points.com - you've got to be joking
 

Looking at points.com to swap Asia Miles (CX) to AAdvantage (AA) miles and it gives me the ratio...

15000 Asia Miles converts to 66 (!!!!) AA miles.

like that's insane. How does points.com get any business?

some people actually go through with such a horrandous exchange ..

I swapped about 7800 AA Miles for a $30 Amazon.com cert. Worthwhile for me, as I no longer fly AA.
Kate

Unfortunately it's the only transfer option available. Of course you could just shop online and very easily get those 66 AA miles (or even just do an opinionplace survey)....

Yes, the conversion rates are abominable. But if you have orphan miles in accounts you're not going to use before they expire or need to create activity to keep an account alive, it's an option.

Occasionally they sell deals where the cost isn't bad for the end user; e.g., HP's Flight Fund to US' Dividend Miles right after the merger announcement. There was no cost to move from one to another.

But most of the time it is a rip off. I did the above and they ended up billing me $50 this January as part of an "annual membership fee" that they never alerted me to. So I disputed it with Visa.

Watch these guys, they are not to be trusted!

15K miles on CX gets you a short-haul domestic award on AA.

Not sure the OP was looking for something to do with his 15,000 AA points, its just that he can not believe that Points.Com is in business.

I tend to agree with him. Sure I let 5000 HP miles expire and would have been happier if I could have gotten even 10 miles in another usable program last year, but when I looked at paying an annual membership just to make that transfer it did not seem to be too worth it.

I too would also like to know how Points.Com stays in business, and how you could use Points.com to make a trade that was worth it.

IMHO, and based on my own experience, the way they stay in business is by promising things and not delivering. :td:

I am so glad I read this. I have been looking at Points.com and thought it was a rip off. I also thought that maybe it was the only way out there to consolidate miles/points. I was even contemplating joing for $5 month so I could actually talk to someone in customer service. My account is all confused and the only way to contact someone (without gold status) is through an email system and they take two weeks to contact you. What a joke. I am so NOT going to join their group. Thanks you guys!^

They handle some useful stuff as well: purchase of PC points, AA to HH transfer etc... I vaguely recall very good ebay to AA promos of the past...

I didn't have to pay a fee to transfer my orphan, soon-to-expire US points.

There's 2 levels of accounts at points.com. One is free. The only one that's worthwhile IMHO. :) I wouldn't bother with the gold account.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia6030b/2.0 (5.24) Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1)

Wow. 7800 AA miles are worth over $150 on the "mileage market".

Why not just add 20K from a credit card and get a free ticket?

The only useful purpose of Points.com was to launder eBay anything points to Asiamiles. They sometimes give you signup bonuses where you can effectively buy miles at 1 cent.

Its not totally useless. I flex Mexicana three times last year and put the miles into an AA account I never intended to use again. Got a couple of thousand AA which I turned into a 1000 or so Priority Club points. Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick - and at least I'll use the PC points.

Points.com
 

:mad: I have very little use for them!!1 I tried three small swaps. In each case, the miles I sought to swap disappeared and I got nothing in return. Then when you try to contact them, they are impossible to get in touch with unless you pay their silly $49 fee to be a gold member. Of course, I am unwilling to pay the fee. As I look at the Gold membership it doesn't really offer anything that a savy mileage person doesn't know how to do anyway. Personally, i feel they could go out of business altogether and never be missed.

I used them exactly once to swap some orphan USAir miles to AA miles... I think I took 173 USAir miles and got 7 AA miles. :p But, the AA miles appeared in my account within 48 hours, so I can't say it was bad.

Too bad I didn't swap my wifes 6000+ orphaned USAir miles before they expired... :mad: Of course, the 200 AA miles I would have gotten wouldn't have gone very far, but better than nothing. Oh well, paid the idiot tax.

You're only seeing the consumer side of their business. They also process mile and point purchase, gift and transfer programs for many airline and hotel programs.

you could have converted your 7800 AA miles plus $25 in 15,600 hilton points into your account or depostied them into someone else account and gotten say 15k priority club points

Not exactly. Redemptions must be made in 5,000-mile increments, which means 5,000 AA miles + $25 = 10,000 HHonors points and leaves 2,800 AA miles.

helpful thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=630185

be sure to see (and save) post #3

;)MM

Yup. Those 136 miles in my Midwest account (now down to 125) are doing a good job keeping my DL and AA accounts alive.

deleted

Are those transfers free, by the way?

I keep getting the offers for upgrading to gold. After considering the $50 surcharge I scoff and delete the offer. I'm waiting to see if we will be staying at a HH on points in December and be short of points. That would be the only transfer we'd ever consider for the $25 fee (exchanging the AA miles). Every other transaction seems like a total loss of point value.
JMHO though.

That must explain how they have my info and I get SPAMMED from those jerks every week. I will never do business with them!

I signed my mother up for points.com free edition and got her 10 bonus US RDM. Why bother signing her up? Her RDMs are about to hit 18 months and her next trip is in month 20. This little freebie just enabled her to not loose 5k RDM.

It's aaaamazzzing how the original post has turned into the opposite!

However, that said, the OP's 15,000 Asiamiles is worth a lot more than people think!

1) He could donate his points to charity. http://www.asiamiles.com/en/redeem/m...134250,00.html

2) He could redeem for a CX Business Class lounge (10K Asiamiles) pass for someone who doesn't have access when they fly on CX.

3) He could redeem them for some non-airline award gifts. Though he has to pick them next time he goes to asia. http://www.asiamiles.com/en/redeem/g...117533,00.html