cactuspete

I have never flown US, but am looking at a 7500-mile RT flight for myself and the family. This will be a one-shot deal, so the miles will be "stranded." Do US flights earn mileage on any partners? Is there anything that I can/should do with these stranded miles. Sorry forthe basic questions, but I had no luck at the US site or with the FT search function. Thanks in advance.

deelmakur

For your purposes, these will be "orphan" miles, unless the United deal goes through, in which case, if you are in Mileage Plus, they will be aggregated.

swaggie

Cactuspete:

If you are a member of American's AAdvantage program, you can combine your US Airways miles with AAdvantage miles to claim an American or USAirways award from either of the two programs. I do not now at what point this will cease with the pending UA merger, but it may be worth checking.

------------------
/swaggie

PHL

USAirways' web site has all the info you need under the 'dividend miles' link. The partners that you can earn/redeem miles on are listed there, which include Swissair, Sabena, and Northwest to name a few.

The AA partnership ceases on 8/23/01. You can redeem miles up until that point, although you can book your trip through 8/23/02.

chexfan

the two main things have already been mentioned.
[*]If you are a UA flyer, these Dividend Miles earned will be transferred into your Mileage Plus account later on this year.
[*]You can combine US and AA miles for an award on one of their flights (need at least 1000 miles from each AAdvantage and DM)
[*]IF the AA or UA ideas don't work for you, there is also the choice of sending them through a hotel chain's. For example, at Hilton, 5000 US DMiles will earn you 10k Hilton Points. However those 10 HHonors points can only be converted to 1,500 Airline miles (some airlines are slightly different w/ HHonors so you would need to look into that deeper). I do not think this is a good practice as you are losing 70% of your miles' value in the conversion.

mileshound

Miles don't expire as long as you have activity every 3 years from any source (flight, hotel,phone, etc).
You need to maximize your miles. Book online for the bonus. Sign up for the electronic statement - 500 miles. Read the official bonus thread to see if any apply (take the 5 minutes and sign up for all). Evaluate hotel points vs FF miles. Get miles on the rental car. Make sure each member of your family has a dividend miles account and all earn miles on the trip.
The 7,500 miles may end up to be a lot more.
Get the AA credit card w/ a 10,000 AA mile bonus and you are almost at 20K if you combine them with US for an award - before Aug.

Flying is only part of the equation. Last year I earned more miles from MCI then from US. If you fly domestically or infrequently, you don't get rich on the base miles.

There are also opportunities to use less then 20K miles for upgrades.

My rule is that each dollor spent, hotel night, flight, rental car, phone call etc should go into someone's bank. Always earn and hopfully never orphan.

harold

Chexfan, are you sure that US participates in Hilton's reward exchange program? They are not listed on the Hilton website as a partner.


[This message has been edited by harold (edited 03-01-2001).]

wigstheone

USAir does not participate in the Hilton exchange program.

chexfan

Yep, I stand corrected. I assumed that since you could Double Dip on US that you would be able to convert.

Well getting back to cactuspete's inquiry, you could wait for the merger to take place, then those 7500 miles will go into your M+ Account.

My intended post was to show that you could send them through a hotel chain but lose tremendously on the conversion.

Thanks for the correction.

cactuspete

Thanks for the ideas, everyone. Too bad about the Hilton thing, that would have been a decent option, even withe conversion penalty.