Miles and Points: An Insider's Guide to Buying and Transferring

The average business traveler belongs to several airline mileage programs, as well as a couple of hotel loyalty points programs. Keeping track of all those points, miles and rewards can be confusing and time consuming and, if you have miles spread across different airlines, it doesn't help you too much. Buying and transferring miles is easy and convenient to do - and can mean that you may actually be able to use them!

Buying Miles

Virtually all the major airlines (except Southwest) offer the option of buying miles - something that was unheard of not so long ago. This is a particularly useful thing if you are just short on the miles you need and are unlikely to be accruing any more any time soon. Miles can be purchased easily on the Web and are usually purchased in increments of 1,000 miles; they also take two or three days to post, so don't buy them if you need them for a flight tomorrow. The cost of buying miles varies, but expect to pay between $25 and $40 per 1,000 miles; the more miles you buy, the less it will cost per mile.

Although it's undoubtedly a useful option, you should always do the math before you buy; if a plane ticket costs $800, there's probably no point spending $600 on buying the extra miles you need to get a free ticket. You may also want to make sure there is actually a mileage seat available before you buy miles. Most airlines will allow you to book and hold a mileage seat, before confirming it. It's also worth looking out for any specials and bonuses - Delta and American recently offered 20% and 35% more miles respectively, with no extra charge.

Transferring and Gifting Miles

Transferring or gifting airline miles is just what it sounds like - the ability to transfer frequent flyer miles between accounts. Again, it's a useful option if you or somebody you know is just short of the miles required. Though there is also a charge to transfer miles, it's generally a little bit less expensive than buying. You can usually transfer miles to or from anybody you like; it doesn't have to be a family member. The airlines impose different rules on the number of transfers allowed in a year, the number of accounts as well as the maximum amount of miles that may be transferred at a time. Not all airlines allow the transferring of miles - Continental doesn't - but transferring miles to a coworker's account makes a great gift or incentive idea.

Points.com

There's no doubt about it: Transferring airline miles, hotel points and other loyalty program points can get quite complicated, although if you have miles or points that you will never use, its usually possible to transfer them somewhere. Many programs use what the industry terms a "middleman". For example, say you want to convert American miles to Continental miles. You first have to convert them to hotel points or credit card points (perhaps Hilton Honors or Diner's Club) and then to miles. By the time you have added in the various fees to do this and the fact that you tend to somehow lose miles during the process, it may not be worth the trouble.

That said, if you have many thousands - even millions - of points and miles, it may be worth trying to get them all in one place to be used more effectively. A good place to start is points.com which is free to enroll in and which does a fairly good job of trying to explain the various options. Failing that, call your airline and ask what your options are for moving your miles somewhere; these are not always apparent or made widely available.

Feeling Charitable?

Many of us literally have so many miles that we will never use them all. In addition to being able to transfer and gift miles to another person, you can also donate them to charity. American Airlines will let you give miles to Kids in Need and UNICEF; Delta works with the American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity while United supports the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Not only is it free to give your miles to charity - it makes you feel good!