Dear Joel,

Do you know of anyone who trades airline miles? I would like to trade Continental miles for Air France miles.

Thanks,
Rosie

Dear Rosie,

If you're just looking to book a flight on Air France, you can use Continental's One-Pass Miles to accomplish your goal. However, you cannot combine your mileage accounts for an Air France ticket. Alternatively, you can use the only legal technique that I know of to transfer miles, what I call the "double transfer." You will need to transfer miles from your One-Pass account into a reciprocal partner account (i.e. Hilton's program), then transfer the miles from that account into your Air France account. Most likely you will lose miles in the transference, however that should be a small price to pay for the convenience of getting the miles you want. The best method of going about this is to first ask each airline with whom you can transfer miles. You will want to look for a common account where you can transfer your miles, then transfer them along into your Air France account.

Good luck,
Joel