Ok so as I have said...pretty new to travel hacking and this will be my first year with some points, chase points, cap one miles, and I am considering citi prestige thank you points. I understand that transfer partners is where really cool redemptions can be had. Frankly when I started this...I was happy to just be able to book domestic tickets home to my family for free. However the thought of an epic first class trip to hawaii or something sounds pretty cool.
My struggle is we do not live near SFO or LA or JFK where a lot of these partners originate. So ...I'm confused--how do people access these transfer partners? Is it not so efficient if you live in rural areas? Or if you live in a rural area, do you "position" yourself by for example flying from Montana to Seattle first....and then utilizing a cool redemption?
Or is there a way to redeem Delta using Virgin from my airport if Delta is there? This is the part where I get a little lost. I see redemptions for delta flights using virgin...but I don't get if you still need to have virgin flights or will virgin book anything delta from anywhere?
Hopefully my question makes sense...as a side note for my airport, it pretty much is Delta, United, Alaska Air, and American Airlines. Most of the places we go Delta has the flights that are most efficient. Utilizing the others would be an extreme waste of flying time. Alaska does work well heading west though which we sometimes do.
Thanks for any help!