Can miles from frequent flyer programs from the same alliance be combined?
 

I guess the title explains it all.
I am a newbie, and this is one the last critical questions I have before I do an app party (for the first time).
I am aware that miles from frequent flyer programs from different alliances cannot be combined. However, I am unclear about whether ff miles from the same alliance can be combined.
For example, if I do an app-o-rama, and I apply for the United Mileage Plus card (55,000 mile bonus); the USAirways Dividend Miles card (40,000 mile bonus), and the Avianca/Taca Life Miles card (20,000 mile bonus), after I get the miles, can they be pooled into any one of these programs so that I have 115k miles?
If this cannot be done, it will put a significant damper on my ability to earn flights, as I will have miles scattered in different programs, none of which will be redeemable for an international business class flight, because I won't have enough miles in any one program. And, earning additional miles to make up the difference in the conventional manner (2X miles, 5X miles for purchases) will take forever. My miles will probably expire before I actually achieve this.
By the way, if in fact miles from different programs cannot be combined, how on earth does anyone ever earn a business class flight (let alone first class!)?

Nope. You can redeem on airlines within an alliance but that is very different.

Good luck.

No, it cannot be done.

Points.com allows you to trade certain miles for others, but the losses in the transaction are not worth it.

As for how people can afford international business/first ...

1) UA is partners with Chase UR, so getting another Chase UR card will let you transfer those points to UA. UA also allows one ways.
2) Lifemiles has a good cash+points scheme, so you don't need that many points. They also allow one-ways.
3) US Airways sells miles for pretty cheap (like right now, $1900 for 100K miles). They don't have the Grand Slam this year, but the past few years it's been easy to accumulate >100K without credit card sign ups.

If you travel with a companion, it does help to have multiple accounts on the same alliance, because you might be able to get one ticket on a given routing with (say) UA miles and another with US miles.

How do people get flights? Patience. Or actually spending money or flying places. I hope to get a US first class redemption by:

1) Had a USAirways card years ago, cancelled it, got another recently.
2) Actually bought $10-$15K of stuff last time I had the card.
3) Actually flew US a few times, including at least one transcontinental round trip.
4) Got the 15K bonus for spending $x in 3 consecutive months.
5) May have to convert some Air Canada miles to US on points.com, but the transfer ratio here is pretty good, about 90%.

My wife travels to Europe every summer, so I need 100-125K points for that trip, but by getting a decent stash on UA, US, DL and AA, I can use one of them, meanwhile continue earning on others by card churning. After the US redemption I'll have her account with 60K and mine with zero, so four years from now (10K renewal bonus each year) she'll have 100K and I'll have 40K - in the interim I'll redeem US, AA, and DL - the year I redeem US hopefully I'll earn miles on the others. But if you don't start off with a stash, yes, you have to be patient.

I have found that cards such as Chase Sapphire and Amex to be very valuable in that the points you earn are transferable to multiple airlines.

Chase Sapphire is particularly interesting to you because the miles are transferable to United. Also extremely valuable is access to the Ultimate Rewards mall, which if you funnel your spending through, you can earn 4x, 10x, or maybe more on your spending. This will let you build significantly more miles.

Amex often has transfer bonuses which are nice.

Both are a good way to top off FF accounts.

And if you have a A good Fico score and decent earnings you can open personal and Biz Chase Cards like the Ink Bold series at the same time .

And for those of us who are geographically inconvenienced and cannot access all these credit card offers.. there is always the option of earning miles by actually flying. (Shock Horror!;))

In that case the miles can be combined... by crediting all flights on airlines from the same alliance into ONE FF account....

Keep in mind that in most programs, earning miles, even 1 mile, keeps all your miles active. There are exceptions (Aeroplan is one), but they're few and far between. And, it's one of the reasons that many FTers with good credit do several app sprees per year. When I joined FT two years ago, I had no miles with UA or US. I had about 20K with AA. I had none with BA. Now, I have 125K with UA, 165K with US, 270K with AA, and 250K with BA--having flown one flight on UA, none with US, four with AA, and four with BA.

It's also why certain cards, such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold and the Amex Plat, PRG, and Business Gold cards as well as the Amex SPG card find so much favor: their points are all transferable to several (and in the case of the SPG, numerous) airlines. The SPG has a 25% bonus on transfers of blocks of 20K Starpoints, Membership Rewards has run a number of transfer bonus promos (as high as 50%) to Delta and BA. Chase has not yet had a transfer promo and may never have one, but given their 1:1 transfer ratio to UA, Ultimate Rewards points are the best non-UA currency out there.

In addition, the credit card companies provide some opportunities to increase your mileage totals by allowing personal and business applications (thus, effectively doubling the haul of points in many cases). Techniques, such as the "two browser" method discussed in connection with Citi AA personal applications, also increase your mileage earning potential.

And, as others have mentioned, it's why airline alliances can be critical. No, you can't combine UA miles with US miles. There are generally soft spots in each partner program, though, and one of the best benefits of FT is that many of those soft spots get uncovered. For instance, the use of Avios to fly business class on Aer Lingus from BOS-DUB for 50K plus relatively low taxes, fees, and surcharges is just one of those soft spots, but there are others in each of the three alliances.

Finally, don't dismiss the power of earning points through purchasing. Yes, if you're only earning at a 1:1 ratio for all your purchases, you're not earning miles very quickly. But, the Chase UR mall gives you a chance to increase that earning ratio with many merchants, and there are other shopping malls that can occasionally offer even better earning ratios with specific merchants. For instance, I was in on the 36 Avios/dollar earning ratio offered early this year through the BA eStore for purchases made at Nordstrom.com. In many circumstances, you can purchase through an online mall and still pick up the item in a local store, such as I was able to do with my Nordstrom purchases, so I try to remember to check my purchasing options before just walking into a store and earning 1 mile per dollar.

Dining programs offer the same opportunities. I've earned about 15K UA miles this year by charging dines to the MileagePlus dining program, aided by a current promo where for every $250 spent, I get an extra 1500 miles--effectively earning 11 miles per dollar spent plus whatever I earn through the credit card I use (with the Sapphire Preferred's 2x dining bonus, I have the potential to earn 13 UA miles per dollar spent dining).

It's some work to keep track of all the promos, and if you're finances or credit do not allow the spending or the numerous credit card applications, then yes, you're at somewhat of a disadvantage in this game. Those opportunities, however, eventually do come, especially as you earn more money and become more credit worthy.

It's some work to keep track of all the promos, and if you're finances or credit do not allow the spending or the numerous credit card applications, then yes, you're at somewhat of a disadvantage in this game. Those opportunities, however, eventually do come, especially as you earn more money and become more credit worthy.

Thanks for your elaborate and thoughtful reply.
My problem is not that I don't earn enough money (I made 76k last year), or that my credit isn't up to par (my score is over 800), it's that I am quite frugal, and I just don't consume as much as the typical American does. Instead, I invest my my money (over 42k/yr). Now, if I could earn miles for every dollar I invest, I would be in Business Class in no time!

Actually you can earn miles for investments - there are threads here in MB and on the airline forums, or check the airlines' FFP partner info for applicable brokerages. And you don't have to necessarily spend money per se, to earn miles. Look into the "getting spending up without the mint" thread for one.

Just a point that isn't probably of use to the OP at the moment... but there is one exception that I know of to combining miles between FFPs. Miles (Avios) can be combined between BA and IB since they both use the same Avios "currency". However that's a fairly unique situation due to IAG ownership.

Well, you can check out the Fidelity offers here. If you have some money you can park, you can get up to 50k miles for that. I believe ING and others have offered similar deals at one time or another. There's also BankDirect, through which you can open a checking account that pays interest in miles rather than in cash. Depending on your particular situation, these may or may not be good deals, but they are out there.

And, of course, while many credit card sign-up bonuses now require significant spending to capture, there are still many that give the bonus after first purchase, or after relatively small spending. For example, the US Airways card gives 40k miles after first purchase, while the United card earns 50k after $1000 spend in 3 months. I would think just about anybody with good credit could get those.

Yes, I am aware of the Fidelity offer, but I didn't jump on it because I have my money invested primarily in a 457b/401k at work, and in a Roth IRA with Vanguard, which makes a lot more sense for me financially.
The trouble with the United and USAir cards is that, while they require a very low spend, in the end, you still only have 40k miles and 50k miles which cannot be combined. Neither of these is even close to enough to redeem for an international business class flight. To me, this is almost a deal-breaker. In fact, I don't know if I even want to get into the miles game anymore, in light of this. I was really counting on being able to combine miles from different credit card bonuses. It would have been a bonanza. But, I guess the airlines are not that stupid.

Earning miles for real spending will never pay off. Look first at card applications that have $0 minimum or low $1k minimum spending. These are low hanging fruit, you should get as many as possible.

Next step is manufactured spending, spending on items which can then be turned back into cold hard cash. For this I'd suggest setting up accounts just for the purpose of meeting minimums. You can deposit your "investment capital" and churn a $5k spending requirement, and then deposit the cash back into your account. Net spending $0, net gain 40,000 or more miles.

With the exception of the incredibly wealthy and businesses that push all expenses through their cards most of us here don't spend $100,000 to get 100,000 miles.

One of my absolute rules to this game is that I must NOT spend more money than I otherwise would. I hold to my budget and try to gain as many miles as possible through all the schemes and app-o-ramas I can.

There are a few exceptions where you can combine FF accounts:

mergers such as UA and CO or NW and DL

going out of business such as bmi

Otherwise, you can sometimes get a companion's award ticket using miles from a different program or get one way awards using different FF programs

I've been taking my family of 3 on 2 or more international trips per year for the past few years, thanks mostly to CC bonuses. I don't have a very high income nor any sizeable investments. It just takes a bit of work and using tools to get spending up without actually purchasing things or costing you more than necessary. It's a fun game but it does take a bit of time to manage.

Also, consider focusing on FFPs that allow one-way awards at 1/2 the RT price. US is not one (sadly) but UA and AA are for example. This in essence provides you with leverage that is in the end, the same as you're looking for as far as the final result. Also use stopovers strategically to stretch your redemptions.

Exactly, for example:

Dad and I took a trip to Mendoza, AR back in March and he flew from BOI and me from PDX. We got 2 low season saver tix through AA but the only routing the reservationist could get at that price was from BOI-PDX-DFW-MDZ-MIA-LAX and PDX--DFW-MDZ-MIA-LAX leaving my dad and I to get from LAX to our final destinations.

Looking around there were no good award routes based on the flights we needed and one way was going to be like $250/ticket for my $75 T&F Aadvantage flight.

I had opened up the CO card and had 50k from the signup bonus, I was able to use 25k to fly my dad business LAX-BOI and then even though I was to take a connecting flight to LAX, since we were coming through MIA, I just went booked a flight from MIA to PDX via IAH all business class.

Cleaned out my CU/UA points, saved my dad and I $500 in one way fares, AND got 2 business class tix, 1 transcontinental MIA-PDX.

You can also use it to book great deals out of alternate airports, ie. for me, living on the west coast, I see these super special $2-300 RT fares from JFK-LHR and other euro ports, and from PDX it is still $1k. But if I have 40-50k random pts lying around, I can book that super cheap rate and I can use the random points to book a RT ticket to JFK.

To the OP and anyone who reads this:

Don't do this. This is a terrible example of what to do.

TravelPDX: did you really do this? You're kidding right?

I read that and actually facepalmed.

I don't know where to begin ...

I guess, then I should ONLY focus on AA and United (and redeem on them and their partners).
Question: If I get a cc bonus of 40k miles with United, could I pay the rest in cash for a business class international o/w or r/t flight? How much will this cost me, on average?

Neither AA nor UA allows cash + points. Only programs like Avianca/TACA and British Airways (for some redemptions) allow this.

One thing that UA has is that those miles can be transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards cards like the Sapphire Preferred and Ink Bold, as well as the Freedom if you have either of the first two. It enhances your UA earnings.

I'd continue reading here on FT as much as you can. Asking questions and absorbing. When I first started I was pretty sure I wouldn't use US or British Airways, now I've got plenty of great ideas for each!

Each program has +'s and -'s. For example British Airways Avios are often said to be useless by some--but they can represent some significant mileage savings if you're flying from a major hub.

Example: NYC-YYZ is $447 R/t or can be had for 25,000 AA or UA miles. Using British Airways Avios it will only cost you 9,000. That is 9,000 round trip. Sometimes American express gives a bonus between 40-50% on transferring to avios. This means you'd need 6500 Amex MR points for this flight.

Or LAX-KOA. A good rate would be $500ish. unfortunately there's a premium from US - Hawaii. 37,500 AA miles for coach. Or 25,000 British airways Avios for coach. Again both round trip. And if you figure in the Amex MR bonus it is even less.

Of course that doesn't help if you don't want to go on either of these very specific trips. That is why you'll want to study up and figure out when and where to use each program. You'll want to use the best miles to get you where you want to go--not just randomly waste any and all miles you have at will.

To me AA/UA miles should be a last resort for most trips--because they represent so much potential.

PM me if you have more questions.

Good suggestions and pretty much sums up what I was going to say.

I'll add that if you're collecting miles solely via credit card bonuses and your goal is international business class tickets, you'll need multiple cards depositing miles into a single account. This can happen several ways:

1. Use flexible points (AMEX MR, Chase UR, SPG) to add to bonus miles to your airline miles accounts.

2. Multiple cards may be available that can each earn a bonus for a particular airline. Examples are AA (Amex, Visa, MC each earn a bonus) and HA (BOA and BOH cards).

3. Business cards are often available that can add to the bonus miles obtained via personal cards.

4. Churning. (Doable for many cards depending on elapsed time between applications/cancellations and varies depending upon card issuer.)

Dont see what the big deal is, besides canceling the MIA-LAX flight. That was the only AA route they call center could book us with my dad and I, and then booking 2 1 way CO/UA business class tix from LAX-BOI and MIA-PDX.

I dont know what your thing is.

The big deal is that you needlessly wasted miles when you easily couldn't have. You spent 50K on domestic first class on top of the 40K AA miles you used to get from Argentina to Miami, when you could have used 60K UA miles for two one-ways all the way from Argentina to your eventual destinations and saved lots of AA miles. To put it into perspective, you spent enough miles for an international business class ticket on economy.

Did you ask the AA reservation office to search for space on Alaska Airlines to PDX, or LAN to a different North American gateway?

Also, MIA-PDX via IAH isn't "transcontinental business class," that nomenclature is usually reserved for premium direct routes like New York to LA/SF.

If it worked for you, fine. But there are many better ways to use points. First and foremost, it's somewhat hard to justify blowing points on domestic business class. I'll do an AA biz class MileSAAver with AA if I'm unable to get anything other than an AAnytime coach award since each runs 25K, but many times, it's better to pay for the flights, earn more miles, and save the miles through the bonus for another flight.

In addition, there are travel tools, featured here at FT, that might have given you a better idea of available AA awards than you might get through an AA agent who is just as motivated to chew up your bank of miles as to find you a route that would cost the least amount of miles. Check some of the threads at this subforum here at FT: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-tools-701/.

As they say, knowledge is power. And I suspect when you become a bit more familiar with the information here, you'll probably look back on this redemption and agree that it could have been done more efficiently.

Actually, it's quite easy but you missed the boat.
I doubt very much there will be another one coming anytime soon but you never know.
Back in the day, Citi offered 100K miles for your card; later they had an even better offer - 75K each for 3 cards (Visa, Amex & Bis Visa). - that is 225K miles ( potentially both for you and your partner for a grand total of 450K miles).
Chase had a couple of good offers - 100K BA miles (twice) and 100K UR points
That plus the required spend will earn you several J (or even F) rewards.
Good luck!

Fair enough points, but I would come back with: for me it would not be difficult, but we set it up so that our flights were PDX-DFW-SCL-MDZ-SCL-MIA-LAX add to and from BOI for my dad and flying out of BOI is difficult sometimes as my parents have found out.
the longest intracontintal flight is SEA-MIA which is 2724 miles, it is 2700 from MIA-PDX nonstop and 2789 MIA-IAH-PDX which is longer than LAX/SFO-JFK, both a little over 2500 as well as PDX-HNL which is only 2600 so 25k pts for almost 2800 miles of business class is a good deal for me.

I have also came to the conclusion that I want to use my miles and get more, rather than brag that I have 3-4million miles in my accounts, USE THEM MY FRIEND!!

Plus living on the far west coast lends itself well to long transcon flights, like to ORD which Im going business. ORD is about the shortest I would go business on, with LAS and LAX tix $100-200 for me.


Not sure what you mean here, I only got a 1 way from MIA-IAH-PDX and another 1 way for my dad for 50k. 2x40k AA 2X25k UA= 130 pts for 2 tickets

only had 50k that I was not looking to add to, it was just sitting there like the OPer as well as I was wanting to close the card as they were not going to waive the fee, did I overspend? Maybe a little but I didnt care, because I still have not accrued another UA point since, and have mainly been focusing on increasing my AA, DL and hotel points.


If you look at the math here I spent 40k RT for offseason saver and 25k for the intra-USA flight which was about 7-8 hours, (3.5 to IAH and 4hrs to PDX) ok not a "transcontinental" per se(it is however farther than LAX-JFK by 300miles), but that is a matter of semantics. So I spent a total of 65k pts, for about 25 out of 32hrs in coach and the other in business. The only options I had were to book a intnl business class for 100k.

In the end I may have overspent a little, but since the CO points did not have as much value to me, it was no big deal. I was NOT spending $75 to fly PDX-MDZ-LAX and then $250 just to fly LAX-PDX.

Do I have more to learn? Of course the day I stop learning is the day I die, but we all have more to learn and I do not regret what I did in the least.

AA and UA offer one-way charts, so you used 2x20K for the outbound. On the return, you could have only used UA miles (2x30K) and saved your AA miles. This would have been 100K rt for 2 people, rather than 130K.

Even though you only had 50K UA miles, that's what we're trying to teach OP ... build up points in transferable programs like Chase UR so that you can top off accounts. This may have worked for you, but with advance planning, you could have made out better.

Again, to put into perspective, you spent 130K for two rts, when you could have spent 140K for one-way in coach, return in international business. Or you could have spent 100K for all coach.

Save your time and energy - it would be immensely difficult to explain to someone who think they have done brilliantly to save a few hundreds so they are on free flights using miles, including, gasp, a domestic Transcon F...

130K is enough AA miles that can travel 20K miles in International business class when using it to book an Explorer award.

To give some perceptive, 20K miles can mean a r/t from West Coast to South Pacific if route it smartly...

You should also point people the way to your excellent trip report on your F class trip to India on that 120K? US miles...

Facepalm indeed.

Maybe it's just the coastal person in me, but I think actual transcon business class (like JFK-LAX, JFK-SFO, MIA-LAX on AA, etc etc) is worth it when you're down to using miles domestically. I've routed plenty of domestic awards via those routes mostly because the airlines give them a premium feel and make the mileage upcharge slightly more worth it. When it comes to regular ol' domestic first ... not worth it.

Or an RTW, like ORD-HKG-BKK-DEL-AMM-IST-MAD-ORD, with stopovers everywhere.

Oh you mean this? #shamelessplug

Actually 120K in First from LA to North Asia ... via Europe. A stopover, too, if you want one. An extra 30K for Singapore Business within South Asia to India, well worth it for 17 hours roundtrip on Singapore Airlines. And a few thousand Avios to get from North Asia (HKG) and South Asia (BKK), though I went with Emirates A380, cause well, showers on a plane.

The kicker is that I saved 10K miles by routing the way I did, and got to visit 2 more cities.

If the Grand Slam were happening this year, I'd tell OP to get in on that, but sadly, not this year :(

No star alliance members fly to mendoza only LAN (1W) and Aerolineas AR (ST) so I would be unable to go one way via UA, as well as all of the UA flights are to Buenos Aires which sucks as you have to transfer EZE to AEP to to intra-country, anywhere from 30m-1h commute, and then you are still without a flight.

That relegates most to flying in through SCL and then over the Andes to MDZ, which BTW is just an awesome flight, 30-45min of up through the Andes just marveling at them and then you descent down. Pretty much a sightseeing trip without the guide talking.

With LAN and AR the only 2 providers to MDZ, that pretty much leaves 1w alliances, and AA in particular is awesome for S America trips, and there is only DL from ATL, AA from DFW-MIA-LAX-JFK and only Air Canada as the lone SA with a YYZ.

2 tickets 65k a piece NOT 1 ticket for 130k, so for 65k that would mean a ticket with only 1500m RT business, so that means like PDX-SFO, after that your argument kinda falls apart.

May be I should heed my own advice - a waste of time to try to point out the obvious because that would pick others' feel-good bubble....

But, others who read this thread may be able to learn, so here we go...

You may not even know what AA Explorer award is. It does not work as a math problem by divided it by 2. And your math is even totally off - not sure how you come up with 1500m RT. Facepalmed indeed.

Give yourself some education by learning how Explorer award is structured - here are the links:

https://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/r...servations.jsp

https://www.aa.com/i18n/disclaimers/oneworld_awards.jsp

Distance Zone 3
Total Trip Miles = 4,001 - 9,000
Miles Required
Economy Class 60,000
Business Class 80,000
First Class 100,000

Distance Zone 4
Total Trip Miles = 9,001 - 10,000
Miles Required
Economy Class 70,000
Business Class 90,000
First Class 120,000

Distance Zone 5
Total Trip Miles = 10,001 - 14,000
Miles Required
Economy Class 90,000
Business Class 115,000
First Class 150,000

Distance Zone 6
Total Trip Miles = 14,001 - 20,000
Miles Required
Economy Class 100,000
Business Class 130,000
First Class 180,000

You can have a stopover at each point where you change plane. There is no directional restriction nor duration restriction. I actually know a person who has one such award to include 3 trips - 1 trip to Europe, 1 trip to Caribbeans and 1 trip to Hawaii - each trip brought him back to home at NYC, for a total of 130K all in business class and the travels spread in a year. Of course it would be cheaper if you are going to fly in coach. However, as even a math-challenged person can easily see, business class is the sweet spot of Explorer award. For not much more than economy requirement, one can fly business class INTERNATIONALLY, and have lounge access all the way...

BTW, AA forum has an excellent STICKY about AA awards, and it has the link to the thread specifically discussing Explorer award. You will then know what 65K miles can do for you - certainly is not your PDX to SFO r/t.

amolkold's trip report may be an eyeopener to you if you want to learn a thing or two and get a sense why he said he did not even know where to start (on how wasteful you had redeemed your miles for...)

What is done is done. However that does not mean you cannot learn and do better the next time...

You can continue to feel good about your redemption, nothing wrong with it. Or you can expand your world a little bit by trying to understand what others have posted, and learn how much better you can do than saving $500 and a transcon domestic F one-way...

Only when you get the 3-class service, Internationally configured plane. The one OP felt good about, is none of that. Totally not worth it.

That is one heck of a redemption and a very well-written trip report. Love your writing style, especially the humorous parts - no wonder it has over 50K hits! ^

LOL OK

See now your playing with #s lets retort shall we:

You first responded to me with:

I replied with


PDX (45°35'19"N 122°35'49"W) SFO (37°37'08"N 122°22'30"W) 178.7° (S) 550 mi

X2

1100m RT

Distance Zone 1
Total Trip Miles = 0 to 1,500 Miles Required
Economy Class 30,000
Business Class 60,000
First Class 80,000


http://boardingarea.com/blogs/aadvan...plorer-ticket/

So maybe you need to do some math. I know all about 1W explorer and it is you who is adjusting things to make yourself look better, either way have a good time.

Wow, this really ruins it for me. The news just keeps getting worse and worse.
Now, I can't even purchase Business class with points/miles + money? It was bad enough to find out that I can't combine miles. I'm still reeling from that one. But this other piece of bad news just disgusts me to the point that I want to give up the whole thing. I don't even think I can earn an economy international flight now, let alone anything else.

Frankly, I'm pretty demoralized by now. I keep getting one piece of bad news after another.
First, it was that I can't combine ff miles, even among airlines in the same alliance. This seriously limits me.
Now, I'm finding out that I can't even add cash to miles if I am short of earning a flight.
I'm not sure I even want to go through the trouble of doing this. No wonder most people don't.

Many credit card bonuses can do that for you with one card application.

Not if I have to meet a minimum spend of 3k in 3 months, which I cannot.
First, I was counting on combining miles and points from different cc bonuses to put into one ff program and earn my business or first class flight. But, I found out this is not possible.
Fine, so I figured that maybe I can pay for my trip using miles + money, but now that's not possible, either.
Also, Amazon Payments is not an option for me (long story).
At this point I'm seriously considering abandoning the whole thing.

Even the bonuses for the UA and US cards you were considering can be enough for economy international tickets depending on where you want to go and when.

Certainly nobody will force you into anything, but it's incredibly easy to get free travel via cc bonuses if you spend some time learning and planning.

Wait a minute. You make 76K a year and can't spend $3K on a credit card in 3 months? Really? I understand you're frugal, but you don't spend $1K per month in food, gas, some utilities (gas/electric generally don't allow credit card payments; cable, phones, and other utilities do), insurance (my disability insurance does not allow a credit card payment, my auto insurance does, without a "convenience" fee), car repairs, the occasional night out, buying clothes, and doing all of the other things that occur in a normal life?

At this point, you're either not being realistic enough about expenses that could be put on a credit card--or you're blowing smoke about your income and your credit score.

And TravelPDX7, with less than 20 posts, it's possible, just possible, that you could learn something from the more experienced folks here. I certainly do, nearly every day. Again, if you think you got a good deal, cool, but this site is both about the best ways of earning miles and spending miles.

And, if you think that by any standards other than your own, you got the best use of your miles, you're wrong.

The limiting factor was MDZ-SCL which could be taken care of with Avios, which can be easy to get with transferrable programs. Spend 9K to save 30K.

This is also what I'm trying to tell the OP, that transferrable miles cards can really really help out. There's a reason why Chase UR is loved around here.