It relates to points.com the company, not points.com the website.

Points.com the company executes, for example, all the BuyAAMiles transactions you do as well as AA to HH or AA to DC transfers (RedeemAAMiles) you do starting at the aa.com website. It does this and other similar "famred out" miles/points services for a number of companies. I'm pretty sure this is what was meant by "wholesale".

So half the "other" means to swap miles are actually implement by points.com behind the scenes.

"Retail" is the stuff you see actually at points.com. Their main business there seems to be sending out tons of emails about useless poor-value stuff most people ignore. At least that was the case prior to GPX; maybe there are some people who find at least GPX useful? (Prior to that, the only thing I ever heard of any FTers finding useful about it was signup and/or Gold upgrade bonuses, on the infrequent occasions that they were better than average.)

The means to swap miles are extermely dependent on the airline/hotel companies involved. Obviously, you can generally swap from most hotel points to many airlines right at the hotel sites. AA, CO, MW, and maybe a few other airlines (but not many) allow swapping to somewhere (that allows, a transfer or two later, to swap back to another airline), AA through Hilton HHonors and Diners Club at least, CO and MW through Amtrak Guest Rewards.

But for some airlines (for example Frontier), the "retail" points.com is the only place you can move out of them (but always at a tremendous loss of value).

Thank you for the detailed explanation. I hope it is understood, that some questions indicate that the person asking, is new to FlyerTalk. I am trying to learn as much as I can. My New Year's resolution was "learn nothing new" that lasted about 2 days.

I would be surprised. Many airline and hotel programs provide a limited facility to transfer points from one member's account to another for a fee, typically $0.01 each. This service is outsourced to Points International Ltd, the operator of the points.com site.

In my understanding, GPX is merely a tool for matching strangers who would like to perform reciprocal transfers. The transfer fees still apply and there is (or will be) an additional fee for using GPX, and the transactions count against the annual transfer limit. It's less expensive than buying miles or points, but otherwise .

Note that AA has announced a restriction on the use of their outwards transfer facility, operated by Points International Ltd....

Effective April 10, 2008, non-elite status AAdvantage members must have a minimum available mileage balance of 25,000 miles in order to complete a transaction on the redeemAAmiles Web site. There is no minimum mileage balance requirement for AAdvantage Executive Platinum�, AAdvantage Platinum� and AAdvantage Gold� members.

The Webflyer tool shows the transfer path, but it does not actually execute any transactions.

Thanks again!

Got an email tonight advising that they were posting the missing miles. The original purchase was in October last year. Better late than never!

Who is the CEO ? Any email, phone or fax to him/her?

why not just refer back to my post on page 1 (post #6) and email the whole lot of people I listed at the bottom of the post?

you will surely get a response, as the whole place--those who are still working there since I got that list in 05--will now want to help you find resolution.
MM