Update: Just 1 week left for this promo!
Originally posted on 05/26:
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Promo Linky (Registration Required)
USAirways Star Alliance Award Chart Linky
USAirways is once again giving a 50% bonus on hotels and car rentals through 07/31. This also includes hotel point transfer into USAirways initiated by 07/31. The Bonus miles will post weekly beginning on June 1, 2010.
Normally 20,000 Starpoints becomes 25,000 USAirways miles. With the 50% bonus 20,000 Starpoints will become 37,500 USAirways miles.
You can transfer up to 60,000 Starpoints per day and still get the maximum bonus.
There is no limit to the amount of bonus miles you can earn through this promo.
USAirays is a Star Alliance member, so you can book flights on dozens of partner airlines, like Air Canada, Continental, Lufthansa, Swiss, and United.
USAirways has some of the most flexible award routing options. I used USAirways miles for the trip we just took and was able to finagle multiple stopovers and sub-24 hour connections in cities that required connections to fly into. And if one agent doesn’t like the routings you have you can always just call back…
USAir also allows you to hold award tickets for 3 days and if you make a change to an itinerary on hold you get another 3 days from that time that you make the change. This is great while you wait for more award inventory to open up while booking an award flight.
Here are some sample round trip award rates to or from the US in Coach/Business/First (First class in a 2 cabin plane like domestic First, or international options like Continental’s BusinessFirst or USAirway’s Envoy are considered Business Class for redemption purposes)
-Israel: 80/120/180
-Hawaii: 40/70/70
-China/Japan: 60/90/120
-Europe/South America: 60/100/125
-Australia: 80/110/140
-Africa: 70/110/150
Bear in mind that USAirways’ financial position is not the best in the industry and if they go belly-up you may lose your miles. Therefore you may not want to just transfer all of your Starpoints into USAirways miles unless you intend to use them…
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47 Comments On "50% USAirways Bonus Miles On Hotels And Car Rentals Is Back; Transfer 20,000 Starpoints Into 37,500 USAirways Miles!"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
dan U forgotbtoention 2 very nimportant items
#1 A person MUST 1st register for the promo with USAIR befor edoing any transfers otherwise a very good chance they wont get the 50% extra from US!
#2 a person who doesnt have an acct should go to USAIR.com and click onto Dividend Miles then ‘about DM” an dthey will see a link in a box to sign up for DM and will get 1500 miles for doing so so that way they will be at 114k of the 120k for a Biz tkt to TLV
@steve2:
#1 is covered in the link which says “registration required.”
#2 is a great point for new USAir members!
I know its an old point…
but do they charge fees for award tickets (fuel, booking etc)?
how many miles is it to israel, round trip (including stopover)?
Do you have to transfer a minimum 20k miles? Or will it work for any amount?
Dan – If I reserve a ticket on US Airways today, how long will it take for the award points to hit? Will they post on June 1?
@ Steve. Can you explain what you mean by “they will be at 114k of the 120k” if you only get 1500 miles for signing up. Where does the additional 4500 miles come from?
steve 2 can you explain your ssecond point?
also is this a good promo?? is it better than the promo 20,000 to 62,500 delta??
also isn’t 20,000 starwoods points better than 32,500 USairways?? dan you always tell us that starwoods is the best??
Hi Dan,
I would like to goto Aruba in the summer and have enough Continental points & Starwood points. So Is it worthwhile to transfer my starwood points for the flight instead of using continental points? and on what airlines can i use the transfer points? continental?
Looking for help in getting two tickets to TLV from NYC for a week at the end of June/beg of July on award travel only. Have about 200k Skymiles. 50k membership reward points, and about 35k starwood points. can easily go coach on delta for 260k skymiles…but thought someone could help me find a way to go biz class. thanks
@ Dan. Welcome back from your trip and we cant wait to get the details!!!
I signed up for this promotion and started looking at many flights I would consider over the summer. Everey possibile day is High season (purple) and is a crazy amount of miles. So I dont think this whole thing is worth very much!!! Am I doing something wrong?
@yosef:
They charge an award processing fee of $25-$50 per ticket. However they don’t charge a phone center fee on partner award tickets that most other airlines do charge for.
@Mordy:
You can transfer 10K but then you’ll only get 15,000 USairways miles, or 1.5 USAir miles for each Starpoint.
If you transfer in increments of 20,000 you’ll get 37,500 USAirways miles, or a 1.875 USAir miles for each Starpoint.ratio.
@aaron:
The rate I wrote in the post is for a round-trip ticket with a stopover.
Coach is 80K USAir, Business 120K USAir.
40K Starpoints will get you 75,000 USAir, plus the 1,500 signup bonus means you’ll be just 3,500 miles short of a coach ticket.
60K Starpoints will get you 112,500 USAir, plus the 1,500 signup bonus means you’ll be just 6,000 miles short of a coach ticket.
@Mordy:
It will work for any amount, but at a 1.5 ratio, the 1.875 ratio is only for 20K transfers.
@sean:
They should post sometime during the week of June 1st. You can make minor changes on your held ticket (add a flight segment at the beginning+end of the ticket) and get the hold extended for 3 more days each time.
@Anonymous:
He’s saying that if you transfer 60K Starpoints and get the 1,500 signup bonus you’ll be just 6K short of a free business class ticket to Israel.
@me:
Delta miles are essentially worthless, so yes, I would rather have 37,500 USair miles than 62,500 Delts miles.
And the beauty of Starpoints is in their flexibility, and this is a good use of them as you get nearly 2 miles for every Starpoint. You can possibly do better with hotel stays, but if you want miles this is a great offer.
@Mordy:
Yes, you can use USAirways miles on Continental.
You can’t transfer Starpoints to Continental.
@Mike:
This really has nothing to do with this post, please go to http://www.dansdeals.com/forums and the experts there will be glad to help you out.
@Jeff:
Sorry if I wasn’t clear in the post.
You generally DO NOT want to use the miles on USAirways. USAir is merely the conduit to booking an awesome Star Alliance award ticket. You can’t search Star Alliance ticket availability on USAir’s website, you’ll need to use someting like the ANA award tool (see http://www.dansdeals.com/forums for instructions on that) or you’ll need to call USAir up to find Star Alliance partner flights.
For example to go to Israel you’ll want to look for Star alliance partners like:
-Air Canada
-Brussels Airlines
-Continental
-Lufthansa
-Swiss
etc.
The European carriers have much better availability to Israel that the US carriers do, usually even for the holidays if you know where to look.
@Mike if you book a USAirways *A Award ticket, you can get RT (with a s/o) for 120k IN BIZ.
@Jeff Here’s what’s going on: You’re looking at USAir’s redemption table, which – as you mentioned – is WAY out of control. What you want to do is book a *A partner award ticket (like I just told Mike). This was it’s a “flat rate” (with the exception of the taxes, etc.) within each region.
Hope that helps!
Dan, can you explain the following paragraph a little better for the amei haaretz in the audience?
“USAir also allows you to hold award tickets for 3 days and if you make a change to an itinerary on hold you get another 3 days from that time that you make the change. This is great while you wait for more award inventory to open up while booking an award flight.”
Also in Steve’s comment can you explain his math? How does 120,000 minus 1,500 equal 114,000?
@Moshe:
See my comment above, it should answer both your questions.
@Dan Is it worth it to purchase 20k starpoints (at their 20% off offer before June 1st) specifically for this promo? It works out to just under 1.5cpm (once transferred into USDM).
Wdya think?
@Ari:
It can be worth it, but you can find people on the trading post on http://www.dansdeals.com/forums that would trade you Starpoints for less than 2.8 cents each.
Can you transfer USair miles back to anything else?
Like can I gain Hyatt points by transferring back and forth with this promo?
beware of us airways closing down your account. happened to multiple people here after the last promo.
@Chaikel:
No, miles generally can’t be transferred anywhere at decent ratios. Only Starwood/AMEX points are so flexible.
@y:
After the last 50% bonus promo???
Accounts only got closed if tickets got sold, so if you do this promotion for yourself and dont start issuing tickets only in other names its fine. You play the game and so do they.
Help please. I hope fellow members (Dan) can help. I’m trying to book air from PWM to AUA for Feb 19–return Feb 26. US Air doesn’t allow redemption on either of these days(we’re not flexible– wife is a teacher) How can I get other Star Alliance awards? One problem is PWM (Portland Maine) is a small airport and this is school vacation week. I have 124,000 US miles and could transfer points from SPG. Tried the ANA route but couldn’t seem to get anywhere.Any help/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks very much.
@Dan Yes, I know… but it’s safer to just do it myself. Would you say that 1.49 cents is a good deal (per mile) for USDM?
@Dick:
United has award availability for your exact dates. USAir should be able to book that for you over the phone without any problem.
@Ari:
It depends on what you do with the miles. If you 25,000 of them for a $300 coach ticket then obviously not. If you use them like I did for a $17,000 first class ticket, that’s another story!
Feel free to email me if you need some starpoints…
how much will be all taxes and fees to use 80,000 us miles on continental coach
OK for thsoe who dont understand my math
#1 I was 1stly referring to using the Miles for a Biz tkt USA to TLV (or vice versa)
#2 if you transfer 60k in SPG pts that will = after all is said and done 112,500 Dividend Miles but it takes 120k so its 120,000 – 112,500 = 7,500 left that is needed.
#3 if you dont have a USAir Dividend Miles acct or did but it wasnt used in the past 7 yrs then you no longer have an acct, so w/o an acct you cant transfer your SPG into USAir. So if a person signs up via the Link Dan posted on the main pg of teh Deals Home pg they will giv eyou 1,500 miles just for getting an acct so now that will be 112,500 + 1,500 = 114,000 and youd only be short 6k to get to the magic 120kfor teh free Biz tkt. If U transfer a further 4k from SPG it will be worth 6k when US adds its 50% bonus to it. So tahts the 120k needed.
Since I dont need the tkt just yet I will get the 6k shortage via Hilton doubling dipping and car rentals and other means rather than use up 4k in SPG. Maybe E-Miles or E-Rewards etc etc
@ Dan but if a person has no problems flying in Coach then IMO it doesnt pay to purchase any SPG pts
as nice as FC or Biz is having to pay upwards of say $400 after all is said and done, Id rather be in Coach. And to prove my pt I booked last night a flight to SYD and its in Coach OK E+, for $1200 more I couldve purchased a Coach fare that would allow me to use a free Upgrade I have and fly in Biz, Ive done it already in coach and will do it again in Coach.
Now if I decide to fly back down 2 weeks later then I might loosen the pocket and go for Biz as I will be knocked out. But for my 1st flight. No big deal whatsoever doing it in E+ and Im 6’2″.
I really dont get the fasination everyone has about FC or Biz and Ive had my share of Intl flights in Both cabins
Someone just offered me 1000 for 100,000 starpoints- is that a good deal?
@Dan
Is it worthwile to transfer starwood points to USAirway or does it make more sense just to use my continental points?
@Shelves for them its EXCELLENT for you its STINKS
Shelves: I’ll give you 1100 🙂
@Shelves:
That is a terrible price. But if you are in a hurry, ill give you $1100 🙂 lol
@steve2:
REALLY?? so whats a good price that wont stink for me?
Thanks for your input
@eli:
It should be just under $100 for a nonstop flight including the $50 processing fee, or slightly over $100 via europe.
@shelves:
100K Starpoints are worth between $2,000-$3,000.
At $1,000 you’re being scammed.
@shelves why not go into the Forums click on Trading Post and then the Starwoods thread OK I’ll give you a hand this once; http://www.dansdeals.com/forums/index.php?topic=1253.0
I think Dan posted due to the USAir promo .022 or 2.2 cents is about avg for now
Also a factor can be how bad do U need the Ca$h, how many Pts do U have, if U dont sell them how would you use them 100k can get you way more than $2200 worth of Hotel rooms
But w/o a 2nd thought selling them for 1 cent per Pt IMO U might as well walk around with a sign saying IDIOT on yourself. Sort of like selling me $20 bills for $5
@shelves Are you interested in selling? I would love to buy 100k starpoints. I’d be welling to pay you 2100. Would you go for that?
Hi Dan,
is it worth to transfer my continental miles into Starwood points and than transfer it out to USair ??
i dont have any starwood points currently,
Thanks
@menachem:
Miles can’t be transferred.
Miles can’t be transferred.
Miles can’t be transferred.
lol just to reiterate:
MILES CAN’T BE TRANSFERRED!
can miles be transferred? 🙂
Dan, can you book award travel on US Air BEFORE transferring Starwood points? How long does it take to post in account?
Just talked to a dividend miles person and they said that the 50% transfer bonus offer ended on May 31st. Can anybody confirm this?
I thought it was going on till July 31!! i was really hoping to transfer some SPG points and book travel soon 🙁
@steve2: whats the double dipping process?
Terms say the Bonus miles will post weekly beginning on June 1, 2010. Any idea if I just made tranfer how long it will take to get extra 50% bonus?
HI there – The terms say this is valid until 9/30/10. I just registered for it today. If I did not EARN any miles this way but want to transfer from Starwood to USAir would it still work? The way I read it, it should, but not certain. Thanks.
@Rachel:
No.
Only miles earned after registration and between May 24, 2010 and July 31, 2010 are eligible