United or Delta Miles to Europe???

[ellbelle]

After we depleted our Delta Miles, we switched to our United Visa to earn miles. We thought that since United "appeared" to have more flights, we would have better luck using those miles. Well, what a pain that was! Anyway, now we have very few United miles left and would like to get to Europe in the summer of 2010 for a cruise. Can anyone give me any advice on what airline I should start building miles on? Thanks so much....

 

Cheryl

[ellbelle]

I guess it would be hard to speculate what will happen if Delta and Northwest deal is approved. After I posted the above, I went back to Yahoo, and the headline was "more money, fewer seats. Any past experience would be appreciated.

[6rugrats]

That is a long time in the future.

 

I have found it easier obtaining award tickets using United miles. Also, I've never used more than 50,000 miles for an economy ticket to Europe and on Delta, it's very hard to find one for less than 75,000 miles.

[ellbelle]

Thanks! I will just keep using my United Visa..I guess I will pay to transfer miles to my account too to get up to the 150,000+ miles that we will need.:)

 

Cheryl

[FlyerTalker]

You might want to look into the Starwood AMEX. In addition to earning points that can be used for hotels as well as air, the Starpoints can be transferred to airline programs, usually with at least a 25% bonus on the transfer. So $20K of spend gets you 20K Starpoints, which can be transferred into 25K miles with many programs. Even better, they have a program called Nights and Flights, where you get 5 nights hotel AND FF miles with the bonus. Excellent redemption.

 

What you really get with Starwood is flexibility. You can transfer Starpoints into UA OR into DL, depending on what you might need.

 

There is a very extensive comparison of credit cards at Flyertalk. There are also many threads about redemption of miles. Also, Inside Flyer magazine (and their web version) have regular features on redemption comparisons.

[Jade13]

After we depleted our Delta Miles, we switched to our United Visa to earn miles. We thought that since United "appeared" to have more flights, we would have better luck using those miles. Well, what a pain that was! Anyway, now we have very few United miles left and would like to get to Europe in the summer of 2010 for a cruise. Can anyone give me any advice on what airline I should start building miles on? Thanks so much....

 

Cheryl

 

You could stick with United. They are partners with US Airways, Luftansa, SWISS, and Air Canada to name a few.I have used US Airways miles the past 3 years to Canada and to Europe on US Airways, Luftansa and SWISS, all with miles on Us Airways or BofA credit card.

[ellbelle]

Thanks Flyertalker and Jade 13....I checked out Starwood AMEX and can even earn 10,000 bonus points as a new card holder. Found on Flyertalk.com (thanks for the site!) that you can get to gold status with 30K spending per year, the perks are even better! I like to ability to transfer miles too. If ultimately we end up on United, at least I won't lose the few miles I have earned.

 

Cheryl

[PennyAgain]

My husband wants us to give up all of our miles related credit cards and go to ones that give us cash back. He feels we are better off with cash and just buying the tickets we want to have.

 

As much as I hate to admit it, I think he's right.