I'm a newbie, and have built up about 300K miles in USAir and 300K in United. I want to take my family to Europe and need to somehow combine these. Is there a way of using an exchange like points.com and indirectly move USAir miles into some program that has a relationship with United? Any other ideas?

Thanks for any help for this newbie.

Since United ands USAIR are both in Star Alliance, can't you leave the miles in the separate accounts and use them on either carrier or a different Star Alliance carrier?--ie--if you went overseas on Lufthansa, can't you use United or USAIR miles?

That's a good idea. I don't really care which airline I fly, and if Lufthansa allows you to use USAir and United miles for tickets, that would work great.

Do you think this is the best way to go? Are there any other options that would let you indirectly transfer miles to a third-party rewards program, where you could bank them together?

Thanks.

Any move you make to actually combine the miles will mean you will lose many of the miles in transfer.

You are better off using the miles in both accounts to get SA awards.

William

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If you try to do a transfer somehow between programs, you'll lose a good chunck of miles in dilution through a points transfer service. Since US and UA are both in Star Alliance, you get to use the full value of the miles on a Star Alliance carrier.

You just need to pick which Star Allaince carrier you want to fly on, then call either UA or US (whichever miles you want to pay for a ticket with) and tell them you wqant to book an award ticket on one of the Star Alliance carriers.

I just booked an award on Qantas using USAIR points via the US-Qantas partnership. I could have also used AIR New Zealand on a Star Alliance award, but the business class award on Qantas was fewer miles than the Star Allaince buswiness class award from North America to Australia/New Zealand.

You can go to the Star Alliance web site and they have a time table you can use to figure out which Star Alliance carriers fly to what locations. Also, you'll need to look at the Star Alliance award chart for the mileage cost of the trips you want to take. I know the chart is available on USAIR's site, probably also on the Star Aliiance.com site as well.

You may have trouble finding award seats depending on where you want to fly, when you want to fly, class of tickets you want to get and how many award seats you are looking for.

The airlines look like they are holding back more of the business class seat awards until closer to departure to see if they sell. So if you want to get 4 business class seats to a popular destination, you might not b able to book the award months in advance, or book a bunch of business class seats all on the same flight, etc.

But, that is like playing the lotttery anymore--you just try and see what is available. I had to keep trying for 2 weeks to get the Qantas award booked through USAIR, but I was getting the award for my sister and she had a fairly restrictive set of dates. The more flexible you are, the easier you will find what you are looking for.

Good luck!!

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Here is the link to USAIR's site for the Star Alliance chart

http://usairways.com/dividendmiles/r...art_060104.pdf

Also--note that USAIR has a different toll free number to use for internation award ticket booking----1-800-442-2784

Thanks for all of the wonderful advice. You convinced that using the star alliance partner is the way to go.

Thanks again!

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Great--I think that is best.

One other nuance--maybe two. I think both US and UA would probably tell you that they you have to use their flights (metal) if they actually fly to the destination for an award. For instance--if you were going to fly to Sydney AU, United flies there as well as Air new Zealand.

I don't know if that is exactly true--what I think is closer to the right answer is that you will end paying more miles for an award ticket using a partner carrier in Star Alliance than if you booked the award as an UA or US flight.

Having sad that, with all the goofy code share agreements out there now, you could get on a Lufthansa plane in the United States and fly to Europe, maybe even have a connection and all the flight numbers could be either United or USAIR flight numbers. That issues is a bigger one if you are paying for the tickets and want the ff mileage accrued in a specific account.

For award tickets, I would get too hung up over who's flight number is on the award ticket. When you call US or UA, they will know if it it their plane flying the route. If you have to connect in a gateway city in this country--you'll probably end up on US or UA to the gateway and then connect to the Star Alliance carrier.

Hopefully, you are living inm an area where you don't have too much trouble getting the award to connect to the closet airport for you. have seen on here some folks that live in small cities--like Fayetteville, NC and when they have tried to get USAIR awards--they have no trouble starting out at Charlotte--but getting ther award seat on the commuter planes that apparently fly into Fayetteville is not easy..

Have a great trip..!!!

^

Last week I coached a married couple who were trying to combine their accounts. I told them what you've been told here. Can't be done without losing significant mileage.

But it turns out that they had the misunderstanding that the woman's account would only yield awards for the woman, and the husband's account could only be used to get awards for him. They were delighted to learn that his miles could acquire an award for her.

So it may seem to go without saying, but I want to be sure you understand that you can arrange travel for just about anyone on the planet with either one of your accounts. It's a bit easier if the person has your same last name, but you can use the miles for anyone you want.

That's why it's so cool to use your miles to get awards on Star Alliance - on any Star Alliance carrier.

I recommend that you consolidate your mileage accrual on one or the other. My suggestion, with all other factors equal, would be UA over US. Of the two, I think UA has a better chance of surviving. That is probably the greatest single factor in attaching a value on miles. Will the airline be there a year or two or three later?

Great advice from some nice FT folks.Now here is a wrinkle for you.I have around 50k miles with United.I am flying to Montreal on AC.I have 14k miles on AC-this trip will get me 5k more-not enough for an award.I want to go to south America next year in C(coach seats would be really tough for me on a long flight)for which I need 80k.
Should I put the miles to Montreal on my United Milage plus card-or Aeroplan?

I'd vote for UA. Then you'd have 55k miles with UA. If you have not done so, get a UA VISA for another 15k miles, leaving you with needing only another 10k to reach 80k with a myriad of opportunities to get the add'l 10k (search UA forum for suggestions).

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Another thing to check is which of the airlines have the lowest mileage requirement to get to South America from your location.

Even though UA, US and AC are in Star Alliance--they will not all have the same award mileage requirment from North America to international destinations.

If AC's award mileage requirement were less than UA's, it might make sense to accrue mileage on AC--depends on the specifics

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Well--I just took a quick look--UA's mileage requirement from North America to South America is 50K/80K/100K and AC's mileage requirement for the same award is 50K/75K/100K.

So assuming that the mid-level award is business class and I assume there are more two class than three class aircraft running on routes like that--the AC award is 5,000 miles less.

Might be better to accrue the miles in the UA account and when it comes time to take the trip, try to snag the AC award using your UA miles. Not sure that is doable in your location--but you are closer to getting a premium award on UA than AC--makes sense to accrue miles there since you are not far away from that award level on either airline.

I hope all of you experienced FTers out there can clarify a couple of points for me re using US or UAL miles to upgrade from a paid eligible biz class to F on UAL metal to China. Specifically, if I have 120,000 DM and can buy 2 qualified biz class tickets and since US doesn't fly to China, can I get 2 F seats on UAL metal immediately (confirmed) or does MP also dole out F seats slowly? I guess my basic question is if I have the $ and the miles, what are my chances of getting confirmed F seats on UA to China in the fall of 2005? I realize that in order to fly other *A carriers I cannot upgrade using miles, right? Thanks for helping me out.

Also note that *A wiill allow you to mix carriers quite easily, even on international itin. For example, I was flying on fare IAD-LHR-DEN with a companion for whom I was picking up the ticket on miles. I needed to stay in LHR longer, so we flew IAD-JFK on UX (now it's an Independence airplane), then UA to LHR. On my way back, on the ticket I paid for, I flew back UA. They flew back on US from LGW to CLT to DEN. Just find a creative international award CC person... and be willing to bend.

Yet another good reason to be a *A *G. That and the lounges. Thank you, SK!

Timothy