Yesterday I wrote that Citi ThankYou Points had added Air France Flying Blue as a 1:1 transfer partner.

That's big news because there are some amazing high value uses for Flying Blue miles, and ThankYou Points are so easy to earn from the Citi ThankYou® Premier Card with its 40,000 point sign up bonus and 3x category bonus on travel and gas purchases.

When I was researching that post though, I couldn't find Flying Blue's complete award chart.

Let me clear up one of the most common types of questions I get from beginners.

There is no transitive property of miles.

Just because Airline A partners with Airline B and Airline B partners with Airline C does NOT mean Airlines A and C are partners.

For instance, in yesterday's post Fully Flat Business Class to Europe for 25,000 Miles, I wrote:
I searched award space on Aer Lingus' routes from Chicago, Boston, and New York to Dublin for one passenger next April through July.

I searched on united.com.

Recently, I posted about how we can get amazing value from the fact that the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer program considers Hawaii to be part of the same region as Central America. We can also use this sweet spot for great value on travel to South America too!

On the Singapore Airline's award chart, it costs fewer miles to fly between Hawaii and South America, routing through the continental United States, than it does to fly directly between the continental United States and South America.

Adding Honolulu to Houston lowers the price of Houston to Buenos Aires

The biggest mistake in the miles game is collecting the wrong miles for the job.

That's why I always advocate that people start at their end goal and work backwards. Figure out your dream trip and then figure out the best miles and points to collect for that trip.

I've collected and redeemed millions of frequent flyer miles over the last three years. By the end of 2014, I will have visited over 50 countries, often flying in First Class.

Singapore Airlines' award chart has an amazing sweet spot: Hawaii and Central America are in the same region!

Flights "within" the Hawaii/Central America region are only 35,000 Singapore miles roundtrip in economy and 60,000 miles roundtrip in business class.

That 35,000-Singapore-miles award would cost 80,000 United miles.

You can see three "destination" cities on one United award, but you need to book a separate ticket with Avios or cash to tie the trip together.

Why is three the limit?
Why does seeing even three cities require a second award?
How can you see four or more cities with United miles?

You get one stopover and two open jaws on a roundtrip United award in addition to your destination and origin cities.

When you look at what possibilities that opens, you see that you can have three "destinations" on your award, kind of.

For instance, you can fly

Delta allows one open jaw per roundtrip award that you can use to see more cities on a single award and to unlock free one ways.

A simple, valid open jaw routing on Delta. The open jaw is between Amsterdam and Paris.

Delta allows an open jaw to straddle two regions, so that your outbound can go to Bangkok in Southeast Asia and your return can start from Sydney, Australia.

I looked at the upcoming reservations in my United account. There are three trips:

Honolulu to Sao Paulo
Frankfurt to Los Angeles
Honolulu to Chicago

One trip was booked with United miles, one with US Airways miles (before US Airways lost United as a partner), and one with Lufthansa miles.

The award booked with United miles flies Asiana, Lufthansa, and Air Canada. The awards booked with the other types of miles both fly United planes.

These three awards illustrate two simple and counter-intuitive truths about frequent flyer miles that I want everyone to understand.

1.

Tuesday news broke that US Airways is not collecting fuel surcharges on British Airways flights on award tickets, which is surprising since American Airlines and British Airways have long collected fuel surcharges on British Airways flights.

US Airways miles are the most valuable miles around because of:

US Airways' very cheap award chart
US Airways' impressive roster of partners including surcharge-free British Airways
US Airways' lax routing rules on award tickets

Combining those three elements, I just put on hold a US Airways award from New York to Sydney with a stopover in Hong Kong one direction for 140k US