Newbie Needs Help With Sharing and/or Using Mileage
 

I’m brand new to this site, and I’m impressed with how knowledgeable people here are, so maybe someone can offer me some good advice and suggestions.

Here’s the situation. Years ago I got a Chase UAL Mileage Plus credit card, and, over the years, I have accumulated about 188,000 miles, and I have never redeemed any.

My wife and I enjoy travelling to Europe and to Australia, but as we have gotten older, flying in Coach has become a nightmare. I’m tall, and the thought of another long flight in Coach has me cringing.

I think that the 188,000 miles are more than enough to get me a Business Class ticket to an overseas destination, but my wife would be stuck in Coach.

Unfortunately, according to the UAL website, transferring miles from my Mileage Plus Account to her Mileage Plus Account would be prohibitively expensive.

My wife does not have a Chase UAL credit card, but she could get one.

I’m hoping that one of you experts here can provide some insight and maybe even tell me how I can use my current miles to get my wife and me Business Class tickets without spending a lot of money.

Thank you.
Richard

Hi SpencerCat,

Welcome to FT,

SpencerCat, UA offers now one way awards but on UA metal only and Europe will be 52500 miles / person for one way business.

http://content.united.com/ual/asset/...art_021110.pdf

I am not sure if there is any way of sharing miles without incurring cost. Other will chime in.

Dracs

whats her mileage balance?....have you checked availability for your dates?....

buying mi's on ua is much cheaper than xfer or gifting....

have you checked for ua credit cards sign up bonuses?

good luck...

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

SpencerCat, since your current mileage balance would be enough for three one-way business class awards between the U.S. and Europe on UA, your wife only needs to accumulate a total of 52,500 miles for the fourth one-way award that the two of you require to fly roundtrip.

Spencer,


I am not sure of your location but not sure if this works out to get you enough miles. Its an UA offer with HERTZ .
1000 miles+double base miles(100) ( minimum one day ).

http://offer.hertz.com/offers/index....nt.jsp&id=1601

Dracs.

I have a question.

Are you saying that I can use MY miles to get a one-way Business Class ticket for my wife? I didn't know I could do that. I thought I could use my miles ONLY for a ticket for myself. Am I wrong? I hope so.

We aren't planning to travel overseas until next year, and I think that before then, either I will have accumulated enough additional miles for two roundtrip Business Class tickets (one for me and one for my wife, if what you say is true ... and I sure hope it is), or my wife will have her own Chase UAL credit card with enough miles from a signup bonus and everyday expenditures to get one one-way ticket.

I hope all of this makes sense, and I REALLY hope you're right about my being able to use some of my miles to get a ticket for my wife.

Thanks for responding.

Richard

You can use your miles for anybody. If you can get enough miles for two tickets in your account then you will be all set.

Her mileage balance is zero.

We are planning a trip sometime next year, so we don't have specific dates yet.

According to the UAL website, it would cost $1,970 to buy 60,000 miles.

She is probably going to get her own Chase UAL credit card, if there is a signup bonus available.

Thanks for responding.

Spencer,

As I mentioned in my post before.

If you can rent with hertz for 1 day for some cheap price you could easily earn 22000 miles ( 20 times max ).
. Since you are short of 22000 miles. This way both the tickets would be booked together.
I am from pretty small place and could get 22$ for 2 day weekend rental at my place recently.

Even if your wife get card she will have to spend 22500$ extra to get those extra 22500 miles after 30000 card sign up bonus.

Wish you could have looked at FT before and taken advantage of 50000 sign up offer.

Dracs

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Yes, as hindukid has already indicated, you can book award travel for anyone with your own miles.

If you can accumulate a total of 210,000 miles in your own account, then you can book two roundtrip award tickets: one for you, and one for your wife. There are some advantages to booking roundtrip awards, rather than one-way awards, with UA miles. First, on a roundtrip award, you can redeem on any Star Alliance carrier; you are not limited to flights operated by UA. Second, I believe that on an international roundtrip award, you are also entitled to a free stopover in Europe, in case you wanted to visit two cities on your trip.

To everybody who responded, thank you, thank you, thank you!

I wish I had discovered FlyerTalk a long time ago. I just happened to stumble across it a few days ago.

Note to dracs:
What did you mean by "Wish you could have looked at FT before and taken advantage of 50000 sign up offer."?

Thanks again.
Richard

Spencer there was a United card offer which gave 50000 miles on signup 1-2 months ago. Your wife could have availed that. It was limited time offer.

Dracs

Huh? How could I get 20 times max? I went to the Hertz link that you supplied earlier, and I didn't see anything about 20 times max. Would you explain that to me? I'm here to learn.

Richard

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8703e/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

Richard, I think dracs was saying that the 1,000-mile bonus is available for a maximum of 20 separate rentals. So you would have to rent a car for one day on 20 separate occasions to get 22,000 miles.

On a slightly different topic, now might be a good time to consider whether you could do better with one or more credit cards other than the UA card you currently hold. If you peruse the Miles Buzz! and Other Credit Cards forums here on FT, you will see some decent promotional offers for Citi's AA credit cards (personal and business), as well as Amex's Starwood credit cards (personal and business). The Starwood Preferred Guest card is very popular among FTers because it has a relatively low annual fee ($45), and because the SPG points it earns are very versatile. They can be redeemed for free nights at Starwood properties, but can also be transferred to many (but not all) airline frequent-flyer programs at favorable conversion rates.

CO and UA are merging
 

if your not planning on going until well after the end of the year take advantage of the merger. signup your wife for a Chase UA card which currently offers 30k as bonus..also look into CO offers such as the Chase checking debit card with which you could each get with 25k CO bonus miles and if neither of you have had a CO brand credit card now is the time to get bonus miles (25k or 30k?) for signing up.....It is likely after they merge the 2 flyer programs will merge and combine your CO and UA points at a 1 to 1 rate. they have stated they expect this to happen around the end of the year. The CO offers will likely disappear as the merger draws near, so get em while you can. Look into the AMEX SPG card you can each get 30k SPG points each you can then combine them into one account (free transfer between spouses with same address) and trade them in for UA miles as well, though the exchange rate is not great for UA it would be enough to get you over the limit sooner than the merger.