With all the discussions about inflation/devaluations of miles I have a related question. What are some of the strategies to convert "cheap" miles to "valuable" miles? What do folks here see as "cheap" vs. "valuable" miles, with conversion possibilites?

A few years ago, I found BA awards to India in F/J much better value than AA awards on the same route (AA to LHR and BA onwards). I used Diners double promo and other techniques to convert. Alas, this is no longer a true with "inflation" on this route for BA awards. (sidenote: Now AA awards on Swiss to India have much better availability in J at a slightly appreciated value for AA miles).

CO --> Amtrak --> UA seems to be another example of a lot of "cheap" to "valuable" miles conversion exercise. UA has such great awards to Australia and seems to have much better availability than CO for saver/standard awards.

I for one am now interested in conversion from any airlines to Asia Miles as I see a lot more value for International F/J on the routes I'd like to fly using CX. I have not found easy ways to go from AA/BA/Diners to Asia Miles. I am checking on that in the CX forum.

"Cheap" vs. "valuable" is a matter of opinion and what you want to do with the miles. Personally I have hated most of my experience on UA so I would not call their miles valuable. Also, if you want to go to South America, CO has awards for 35k anywhere on the continent while UA can be as high as 50k. I do not know who has the best availability for standard/saver awards, but it seems to be a matter of luck and where you are trying to go. I doubt that anyone, unless he is on the inside, would know either as the airline reps will not divulge how many saver seats are on any given flight - they claim that they do not even know.

I guess a better subject of this thread should be "converting miles from one program to another without losing value in the exchange." Most of the ways to convert miles do so at poor rates.

Yes, but that'd be one long thread subject.

quinella66,

I agree that one person's "valuable" miles is another ones less useful miles. I also agree that it is better to talk about conversions in a generic sense rather than because of value.

The continental/UA issue was because you could not buy unlimited UA miles easily but InsideFlyer has a promo right now for unlimited CO miles purchase. If you use the Amtrak route and the direct UA promo on IF you do get more miles in UA.

Last years IF promo on Starwoods was a great way to bank miles. I am so disappointed that I did not hoard many millions then (I did acquire substantial numbers but not enough in retrospect).

So what are some current conversion ideas that lose little or none in conversion? This topic has been discussed in the past but a lot has changed in FF world and it may be worth an update.