I just have a general question. My wife and I have been concentrated on United miles and Chase Ultimate reward points for the last year. We are pretty much maxed on the chase cards that we are allowed between United, Chase, Continental and Mariott, so I wanted to start going in a different direction.

I would like to go with another airline's points, we fly primarily out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa (CID). I was thinking either AA or Hawaiian Airlines (we have been to Hawaii twice, and would like to go again!) and I think we could fly hawaiian from Chicago via United, right?

Anyhow, what direction would you guys go, what is more valuable? Go with the 2x35k hawaiian or 2x50k AA? I was also thinking of possibly HiltonHonors, but by the way it sounds AA points are more valuable.

We are planning a trip to Disney (Either florida or California) in the next couple years, so anything to help with that would be great also!

I would go with AA first

Get both. They are two different non-chase banks, why not. Grab US Air (no spend), and the no fee version of the Amex HHonors while you are at it (good to grab a card that you can let age and not cancel, also spend is low). Presto, an app-o-rama.

Wait 90 days and find a few more.

You can get a total of 70,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles from cards from Bank of Hawaii and Bank of America. You can get both of two American Airlines 50,000 mile offers from two personal cards using the two browser trick, plus another 45,000 miles from its business card. All you have to do is meet the minimum spends. All details are on my website below in the Credit Cards > Annual Fee Cards section That fee is waived for the first year on the American Airlines cards.

What miles/points clubs allow you to transfer points from one person to another? Like if I open a card for myself, and one for my wife, which ones can I consolidate then? I think I have heard you can do it with Hawaiian, any others?

Amex SPG and Chase Sapphire points..not sure about Hawaiian.

There are other ways to work around non-consolidation in some programs. For example, AA lets you redeem reward tickets one-way for half the cost of round-trip. So you could use your AA miles one way, your wife's AA miles the other way, if neither of you has enough miles for the round trip. Not all airlines allow this, though, so you need to check on each you're considering.

The only downside is that if you have to change or cancel the trip, and fees are per ticket, thus doubled if you're changing/canceling both directions. But the upside is that it greatly adds flexibility, because you can redeem each award as it becomes avialable even if both directions are not available at the same time! Or you can effectively mix airlines in two directions (if you find two airlines that both allow one-way travel), if you can only find avialability with one airline's miles in one direction but another airline's miles in another direction.

Hawaiian transfers 1:2 to Hilton. You can also use hawaiian miles directly on other airlines, although availability on some of them might be limited. see http://www.hawaiianair.com/hawaiianm...tner-airlines/

BA allows you to create a household account and pool points from multiple accounts as long as all of them have the same address on file. The other FF programs I'm familiar with allow transfers but with a fairly hefty fee, so it's more like buying miles.

The rules say Chase UR points can be transferred to a spouse or domestic partner, but I think as a practical matter you can transfer them to anyone. Amex MR points cannot be transferred to another MR account, but you can transfer them to someone else's FF account, so for most purposes it's the same.

i would suggest getting a spg amex if you are charging a lot on your cards. You can convert the points for pretty much any airline and you get a 25% bonus on covering 20K pts.

Yes to Hawaiian. Add in US Bank FlexPerks and Citi Thank You Rewards. Look well at Citi TYR as I'm booking Delta at 23k TYR for flights that cost 40k Delta Skymiles, just as a valuation example. You can pool TYRs, although you do it right before redemption day because they will self expire once transferred.

It is easy to redeem AAdvantage miles on Hawaiian or Alaska, you can do it online using their search engine. It is, however, very difficult to redeem Hawaiian miles on any airline other than Hawaiian, I have read lots of horror stories.

Since you're already maxed out with Chase.
I would go with these other banks in this order:
Citi AA Visa 50k
Citi AA Amex 50k (with 2 browser tricks)
Barclay US Air 40k (no spending, no fee first year)
Bank of Am. Virgin Atlantic 45k
Bank of Am. Hawaiian 35k
Bank of Hawaii - Hawaiian 35k
Amex Delta 30k
Amex SPG 25k

Wait another 6 months or so, go for some more Chase cards. There are just too many good Chase offers out there.

Please do!

Please do!

Please do!

Please do!

Please do!

Please do!

Keep in mind the min spend on this churn would be ~ $10k in a 3 month period. Tough for a lot of folks, but not out of the question.

Just something to be aware of!