Julie--you cannot (under the programs with which I am familiar) gift the MILES to your spouse or others. That suggests that the miles go from you to them. They don't. The only thing you can gift is an actual AWARD TICKET. You can get that issued in anyone's name. The importance of this distinction is, as mentioned above several times, that if you have less than the amount necessary in one FF account for a ticket, you can't "gift" miles from some other account to get that account to an award level of miles.

(There are some exceptions, such as the AA, UA, NW transfers, which are mentioned above, but for which the fees are so high that you shouldn't use it unless there is no other way you can do it. I don't consider this "gifting" because of these high fees. More like buying the transfer from the airline.)

Djlawman

Oh yes, I did understand that I just didn't use the right words. Thanks for making sure it was clear to me.

Julie

Being a new at this myself this topic brings a questions to mind...
Curently I have a UA Gold Visa, I got the gold status and the extra 6 cards to take advantage of the promotion. Now if I understand what has ben posted I should have the wife also apply for a seperate account and do the save thing. This will however cost $90/year for the additional seperate account. Is it still woth it?

As a related note, my wife has status (Global services, a step above Premier Exec 1K) on United, but I've got nothing. Every time we fly, she would get upgraded, but I hold her back. Aside from me personally flying thousands of miles, any other options to increase my status? Can she transfer "miles flown" so I can get enough to be at least Premier (25,000 flown)?

Are you making a distinction between two starwood account, one for each of you and your spouse, and two credit cards. Opening a second starwood account is a two minute operation which you can do on-line. You do not have to open a second credit card in the spouse's name (you can continue to just use a secondary card). The starwood account allows you to transfer the cardholders points that get posted to his/her account into the spouse's account, and then the spouse can put those points into his/her ff#. I am puzzled as to why you wouldn't want to do this as this is such a simple solution to getting points one spouse earns at starwood to spouse.

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Ms.DtG

dgordon... thanks for clarifying! I thought we were talking about needing two different cc's and didn't realize that a person could have a Starwood acct w/o a cc. You're right, that would be the way to go and solves everything! Thanks.

No - miles flown must be flown by the person whose account they are going into

Julie,

I am in similar situation as you, new and don't travel much. I try to stick to the following:
1. Get individual FF and hotel accounts for each person to earn miles/points for paid tickets and hotel stays.
2. Try to credit most of the points to 1 account, which means all cc points go to 1 account.
3. Try to keep points in the hotel accounts. To me, they are more flexible than airline miles. (Exception: if the airline account gives more for each $ spent.) I use hotel points for free hotel rooms and to round out the airline miles. For example, if I have 23,000 miles in my ff account and need a coach ticket, I can transfer enough hotel points to make up the 2,000 miles. So far, I have not been able to move my CO or NW miles without paying a fee. I have no idea how to get a free hotel room with my airline miles.
4. When traveling with hubby, always use the same hotel account(s) to keep points consolidated and to get the elite status.

I am not certain if my system is good. May be someone can improve it for me.

Nancy

Remember you can join any program without getting an affinity credit card. You can join Hilton and not have a hilton card. You can belong to all the airline ff programs and not have a cc that earns UA, CO, DL miles etc. Starwood is the only program that allows this internal transfer. BA has family accounts but limits you to BA. That beauty of starpoints is that they can be put into so many airline programs - when you need them in either spouses ff account. I have mainly used them to transfer 20K at a time to get the 5K bonus to achieve my lifetime platinum status with AA. Now that I have achieved that I will leave the starwood points in my account and use them for hotel stays unless an airline needs topping off.

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Ms.DtG

I'll throw this in the mix.

My boss & his wife have United MP Visa deal.
(A) Joint Account w/MP Visa
Card #1 on this account. Wife's name on card. Her MP # listed on the card to accrue miles
Card #2 same account # as Card #1 Husband's name on card. Wife's MP # listed on card to accrue miles
(B) Second Account w/MP Visa
Husband has second card for work purposes (again United MP Visa). Different account number. Husband's name on card. Wife's MP # listed on card to accrue miles.

All miles dump into her account so she can horde them for family trips to France.

Typical scenario.
Husband buys UA tix on this card.
(1) Miles equivalent to purchase price go into wife's MP account
(2) Miles flown on UA go into his MP account
(3) Check-in @ Kiosk miles go to husband's MP account since this is not linked to the credit card MP # but the travelers MP #