Award with one, miles with another
 

I guess you can do something like this, but I've never tried it -- it is best explained with a specific example:

1. Buy a coach ticket on Singapore Air.
2. Upgrade it with a Delta Award.
3. Claim United miles for the trip.

Fill in any combination with a carrier with multiple partners.

Does it work?

some very good friends of mine don't discuss airline (mileage-program, etc) loopholes openly on this board (that's one of the reasons my very best friends often visit Flyertalker's get-togethers).

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So Rudi, it DOES work? Cool.

OK, Rudi, I am intrigued -- I would not think this is a loophole situation...

Maybe I will attend one of these gatherings -- the last few, I was one week out-of-sync (I was in the right city, just a week too early).

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Maybe this one is less of a secret....

In the past, I've used a Delta upgrade reward on Swissair, and got Delta miles (and Swissair miles, too, for some strange reason -- I never gave my Qualiflyer number...)

Have you ever tried putting the frequent flyer number of a carrier into the system when using the upgrade award from another carrier?

Simple example:
1. American upgrade award on Cathay Pacific.
2. Claim Cathay miles instead of American.

Nothing sneaky... any luck?

This sounds interesting

However if you upgrade from say economy to business class, when you earn your United miles do you earn them at the economy rate or the business rate?

cheers Peter

the general rule is that you (only) earn miles based on the flight-class you paid for (but it happens that on your trip, when changing/rebooking they enter a wrong class code and you might get more than you paid for).

Usually economy, from what I've seen, but on a REAL "good" day possibly BC/FC too!

Swissair (Qualiflyer) seems to award miles on the upgraded class as a normal course of action. Although their rules state otherwise...

I agree Rudi, after the TA issue, i've learned my lesson about "secrets". So now, i've been keeping them to a select few if I stumble upon them.

typically when upgrading aa flights from latin america, i have gotten class of service bonus miles. and i know that's not supposed to happen.

also, general coach award tickets on delta's partners get credited as miles in your skymiles account. another glitch, but who's complaining?

Rudi, thank you for your info. I have heard some people getting bumps on award travel being rebooked and getting miles... neat.

When I got bumped last year, I asked if it could be rebooked to get miles, and it was done without question (AA). I also asked when a flight was cancelled, and it was done. I think they see it as some of the compensation for inconveniencing you. Unfortunately no extra miles for our recent operational upgrade, but 9000 miles for delaying us over 2 hours in the plane. Not complaining.

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DtG

What's the deal, you ask to be rebooked when you get bumped, but still get miles for the flight you were bumped from?

Yes. In February I was bumped from a CO flight and put on a US one. I faxed a copy of my ticket and received CO miles for the original flight. (Although it was of no use to me, plenty here seem to have then also faxed in a copy of the boarding pass for the flight they were rebooked on.)