Hello all. I am a miles junkie and try to earn miles with anything. That is everything but traveling. I have maybe only 1-2 work trips a year and maybe one personal, so I strive to earn miles for personal vacation. I enrolled in many airline FF programs as I found ways to earn miles for each. But I feel I need to consolidate some programs. I want to combine programs for airlines in the same network, such as OneWorld and Star Alliance. Is it true you can spend miles within a network, and also earn for differnet airlines in the same network? Here are my current totals. I want to keep a representative in each main network. So I believe Alaskan, Air France, and Emirates need to go. Advice is much appreciated.

AA - 3275
Alaskan - 1100
Air France - 1000
Delta - 3735
Emirates - 500
Frontier - 10,522
United - 10,419

Yes.


Which routes do you most often fly? That will help us make some recommendations as to who you should consider flying with.

There is no normal route for me. I will be going to Paris and Budapest in 2011, both separate trips, and going to Mexico on my Honeymoon with American. I live in a small town on the central coast of CA, and United is the only regional carrier. I find Frontier and American to be the most economical, so I wish to keep those as I use them for domestic pleasure trips. I appreciate the help.

Within a network, if you are flying on x and want to accumulate miles on y, theoretically all you have to do it enter your y number on the x ticket. There usually is a place for it via on-line purchases. If it is not apparent, it is possible to call after the ticket is purchased and get the right airline number to the ticket. I used to do it from Delta to NW. More recently have done it successfully with Malev and Aeroflot to Delta.

It is important though to check the fine print. Sometimes the lower fare classes don't work quite the same way. Air France to Delta makes me nervous, as I'm usually traveling on a t (or the equivalent lowest class) ticket fare. Continental, when it was part of Skyteam, used to only give 50% of the miles when one tried to get them posted to Delta.

Romelle

On a related note, anyone know if it is possible to trade Delta SkyMiles for Continental OnePass miles?

points.com

Sometimes you can get a good deal, if you are careful. But it does cost $$$

First of all, the airline is not Alaskan (there is no "n" in its name). Miles earned on Delta, Air France, American and Alaska can be earned in Alaska Mileage Plan. This provides you with quite a few opportunities for using miles earned on four different airlines.

I started out many years ago like you, but I did not shed any programs. Since then I have accumulated in excess of 4 million miles in the various accounts. (I presently have in excess of 1.5 million available for my use). Be sure to monitor your accounts and complete transactions as necessary to prevent the miles from expiring and being lost.

My suggestion, if you are credit worthy, apply for the Alaska Airlines Credit card from Bank of America. It presently provides 25000 miles after first purchase. Yes, it costs $75 per year that is not waived, but one cannot buy that many miles for the price. I actually applied for a second card and was approved in order to reach my goal (then) of 2 tickets in Business Class to Buenos Aires. Recently American had some very attractive offers for their card as well, but credit card miles are only usable on the issuing airline. Points.com IMO is a complete rip off.

Check the Emirates plan, you may be able to use the miles for magazines which at least have some value to you. My advice is never to let miles expire, there are thousands of ways to add miles to your account to keep it alive.

Set your expectations at a reasonable level. Being stuck in a small town with only one airline option can be problematic, but if one is willing to drive to an airport with more options, the possibilities increase exponentially.

Since United flies from your area, I would start accumulating miles on United and Continental. These will merge next year, combining the miles of both accounts. This would give you very good access to the Star Alliance, which most think is the best of them.

There are very good offers for free miles for Continental and United from credit cards and financial offers. See my Credit Cards and Finance section of my website below. The airline credit cards are on the Annual Fee Cards page, though that fee is waived for the first year. Also, The American Express Membership Rewards offers are good, since MR points transfer to Continental (but not for long). And the Chase Sapphire Preferred card on my Bank and Other Travel Cards page offers up to 25,000 free points transferable to Continental miles, again, probably not for very long.

My finance page lists mega brokerage and bank offers, all easy and cheap or free.

On my website, when you get to the page you want, click on that page (important), then do a word search on "United" and "Continental".

Also, have you applied for the 75,000 mile American Airlines credit card offers? On my Credit Cards > Annual Fee Cards page. It's a free trip to Europe.

If you have a business, you can apply for two cards fore 150k miles. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-up-bonus.html