Can Anyone Help?
 

Hi,

New to the frequent flyer programs... lots of points, no idea how to consolidate them in a way to get what I need.

I am trying to get as many of my points possible onto a single plan to use for an international flight. Between them, I have enough to get me somewhere (assuming I buy a few miles as well) but individually, they are fairly useless for the time being.

I don't know which consolidation process to use to utilize them. I don't need hotels or cars, just the flight. I am lost as far as which to consolidate them to, the best way not to loose too many points, etc.

I want to be as savvy as possible and need to fly ASAP.

Here is what I have:
Alaska Airlines 5,866
One Pass (Continental) 22,867
Velocity (Virgin) 1,491
Miles & More (Star Alliance) 13,684

Total - 43,908 miles

Any helpful ideas are more than welcome!!! :)

Welcome to FT, Newgirl!

Unfortunately, most carriers make it fairly difficult to transfer and combine miles across different programs. When flying, it's usually a smart thing to consolidate your earning within each alliance on a single carrier if possible--for example, Lufthansa (LH) Miles & More or United (UA) Mileage Plus for Star Alliance flights, AA for oneworld flights, and DL for SkyTeam flights (or use the Alaska Airlines program across a wide breadth of partners from both oneworld and SkyTeam but with less redemption flexibility and elite status reciprocity). Even better, if possible, try to consolidate your flying to a single alliance or to partners with a single program--for example, make a choice to stick with Star Alliance and only fly a Star Alliance carrier (which CO is transitioning to) unless there's a big price difference or they don't fly somewhere you need to go. This helps to rack up the miles faster. (It also makes it easier to earn elite status.)

However, given that you already have your miles spread out, you might want to take a look at WebFlyer's Mileage Converter, which can give you some ideas of how you might be able to transfer your miles around. Be aware that you can't transfer out of some programs (e.g. Alaska [AS], LH, or UA), so your options are rather limited, and when transferring miles between programs, you nearly always incur a very bad exchange rate (e.g. your 22,000 CO miles can become a whopping 4,000 LH M&M points by transferring to Amtrak Guest Rewards and then to Hilton HHonors before finally ending up in M&M).

It'd be better to dump all your Star Alliance flying into CO (they join *A effective Oct. 27, 2009) and just ignore your LH account, or to earn a couple thousand more in CO (to get to 25,000), redeem for a coach domestic award, and then concentrate your Star Alliance earning in LH. As for AS, you might consider earning another 8,700 miles and redeeming for a one-way domestic coach award on them, because there's not really any other way to use or move them, unless you want to choose to fly on AS's varied list of partners and build up that account instead of either CO or LH.

But without some concentrated earning in a single program, I don't think you're going to be able to redeem for an international flight just yet. Best of luck and happy flying!

I'm also trying to use 30,000 continental one pass miles. every time I try to use them for a planned trip, dates are not available. Is there a calendar that gives travel dates available and I'll book trip based on that? Also, my husband has 15,000 miles one pass miles. Can they be used for anything? thanks,

Welcome to FT, lware!

I'm not familiar with the specifics of onePass, but ExpertFlyer (www.expertflyer.com, $10/month, $100/year, free trial if you cancel before subscribing for five days) shows the availability of award seats on most major airlines. You can search for flights with available seats in many ways.

On airlines that offer one-way awards your husband's 15,000 miles could get him across the U.S., but CO doesn't (AFAIK) and of course he'd still have to get back. Their best use is probably for an upgrade to a paid economy ticket. On CO that's either 5,000 or 15,000 miles, perhaps plus a co-pay, depending on the fare he paid.

That said, as you spend more time here you'll see that FT is divided into forums for all major airlines and many other topics. With millions of posts and nearly 200,000 members, posting in the appropriate forum is the only way to avoid total chaos. Your question is specific to Continental, so you'll probably get better answers in its forum. You may even find that it's already been answered there. (Maybe a moderator will split it out of this thread, which is about multiple programs and thus doesn't fit a single airline forum, and move it.)

Whole different tack.....get a Milage Plus UA credit card. $60. Get the 30K bonus. Purchase and sell 12.5K dollar coins from the USMint. Voila! 55K miles....enough for Europe.

Good luck!

I don't believe that ExpertFlyer has CO reward inventory, though I could be wrong.

CO does have a month-long search tool for reward inventory on their website.

Welcome to FT!

However, this is not a lot of miles and they are too spread out to do you much good. When you said a lot of miles. I started thinking 2 to 5 million. Nothing wrong with your post. You are at a good point to pick a primary program and start building it for future usage. Now is a good time to read up on all of the programs and make an informed decision.

Above you will find some very good advice. You look like a candidate for CO at the moment. Without knowing where you are located and your flying habits, I can't be of much more help.

While I agree that 44k miles doesn't constitute "a lot of miles" imo there is a number between that and 2 to 5 million that most people would consider a lot. Perhaps in the FT community the bar is set higher...but I'd have to believe that most people would consider even 500k miles a lot.

I just wanted to get one thing straight. By reading a lot of posts I see people with 1000s of miles. So let me get this straight, the distance between Toronto and Buenos Aires is 5573 miles. So if someone has say 12000 miles with Air Canada for example, that means they are qualified for a roundtrip ticket? Sorry I am just a NOOB.

'Fraid not. It means they flew 12,000 miles - say, one of those round trips for 11,146 miles plus a short trip somewhere else. It takes more miles than that for an award ticket. The specifics vary by airline, you can find charts on all their Web sites, but a round trip within the 48 continental U.S. states typically requires 25,000 miles in economy if the route isn't too popular or you ask early enough. The number of miles you need for a trip goes up from there: overseas trips, business or first class travel, and seats when the initial allocation of award seats has been used up all require more miles.

It gets more complicated when you factor in earning extra miles from flying in paid first class, having flown a lot with that airline the year before, using a mileage-earning credit card or buying from various partners, other promotions ... but that's the basic idea.

Stick around; you'll learn a lot more here. Welcome to FT!

I don't see how the miles you have will be particularly useful to get you an international flight, since you have so few with each airline. I suggest you start from scratch with airlines like American and United. For example, you should be able to get 150,000 American Airlines miles for free via its 5 credit card offers. Last I looked a cattle class ticket to Europe costs 60,000 miles, and a business class ticket costs 90,000. A cattle class ticket to Central or Northern South American costs only 35,000. Unted has some good similar credit card offers. See the Credit Cards > Annual Fee Cards page of my website below (though all of the cards I mentioned are free of annual fee for the first year).

Also take a look at my Finance page for good broker and bank offers.

No, it does not work that way. Common sense would tell you that your assumption is way off - using your logic, if a person flies a round trip between Toronto and Buenos Aires, on a full miles earning fare code (AC has fare codes that dont earn, or earn very little miles), the person would have gained 5573 x 2 = `11,146 miles in his Aeroplan account. Then your logic would mean the person now can have a free r/t award ticket to "cover" that distance - Do you think this is possible, i.e. fly once and then fly free?

The simplest way for you to find out what good are your Aeroplan miles (assuming your program is AC's), is to go to their website to see the award chart - i.e. how many miles to qualify what kind of awards.

I think you have to pick Continental and build that one. You might try these miles buzz area to learn about programs and how others are collaborating to maximize the benefit of the offers of the program. The credit cards / debit cards are good to use to pay your monthly regular expenses. The mileage run idea is that you fly some cheap flights back and forth in the same day / weekend and accumulate extra . (When they are double points and/or a special program that awards a large mileage bonus if you fly so many segments). There are many "frequent flyers" that don't get off the ground , they are doing it all from land. Not sure how many miles a girl can use , but you can pick and choose what works best for you.