azgirlnnyc

I have 85k miles on US Air and 85k miles on United. 100k miles on Continental, 100k miles on AA and 70k Starwood points. How can I put these all together and get me 2 business class seats from NYC to Male/Maldives ??? There has to be an answer to this puzzle. It seems as though Emirates is partners with CO and United, but info is scarce. If not on the miles we have, can you suggest the cheapest alternative for building up to enough on one of their partners? Or, advice on how to buy a cheap economy class and upgrade using mileage? Ideally, I'd like to stopover in Dubai en route...doesn't matter in which direction. Biz class is like $10k, which we can't afford. PLEASE HELP! Thanks in advance!

rolov

For CO , you have to call the partner desk which contacts EK and you find out a day or so later , I never tried it since I have flown to MLE on MH and SQ .

For Dubai , you would have to go with EK , or possibly QR
I thought they flew to MLE, but im not 100% positive.

You can also try to get yourself upgraded tickets on UA to SIN, from there the flight to MLE is short if you have to buy economy tickets.
The other 2 options are KUL and CMB but UA does not fly there.

SPG points transfer into many airline programs , although the ratios are not good for some. but that can help you build up the balance.


good luck

stephem

The maldives are in the S/Central Asia zone for US, so 120k per ticket or 240k total. You have 85k US miles, plus move your SPG points over and you add 85k with bonuses. That gives you 170k. Get both USAirways credit cards (25k+25K) and you are at 220k. (if you do a 10k balance xfer on the Barclays Bank card with first 30 days and you get another 10kmiles). What to do for that remaining 10 or 20k miles? Well, if you have time you can apply for the BofA card pretty much over and over... hopefully you have time to do this.

You probably wont be able to route thru Dubai though. The challenge will be finding 2 seats in C all the way. Learn about the ANA tool (ANA's award tool lets you search *A awards pretty easily) and learn all the *A segments you could use to get from here to there (and look them up individually). Also, if the last segment to MLE isnt available in business class, consider flying into Colombo Sri Lanka and taking a short (and cheap) flight onward to Male. The SIN-CMB flight always has award space up front.

You could also buy UA economy tix to Singapore and use miles to upgrade, (though I think you'd be buying Y/B fare in order to have enough miles) and then use 30k US miles per ticket to get to Male.

Good luck!

graraps

This question has nothing to do with Skyteam.

Nevertheless, longhaul tickets to MLE are expensive, but you can fly to CMB or DXB or possibly KUL and then catch a cheap flight across. Don't let availability to MLE proper dictate your choice of alliance.

sbm12

You do not have enough points in any one account that you've listed to make it from the US to MLE in biz class from what I can see. If you need to quickly build up some miles I'd apply for the associated CCs for the carriers, though it will take a bit of time for the miles to post and you might lose the availability while you are waiting.

Good Luck!

Also, don't cross-post in a bunch of fora. Bad form.

azgirlnnyc

Thanks! new to flyertalk, and since i had big mix of miles, thought i'd post separately. Won't do it again