Dear Miles Husband: Do I Have Enough Miles To Go On My Dream Trip?

Each week, Miles Husband answers one question from a newsletter subscriber, since chances are other folks can learn from one person’s question.

This week’s question is from Patrice:

“If I am booking a flight to Europe on American Airlines can I combine American airline miles and Alaskan miles to book one flight? Or would you use another airline to fly to Denmark?”

Asking a question of Miles Husband is like turning on a computer, this was his initial answer to Patrice:

1) Yes, American AAdvantage program permits combining partner airlines onto the same award ticket. Although Alaska is not in the OneWorld program, they are a partner with American.

2) American doesn’t release a ton of award space to Europe on its own airplanes. However, it’s fairly easy to find space on partner British Airways. Keep in mind, British Airways charges “carrier surcharges” of $200-$400 or more per ticket, which wipes out the value of your miles.. Consider OneWorld partners Air Berlin and Iberia, which charge reasonable fuel charges ($100 or less) per ticket.

3) Depending on which airline’s miles you’ve accumulated and how many, other programs offer more award space to Europe than does American. AMEX, Chase, United, Delta and their respective partners may offer better space and value.

This leads to a great, basic thing you need to figure out as you’re starting out in the miles game: How many miles do you need to go on YOUR dream trip?

Miles Husband decided to start with Europe, since that tends to a popular destination. He’ll look at other places like Asia, South America and Africa in later posts.