Hi,

I, a newb, am looking for advice from any FT pros; I'm trying to make it to Berlin for a friend's wedding (7/9/11, unfortunately high season and the date only recently set) and spend a few weeks variously on the continent (which will be at the whims of Ryanair and the likes). Being at the mercy of a meager PhD stipend, money is an issue, so I've been trying to make various reward programs do something miraculous.

Goal:

- Depart SYR (or BUF, perhaps ROC) give or take a few days on 6/22; return out of BER approximately 7/13
- Flying into most places on the continent works well/okay (I have friends and places to stay in Spain, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Albania) and am fine take trains/buses/etc. w/in reason.

Points/miles I currently have:

AMEX Express MR -- 56k
Starwood -- 31k
British Airways -- 50k
Delta -- 19k
Thank You -- 25k

Thus far I've tried:

- redeeming directly through BA; uses all points, which leaves about $600 in taxes
- redeeming directly through AMEX; uses all points, but only gets down to around $900

Given that, I'm hoping to convert either AMEX or BA to Delta (or other) program in order to combine points. I was under the impression this was possible, but have been spinning my wheels with it.

I'm more than happy to open a few CCs in order to achieve this.

If anyone has suggestions/advice/links, I would be greatly appreciative.

Thanks in advance!

You should be able to convert your MR and/or your starwood points to Delta. Starwood will give you 25000 miles for 20k SPG points.

That being said, you might have a better value possibility watching the Mileage Run thread for a cheap fare into Europe, though. Also, given your flexibility, play around with http://www.farecompare.com/search/flyertalk.html, inputting ROC, SYR, and BUF as your origin and Europe as destination.
Finally, consider buying a revenue ticket to JFK or BOS on Jetblue to start off, you'll likely get much better award availability out of those cities.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Welcome to FT, mitkaese.

Using BA miles for TATL Coach travel is generally a poor idea because of high fuel surcharges imposed on the TATL segments; better to use those miles for AA flights to Hawaii, the Caribbean, Asia, South America, etc.

Getting a "cheap" TATL award ticket on DL might prove very challenging.

You can convert 25,000 SPG points to 30,000 AA miles, which would be enough for a one-way MileSAAver award to or from Europe. From upstate NY (SYR, ROC, BUF, and maybe even ART by this summer) the routing would be through ORD. From there, AA offers nonstops to several European cities, and AA partner IB offers a nonstop to MAD, with connections available there to other European destinations. You also could make your way down to NYC to catch TATL flights on AA, AY (to Helsinki and beyond), 9W (to Brussels), or IB (to Madrid and beyond).

For the other one-way, you could convert 30,000 Amex MR points to 30,000 AC Aeroplan miles. AC also offers one-way awards to or from Europe, but I believe that the one-way awards are only valid on AC metal, so you would have to get yourself to or from a city served by AC, like NYC, YYZ, YOW, or YUL.

You can easily check for award seat availability on AA metal on aa.com; to check availability on AA partner carriers, you would have to call AA. I'm not sure if AC lets you check award availability on their site, but that should be easy enough to determine.

Whatever you do, don't transfer/convert any miles until you know that there is award-seat availability. Good luck.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

I just realized that SPG points can also be converted to AC Aeroplan miles. If you convert both SPG points and Amex MR points to obtain a total of 60,000 Aeroplan miles, this should vastly increase your options, as you could then redeem for a roundtrip to Europe using a combination of Star Alliance carriers. This would enable you to fly from upstate NY to EWR on CO, PHL on US, or IAD/ORD on UA, and then fly TATL on those carriers or on other Star Alliance carriers like Lufthansa, LOT, Swiss, Austrian, TAP, etc., and also continue on within Europe on Star Alliance carriers. An AC Star Alliance award might even permit a European stopover, and/or an open jaw, but you would have to check with Aeroplan to verify that.

If you can find award availability on Star Alliance carriers, I think that this option would probably be the best use of your available points/miles.

Those 56K MR points are eligible for a whopping 40% bonus right now when transfered to BA and you already have 50K BA. That takes you to 130K BA and the Starwoods can be converted with 25% bonus on 20K to BA or most other airlines.

You may want to use some Starwoods to "top-off" something.

I don't know how to use TYP's.

I'd use the BA miles to then get AA flights to avoid the fuel surcharges.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

When BA miles are redeemed for AA TATL flights, BA imposes the same high fuel charges that they impose on BA TATL flights. Since the OP is apparently going to travel in Coach, and "money is an issue," a BA redemption is not the way to go here.

For within $100-$200 of the taxes + fees associated with a BA TATL coach redemption, the OP can buy a ticket on Air Berlin JFK-BER-JFK, thereby making the whole miles exercise pointless. The Aeroplan option outlined above sounds the best.

Wow, thanks for your replies -- and, I guess I should've added a thanks for the past few years, since pretty much ALL travel I've managed to do is in one way or another indebted to FT.

AC has dates that work well BUF to FRA for 60k, so I've been looking to convert the SPG and Amex MR points to Aeroplan miles. Unfortunately, while the SPG conversion looks to be straightforward, when I closed my Amex Gold card (a year ago?), the Amex points apparently transformed into "Express" points, which seems to mean that conversions are now forbidden. Does anyone know if it is possible to revert those to standard (i.e. non-Express) MR points by opening a new Gold card and, if so, what the turn around would be for that? --or am I missing something obvious?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

I think you're likely to get more responses to your question about restoring lost MR points by posting a separate query in the FT Amex forum, but you should probably call Amex and/or do a search first.
If you do end up booking award travel with Aeroplan, it might be worth checking whether you have to depart from, and return to, BUF, or whether there is award availability departing from BUF and returning to SYR, or departing from SYR and returning to BUF. You might be able to spare yourself one of the two ground transits between SYR and BUF.