Starwood Adds A 34th Airline Transfer Partner And It’s Excellent For Awards To Israel!

what happens when the merger with starwood and marriott goes into effect…. thats what we need to pay attention to… but this is definitely a fine option…

@yankel:
I wrote that in the post.

any $fees with the points?

@danny:
I called about United flights to Israel and there were no fuel surcharges.

Can you transfer United points to another airlines?

@esther:
No.

@Dan: When you say no fuel surcharges you mean it was just regular taxes & fees (i.e. under $100 roundtrip)? Also are there fuel surcharges on non-United routes? I mean since United availability might not be good for the dates I want (especially if I want to book multiple tickets). Do they charge fuel surcharges on Turkish, Luftansia, etc?

dan thanks! how long does the transfer take? can you hold flights with them?

What are the fuel charges on the other Star airlines?

will there only be availability if united has a saver award available?

Please note that airline transfer awards to Miles+Bonus membership may require up to 3-5 business days handling and processing time.

So essentially u can get a business class ticket to israel for Points value of less than 1700??

Is the only way to use United Miles thru United’s site?

Do you know how long a transfer takes to process? And, are you bothered by the rear facing seats in business?

would there regular availability as if booking thru united.com?

of course

Do you think this will extend the expiration date or do you think they’ll be strict on the “credit a flight” requirement?

Dan,

Thanks for this and everything else you do.

How long should it take to transfer SPG to Aegan?

Can tix be put on hold while waiting for the transfer?

What are the taxes roughly for different airlines in coach/biz/first?

I just called and found dates and times that worked for me with AC/TK/Austrian only to find the taxes would be $600+ Euro which is not such a great deal for coach.

Can availability be checked by looking at partner airlines websites or only by calling Aegan? If I look at UA website am I looking for savers only? Savers with expanded availability also?

Thanks again and Freilechen Chanukah!

can you explain more how to how to book because i think that they have a terrible phone line

just called and the tax one way with Austrian would be 500 euro however the tax with united would be just 41 euro one way ewr tlv

@more info may be helpful read the comments!! you can hold seats for 24 hours

@Dan’s the Man:
Just called and there are surcharges on Lufthansa, Swiss, and Turkish.

Nothing on United and there may be nothing on Air Canada either, but I need to call again to confirm Air Canada.

@joe:
I wasn’t able to hold a flight when I tried just now.
Nobody knows how long a transfer will take. Probably a few days, but there’s no data there yet.

@Leon Grunblatt:
Different for every airline and route, same as the surcharge on paid flights for most airlines.

@dave:
Probably, though one agent seemed to have more space than what United.com showed. Could have been a mistake though.

@esther:
Yes.

@eb:
Yes.

@Erik:
Try and let us know 😀

@more info may be helpful:
Tofasta meruba lo tafasta…

@joe:
I called the US number and they transferred me.

@joe:
I was told 25 Euro for UA EWR-TLV and v/v.

I don’t see how you could use this airline to fly to Israel from North America. Went to the Aegean website and there are no flights from NYC, or any US city. How would one go about the? Would you fly somewhere on United, then transfer? Wouldn’t that require more points?

@SHAWN:
Aegean books you on United. As the post says, over the phone only.

How is the Biz and First class product on United to TLV?

@E:
United doesn’t have first class to TLV.
The business is lie-flat. Better than El Al, not as good as Delta. Still very good overall.

Not as good as SkyBlue. Used 40,000 Starwood points for round trip to Israel non stop on Delta.

@Waterpri:
United availability is significantly better than Delta.

United business is not lie-flat, it’s 180 degree recline, like ElAl. And has rearward facing seats. Check out seatguru.

@Reb Yid:
United EWR-TLV is most definitely lie-flat and it is definitely not rear-facing.
A. You’re looking at the wrong aircraft.
B. Seatguru is far from always accurate.

Any idea what lap children would cost?

@Dan: That’s true Dan but united non-stop availability still isn’t good for prime dates or if you’re traveling with a family of 6. Flying Blue has good availability with stops and while there are fuel surcharges they are less than $200 (search in EUR currency as the EUR has gone down against the USD). For Pesach time I plenty of availability for 50K Flying Blue points and approx. $170 in fuel surcharges for roundtrip. Not bad for prime Pesach time.

any other easy way to acquire Aegean points besides transferring Starwood points ie. some type of Aegean credit card??

@Dan: i guess i missed it. thx

Does Aegean allow stopovers between the USA and Europe or the Middle East?

Wow! 75k SPG for a round trip in J! that’s nice.
Or, 140k for 2 RT tickets.

@Venilla: That is purely theoretical. Good luck on finding that availability.

basic question about starwood, does transfers above 20k get 25% bonus for whatever amount or just for 20k/40k/60k etc. increments?
for instance, will 50k get 62500?

No you only get the 25% bonus when you do 20K increments. So 50K would get you 60K

Don’t know much about using miles. Have a family of 7 and about 260k starwood miles (another 30+ UR). May have more by the time I book, flying over the summer. Can someone advise this rookie in clear steps how to do this? Thanks!

whats my best option 1 way from prague to nyc on apr 6