Sorry about the newbie question, but I can' find much with a search!

Q: How easy is it (generally) to combine miles from different airlines that are partners? The one thread I found about this makes me awfully pessimistic!!!

Specifically I want to take 11,000 Alaska Miles, and add 9,000 NW miles to get a trip on Alaska.

Also, I want to combing Midwest Express and Virgin.

I had 'assumed' it was easy to do. I hope I'm not screwed! Ugh...

Milo

Hey Newbie , welcome aboard. You're gonna have fun on here.

Basically speaking, you can't combine miles... with that said, you can transfer miles from some airlines to Hilton, then out to a new airline, but the conversion cost is huge, about half... you'd really have to hate the first airline to consider doing that. Apart from that, you can transfer miles/points from hotels and Amex(yuck ) into the airlines... that's about it...

Essentially, the name of the game is to go find an airline or alliance, hotel, car rental commpany that you like, and stick with it. That is how you get elite status and the perks come in droves, try it...

------------------
Michael
AA PLT,1 MLN Miles+
HH GLD, SCI GLD, MM SIL
LE PRESIDENT ETERNEL DE CAMAIR-CAMEROUN AIRLINES

THanks man... yikes, that's horrible news.... gonna have to buy a ticket I didn't want to! Oh well...

I'll ask another piece of advice - I have a measly 5k miles on BA and 10k miles on Grupo Taca. Nothing against those airlines, but under the circumstances I probably won't fly 'em again. So I might as well take the 50% loss and transfer to AA? Same goes for my 11k miles on Alaska and 12k miles on Virgin. Could roll those into NW and YX I suppose...

Tis a pity... thanks!

Wait,

There is one alternative....

Until the end of May (or is it April, not sure), CO is allowing memebers to transfer miles between accounts for about $5 per 500 miles

If you and your friends have CO miles, combine them, and then use them for a an Alaska award.

Michael, wonderful to see you here!

I wish we could combine miles. I could almost fly to the moon!

Well almost!

I want one million AA miles to make lifetime Gold--I will make it!

Hey Penny, good to see you. I'll bet you always smile . I love it!

Careful on the miles combining idea, very few airlines can transfer into Hilton. Call Hilton...

Also check for any small, misc. awards, like magazine subscriptions, etc... My family has a few miles all over the place... ugh...