My wife and I traveled all over the world for many years. We flew a lot of different airlines and started mileage accounts with many of them. Now we find ourselves with miles spread out over many accounts. Is there any way to consolidate them or otherwise make them more useful?

Although dated, this thread still gives you good advice/pointers:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-programs.html

Not knowing what and how many miles you have, the general rule of thumb is to do your best to accumulate miles in one FFP and fly the same alliance so miles can be credited to the same account. Keep that in mind when you plan for your future travels.

Having 100K miles in say AA is much useful than having 20K each in 5 different FFPs, especially when you now have a goal to fly in C cabin. If you do fly as much as you stated, chances are you may have achieved (top tier) elite status if you had chosen to stay loyal to one FFP. Not to mention one benefit of having elite status is the instrument to upgrade and/or comp to business class.

Use Award Wallet to track your miles and points. I find AW to be a fantastic tool. It's well worth spending a few dollars on the upgraded version.

I also use award wallet and manilla (for united)

lin821, the advice from that thread seems to come down to points.com. Is that about it? All in all it doesn't seem like transferring points between programs is very feasible.

My last passport was maxed and literally has stamps on top of stamps.

Weird that there's no United support in Award Wallet.

No, you missed my points. Wise words are highlighted from post#2 and post#4:

If you want to read more about Points.com, this is the master thread where you'll find how Points.com are used among savvy FTers:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...solidated.html

Trying to consolidate your earnings to one or two programs going forward is a good idea. However, with respect to points you have already earned, while I have not read through the entire thread helpfully posted by lin821, in most cases, the original value of your points will diminish in the process of transferring and consolidating. (There are a couple of notable exceptions like transfers of SPG points to airlines).

So before resorting to something like points.com, I would try to figure out what use you can make of what you already have -- kind of like figuring out what kind of meal you could put together from random leftovers in the fridge. I'd start by making a chart of (1) what points you have with which program and (2) the minimum number of miles needed to redeem a travel award with each program. For purposes of (2), be sure to consider and note which programs have true one-way awards (i.e., only half the mileage of a RT award) -- you could conceivably plan a round-trip by combining one-way awards from two different airlines. Also consider whether you and your spouse would place any value redeeming miles for an upgrade (eg. for a long-haul international trip) and how many miles you would need for that. Also consider that with two of you, one could use a single award ticket while the other purchases coach, which would still save you money.

Once you have this kind of chart, you should be able to tell quickly how close you are to making any good use of what you have. If you somewhere in the ballpark of an award for an airline that you would have an upcoming need to fly on, consider moving one of your next trips there. Also consider using the airline's shopping portal or other promotions you can see flagged on FlyerTalk (including in the credit card forum) as a way of gradually accumulating or topping off various accounts. (E.g., I recently obtained 3,500 Delta miles via the Sharebuilder promotion that brought me just over the threshold for a redeemable award). If you are not in the ballpark for an award on an airline that you'd like to travel on, those are the accounts I'd consider "cashing in" for at least some value via Points.com.

Just some thoughts -- good luck!

Was removed a while ago. Basically the way to have united support now is to have a monthly united balance email and trip email notification sent to [email protected]

More here http://awardwallet.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=3080

Thank you everyone. I'll take a harder look at points.com.

I can only assume using Points.com to combine/consolidate your miles will be the least favorable way. You tend to lose a big chunk of miles when moving miles using Points.com.

You shall learn more about miles and mileage building/redeeming strategies from reading this following thread:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-programs.html

Good luck!

Does Points.com have automatic updates for UA miles?

If you have an iPhone, this app might be useful: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/flie...577356337?mt=8