Understanding Points.com
 

Could someone please explain points.com for me? I'm interested in making my American and Delta miles magically turn into United miles, and I can't quite understand how that happens and whether it would cost me anything.

At this point, the 40,000 American miles are phantom, as they expired some time ago. But with a little effort, I can get them reinstated; I'm trying to decide if it's worth the cost of a non-United ticket to do it.

Thank you!

I joined points.com for a while but no longer have an account. The GPX feature can be used to transfer miles between airlines but it is not free. The transfer fee is the same as the transfer fee that is charged by each airline (usually 1 cent per mile). It is a better value than buying miles but still a high price to pay considering some miles are not worth much more than 1 cent per mile (depending on the airline). I guess it depends how much the miles you are getting are worth to you and if you have miles to transfer that are of no use for you.

Too bad about the expiration. Even opening a points.com account and taking the AA bonus would have extended them for another 18 months.
I am a bit confused by the #2 post, because I have transfered other points at points.com, without paying for it..... As far as transferring airlines miles to another airline. It can be done, an I think there is even a calculator for it somewhere, however I believe you would lose a lot of miles in the process.

40000 miles gets you a roundtrip to Europe in the off peak, or it's 80 percent of the way to a one way business class ticket to Europe. 2/3 of roundtrip business class ticket on LAN to Peru, more than enough for Economy roundtrips to US, Canada, Hawaii, Caribbean, or Mexico.
So, my advice is pay the fee to get them back ONLY if you plan to use them on AA... Alternatively, if you need 80K Hilton points, and want to pay the $25 fee to transfer them.

2 ways of exchanging miles
 

There are essentially 2 ways of exchanging/trading miles on Points.com:

1. Exchanging miles/points for FREE

You register your accounts of the programs available on Points.com (eg AA Advantage, Delta Skymiles, IHG Priority Club..) and you swap from one to another, usually at a "not fair" ratio, say 100 AA miles get you 25 Priority Rewards points.

Some programs can be traded both ways - in and out, some only one-way (eg, you can't trade away your DL miles for something else)

This is good if you have unwanted orphan accounts and you can effectively close them buy swapping the points/miles to the ones you actually use and keep.

2. Exchanging miles/points for a fee on GPX

Points.com has a section called GPX, where traders post their desired trade ratio and programs. Some programs like Continental Onepass is only available for trade on GPX.

I think 1c/mile is a fair transfer cost, on par with what the most airlines charge. The difference is that you can trade miles from one airline to another - say 1K DL for 1K CO.

I've used both sections and I think Points.com is useful when the situation/need is right. As far as the OP is concerned, United is not a participant on Points.com, therefore the OP can't trade AA miles for UA miles.

Hope this helps.

Thank you all so very much for the explanations! I was able to see the fees for the GPX, and I think those aren't worth it, as I'd have to pay to get the AA miles back with a trip, then pay to trade. It is too bad I didn't notice their expiring (in 2002 or 2004 or something; I must have been busy.) I'm pretty sure they are old TWA miles.

I could NOT find a good explanation on the web site for the swapping, so thank you for giving me that. If I happen to get the AA miles active again, I might as well add them to my Delta miles, or as you say, use them for an AA award trip.

Too bad United doesn't participate. It seems it's everywhere I want to go these days (out of IAD).

My favorite activity on Point.com is GPX. I usually trade CO for AA, DL or F9 at 1:3 ratio and for PCR at 1:4. Miles usually end up costing me 0.33¢/mile, PCR at 0.25¢/point. Trading away AA will cost you more but I think you could average about 0.6¢ - 0.7¢/mile. Your fees on GPX are for the miles you are trading out, not for the miles you receive. There is a trading fee chart on the site. This is a link: Chart.

I tried reading the FAQ on points.com & this doesn't make sense. Looks to me that the trade fee is split. For example, looking at the Hawaiian Airlines website, transferring into/out of Hawaiian Airlines does not cost anything. Looking at the IHG website, the fee is $5/1,000 transferred. Well, if I were to post on points.com and trading 20K IHG for 5K HA I have to pay $50. Then the other person has to pay $50. Correct?