Combining two airlines FF miles
 

Do you know if I can combine United Mileage Plus FF miles with American Advantage FF?

We are holding 70,000 United FF that I know we will never use & I'd like to put them into my AA account. I know that even if it's possible to do this, I'd lose a lot of miles, but something is worth more than nothing.

I received a message today from AA advertizing points.com, but I don't see anything there about United Air.

Thanks.

In a word, no.
Why won't you ever use the United miles? Where do you fly from?

The airlines have zero incentive to let you swap miles. Nope.

However, I've heard from afar about websites that let you swap with others. Someone wants your United miles for their trip, and they might trade you a couple American trips for it. It requires that you book the tickets for each other and then hand the tickets over.

That is about all I know of it. Don't even know which websites you would go to -- only know they exist somewhere.

Thanks for the replies.
I live near Philadelphia & usually fly out of there.
The ff miles swap sounds scary.

Nothing scary about swapping miles as long as you know what you are doing and you know the other party....

www.flyertalk.com has a Coupon Connection forum but you have to post at least 90 times on the other forums or be a member for at least 90 days. I have traded miles/certs there and never had a problem. Just do your homework and you'll be fine.

Finally, I agree with the previous poster...why not get tickets with UA or 1 of it's partners?

You can use UA miles on USAirways, the largest airline at PHL.

Many thanks. I'll look into this.

travelegs - you can use United miles on Star Alliance carriers, which include USAirways (PHL's largest carrier) and Lufthansa.

United flies out of Phila, too, so why can't you use them for that?

I'm really confused about the idea of one person booking a ticket for himself with his FF miles and then handing it over to someone else. I thought having the exact name on your ticket and then matching it with an ID when you fly was an absolute. No?

NeoPatrick, the holder of the FF account can use his/her miles to get a ticket for someone else. For example, I have often use my miles for both my wife and I to fly somewhere. The only requirement is that I must be the one getting the ticket(s) using miles from my FF account.

I book FF tickets for our family (of 4) from husband's FF account all the time. I think one time the agent asked me to put my husband on the line.

I guess this was what I was thinking of -- from the AA site:

"You can have an award issued to someone other than yourself. Once award tickets have been issued, they cannot be transferred to someone else."


But I guess I don't know how that relates to giving partial points to another person.

70,000 United FF miles are worth two tickets to Hawaii. It's coach of course but are you sure you can't find a way to use them?

Just remember they expire at the end of this year if you haven't had any activity for the past 18 months.

The way the swap works is that you basically issue the mileage ticket as if you were giving it to that other person as a gift. This is very similar to when I gift a ticket to a relative or friend. Little does the airline know that you only know of that person because of a matching website, and that you are probably getting something in return.