp's are not equal

Look here, but may be up to date, especially with BA. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...demptions.html

Direct flights are on UA and AB. In terms of comfort I would suggest AB (which is not something I thought I'd ever say). I believe that you can transfer your UR to either UA or AA, but with AA you will probably have to call to see availability. I know they show up on the website but I've recently had problems with phantom availability (i.e. false positives).

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

The least amount of miles would be to redeem 20,000 BA Avios for travel on AB's JFK-TXL nonstop. (Connecting via DUS would cost more Avios, as BA's frequent-flyer scheme charges per flight flown.)

If aa.com is correctly displaying award-seat availability on the AB JFK-TXL nonstop, then that flight should be available for redemption with BA Avios. If you are correctly searching ba.com for award seats, and the AB flight does not show up, then a call to the BAEC Service Center is in order.