What can I do with Orphan Miles?
 

Other than charity, is there something that I can do with my orphan miles? By that I mean miles on airlines that I have had for some time, and that will probably never amount to anything.

I was inspired by the nice person on Flyertalk that told me to use my Orphaned TWA miles for HHonors points (5000=10000).

Does anyone know any other use like this? I have approx 1675 TWA, 5000 CO, 3500 US, 13,000 UA.

Mac

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Via con Dios!

Do a search for "magazine". There was a recent post with telephone numbers on who to call to redeem for subscriptions.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003116.html

Your UA and your CO miles can transfer into HHonors at the same 2:1 (points:miles) ratio as you already accomplished with TW.

5,000 CO = 10,000 HHonors (just be prepared for a 3-months wait)
10,000 UA = 20,000 HHonors
The rest appears to be good candidates for "mags for miles".

Hey Eugene -- are you really me or am I really you -- we posted at the same time! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Thanks guys! It looks like I'll be getting more HHonors points and more magazines. I have a couple more question though....can any of these be miles be dumped into Starwood or Marriott?

Am I getting robbed on these conversions?

My main airlines are DL, NW, and Airtran. But it's conceivable that I'll fly the others mentioned in my prior message if I find a cheap fare.

I guess what I'm saying is....is it better to try to hold onto these "orphaned" miles in hopes of a future payoff in travel or better to dump them into the hotel programs where they are more immediately valuable?

Mac

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Via con Dios!

Great minds think alike! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

You can combine USAir and AA (if you have any) miles to claim an award on either. Of course, IF(and it's a big one)the UA/US deal goes through, then you'll have 16500 UA miles. Are you in AMEX Membership Rewards? In lieu of a lot of magazines and possible point dilution on transfers, you could transfer sufficient AMEX MR points to CO, TWA or US to claim an award on them. Or, if you have a Diners' Club card, to any of your orphan mile airlines. If you don't have a DC card, not long ago they were offering 10,000 or more miles for new cardholders, and perhaps you could get the deal.

To macbravery:
Regarding your question, "Am I getting ripped off on these conversions?" The answer is yes if you would use those miles for other airlines.

For example, if you convert 10,000 miles from most airlines (not AA) to Honors, you get 20,000 Honors points. Those 20,000 points only convert back to 3,500 airline miles. So, you've given 10,000 miles and received 3,500 miles back.

However, if you're never going to use the original miles (such as with TWA) you might as well get something for them.

Thanks all for your input. I've been debating the merits of this for a while. I DO have about 20,000 MR miles (and that's going to be it as I switch over to using AMEX Starpoints exclusively).

I could use those MR miles to transfer into US or CO, and that would give me just about enough to be a free ticket. However, I have been convinced by the experts on this board that using miles for a domestic ticket is not getting the most for them. So I'm leaning toward transferring to DL where I already have significant miles and would be able to get an international award.

And I don't have a Diners Card, but I once did and they won't give me another sign-on bonus http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

I have no AA miles (I would have orphan miles on AA, but they expired and they said I could never, never, ever, get them back --one wonders why they still keep this information on the website).

I'll probaly do this, use the US and TW miles for magazines, use the CO miles for HHonors points. Save the UA miles and then convert them to HHonors points (or even a Eurostar ticket) if that becomes necessary.

I did a little reasearch on the HHonors points and while I AM getting ripped off, I can minimize thie by using point strectcher.

I think hotel rooms at a good hotel like Hilton are almost more valuable than airline miles because I can almost always find a good sale fare. But it is hard getting an "upscale" hotel chain to budge off their usually high rates.

Mac

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Via con Dios!

I agree that Hilton HHonors points are more valuable than stray airline miles, particularly at the nicer hotels. That's where mine go, except AA exchange rate is a collosal rip off.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by macbravery:
I have been convinced by the experts on this board that using miles for a domestic ticket is not getting the most for them

The bottom line to your question is: What redemption rate are you looking for and where are you likely to travel?

If you book a $400 ticket for 20,000 miles, then you'll get 2 cents/mile.

But if you got an expensive ticket to Hawaii ($1,100) for 30,000 miles, your rate would be 3.67 cents/mile - a whopping 83.5% increase.

And you could also get to Bali, Indonesia, on CO for 50,000 miles. Since that ticket is about $2,000 (from the Midwest, anyway), that's a redemption rate of about 4 cents/mile.

I've seen posts in other forums where people claim to get a rate of more than 6 cents/mile via upgrades. It all depends what you want to do.

Cheers.