Merging Star Alliance miles [UK Air Travel]

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From: Roland Perry on 6 Mar 2010 10:53

Now that Continental have joined Star Alliance, I now have miles from
them and also from United, within one programme.

How easy is it to combine these miles to pay for an award [flight]?
--
Roland Perry

From: Graham Harrison on 6 Mar 2010 16:45

From: Roland Perry on 6 Mar 2010 17:20

In message <-YOdnVLCvrZmUQ_WnZ2dnUVZ8uSdnZ2d(a)bt.com>, at 21:45:25 on
Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Graham Harrison
<edward.harrison1(a)remove.btinternet.com> remarked:
>> Now that Continental have joined Star Alliance, I now have miles from
>>them and also from United, within one programme.
>>
>> How easy is it to combine these miles to pay for an award [flight]?
>
>http://www.staralliance.com/en/faqs/

So that's a "no" then. I rather suspected that might be the case.

I'd already spotted that transferring miles from one Continental
cardholder to another is prohibitively expensive (which is one potential
way to do something with my stranded miles); these guys are really
starting to hack me off!

Yes, I know you are supposed to only join one programme from the
Alliance, and then credit and awards are interoperable - and that's what
I used to have. But now Continental (which was my chosen Skyteam
programme) has swapped alliances, I have two programmes in Star
Alliance, none in Skyteam, and it appears no transitional arrangements.

What the FAQ doesn't say, is whether I can buy a ticket for someone else
with my points - it used to be possible when Continental was in Skyteam,
but I've never actually built up enough miles in Star Alliance to be
able to claim an award.
--
Roland Perry

From: Jeff Hacker on 6 Mar 2010 19:23

"Roland Perry" <roland(a)perry.co.uk> wrote in message
news:0mq9wHuTqnkLFAzb(a)perry.co.uk...
> Now that Continental have joined Star Alliance, I now have miles from them
> and also from United, within one programme.
>
> How easy is it to combine these miles to pay for an award [flight]?
> --
> Roland Perry

You can't combine miles between both carriers, but you can purchase a
one-way award on each if you have enough miles to do so. Generally, both UA
and CO allow one-way awards for 1/2 of the roundtrip/return cost

From: Roland Perry on 7 Mar 2010 05:06

In message <BmCkn.245213$OX4.232432(a)newsfe25.iad>, at 18:23:51 on Sat, 6
Mar 2010, Jeff Hacker <jhacker(a)usa.net> remarked:
>> Now that Continental have joined Star Alliance, I now have miles from
>>them and also from United, within one programme.
>>
>> How easy is it to combine these miles to pay for an award [flight]?
>
>You can't combine miles between both carriers, but you can purchase a
>one-way award on each if you have enough miles to do so. Generally,
>both UA and CO allow one-way awards for 1/2 of the roundtrip/return cost

Yes, I'm probably going to have to do that too (I need 27.5k miles for a
half-trip to USA, up from 25k at last year's "prices") - but the problem
is that recently I was collecting "Continental miles" almost exclusively
on AF/KLM[1], as Continental simply don't serve the routes I fly at the
moment.

So I have to make the best I can with what I have, which isn't quite
enough for two half-tickets, unless I can do something like roll some
miles together (or break down and buy some miles).

[1] Including, would you believe, some miles the very first week after
the divorce, so they have gone off into yet another black hole.
--
Roland Perry

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