Hi,

I've got 70,000 Goldpoint miles I need to move to either Continental, American, or United, or a mix of the three. My balances in the three programs are 84,700, 68,000, and 26488 respectively.

What I am wondering is:

1. What is the best program overall where it would make sense to have the most miles? I don't want to have a lot of miles in a program that you can never get a seat.

2. If I want to go to Hawaii, which is the best program that has the most available seats leaving from the SF Bay area?

3. Is there a strategy for splitting up the miles that makes sense? I was thinking of basically bringing the first two programs up to 100K, and United up to 50K so that I have the most flexibility.

I've got to decide fast before my miles are halfed. Thanks a lot for your input. I know you guys have all sorts of brilliant strategies!!!

Personally I wouldn't bother adding more miles to CO, especially since international premium awards are so scarce, but that's just me. As for Hawaii from SFO, that's a no-brainer, UA ...

Personally, I would top American up to 80k or 100k then dump the rest in UA.

OH ... one problem, allegedly Goldpoints is only allowing one transfer this month at the old trasfer rate, if that is the case (which I would assume to err on the side of caution), I'd go ahead and dump them all in UA.

I would steer clear of CO too....basically their award seat availability for anything other than continental US is terrible. It's not that good for continental US either.

I'm going to have to go against the tide here. I'd go with American. Their stats say they are the most generous with capacity controls, they have no domestic partner to share awards so you aren't being hogged out and their awards are generally competitive. UA does have the most lift from SFO to Hawaii, but US does have the highest concentration of 1K and other Premier members along the West Coast, meaning that no matter the lift, you are fighting all the traffic coming from the east to hub through as well as all the locals who have a much higher status then you in the pecking order of seat availability. I would not spilt them up, your balances are not so rich that you can afford an orphan mile down the road.

But honestly, with your balance with Continental and SFO not being a major hub for them, I'd say you may still consider CO for Hawaii and domestic travel awards. It's only if you plan on going premium class internationally you'll have problem there. What was missing from your question is what type of award travel are you looking to make? If you like to stretch out your awards and use coach, probably different answers than if you wanted to blow it all in first class. The other thing to consider about CO is that you can also redeem into Northwest to Hawaii. A few more options there....

When you review all the feedbacdk and make your decision, you might consider letting us all know.

Put at least some of those miles into American to top it off to 100K.

Then call up AA and claim the 100JJ award certificate for First-class travel to Hawaii for 2 people. It's only available until June. 30th, but the award cert allows you ticket any time for the next year. That's your best deal for getting to Hawaii for 2.

And to follow up on Plato...If you get the two person award certificate by the end of June, you can wait until the end of June 2003 to ticket, and wait until the end of June 2004 to fly. I checked this out with AA yesterday, and the best part is: if you don't use the tix,,,,,they are reapplied to your AA account at the original miles amount less a small fee ($50?) for processing....Best Wishes

Unless things have changed recently, avoid CO (even with the option of using NW) if you want to go to Hawaii. You will need to connect through either Houston (with CO) or Seattle (with NW), as neither offers direct flights.

I'd suggest that you pick some date(s) and call up the airlines to check for award availability. United will let you do this on their web site. This will give you an idea about availability.

Also 100K Hilton points will get you 6 nights at Hawaii if you are Hilton VIP (which is quite easy to get). 50K miles on CO or UA will get you 100K Hilton points.

CO will get you to Rio de Janerio for 35K. In the past, they have offered this at 17,500 in the winter.

And those 70,000 AA miles will move you that much closer to that 1 or 2 million lifetime gold or plat threshold.

I would like to use my rewards mostly for coach, as I don't mind coach, and would rather have more trips. (I sleep well on planes.)

I fly west coast east coast a fair amount to see family, but usually get cheap 200-300 tixs so don't use miles.

I would like to go to Hawaii more, and also down to Rio, Brazil, or maybe to Europe at some point. I have a significant other, so usually we'd be using two tickets.

I appreciate the advice so far. It sounds like for Hawaii, most people think UA is the best way to get there. And that I shouldn't put miles into CO because they don't have much availabilty of award travel?

American seems to have higher mile requirements for most awards (except Hawaii), but I guess if they are available it beats low mile but not available rewards from CO.

Also need advice for best use of miles transfer from 124k Gold Points. I too have already scratched CO and looking to BA/AA/US. US has less mileage requirements for rewards but AA flies more and seems more stable financially. Orphan points would be used for Thrifty car rental or TGIFs.

Balances are 300k AA / 37k US / 10k BA
If AA, goal would be to hit 2MM (only 900k short!)
I thought about trying for a 80k US/Alitalia partner award or just putting all into BA so I could fly them transatlantic. I have a lot of miles and status on AF as well but they are not a partner. Another idea would be to put them into DL and then use a partner award.


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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

Worldbanker ~ Is that 124k Goldpoints or 124k miles worth of Goldpoints (I was pretty sure the originaly poster meant miles worth BTW).

If only 124k Goldpoints (and therefore 31k miles) I'd go with AA and maybe US, but you don't really have enough in BA to do much (except redeem for an AA award ... which you can do in AA anyway ...). If 124k miles worth, I would go with BA ...

No no it is only 124k points thus 31k miles. I thought if I put into BA with my current 10 left, I could redeem for a 40k award transatlantic but not sure if the award is more now.

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"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

BA has the off peak coach transatlantic award for 40K miles.
https://www.britishairways.com/execc...Awards_a.shtml