Knobbgb

I was wondering if anybody had experience of getting M&B credits on the following. In each case I think it would probably be OK. I know there can be issues when the flight is operated by other carriers but surely that's only when it's a codeshare with a totally different airline. These are all 'in-house'. Well, sort of...

Austrian. ALL the flights I have looked at say "Operated by Tyrolean". I assume this is just a technicality to do with their AOC.

Swiss. The Helvetic branded flights on the F100s. This is really in-house Swiss as they don't fly for anybody else.

SAS. I notice that one of my regular runs (ATH-ARN) is now operated by a Blue1 717 on certain days. The flights still carries the standard SAS flight number and does NOT announce "operated by xxxxx".

Lufthansa flights operated by an Airbee E145 (Flight 5302 FRA-BRS, S class). Again, this is a Lufthansa only flight, not a codeshare. Their other RJ services operated by Cityline and such credit OK.


I've listed them kind of in order - the first two I think would be no problem, the third is a myabe and the last one I suspect would not credit.

Any first hand experience? I know in a perfect world, the answer would be "Call Aegean and ask" but...

NWIFlyer

Lots of these moves were to reduce costs by creating a lower cost base subsidiary (such as Air Canada did with Rouge) where new pilot and cabin crew contracts were issued. This doesn't mean the prices reduced as well!

I don't think I have any first hand experience crediting to either BD or A3, but based on previous experience of others crediting to both those FFP's:

Austrian-Tyrolean - definitely no problem
Swiss-Helvetic - definitely no problem
SAS-Blue1 - Blue1 is wholly owned by SK, and is an affiliate member of *A. Of all the airlines, I'd be most confident of this one posting.
LH-Airbee - I'm not aware of Airbee (I thought they were Italian and went bankrupt!), but this sounds like a wet lease which should therefore credit as a LH flight.

Xayma

I haven't had any problems with this crediting towards A3. The only way I ever know if it is a Helvetic flight or not is when it has a slightly different symbol on the Swiss site when booking.

Xandrios

The last one is interesting. Does the booking actually mention "operated by airbee"? In such case it sounds like a codeshare (which flight LH 5302 seems to imply as well), which would not earn miles since airbee is not in Star Alliance.

[edit]
Flightstats actually mentions that it is operated by (BM) bmi Regional 1822. BMI is, as far as I know, part of the Lufthansa group now. And still part of star alliance. So chances are that you would actually earn miles with this flight.

DELLAS

BMI Regional was sold to Sector Aviation Holdings in May 2012 and has operated as an independent airline since October 2012.

NWIFlyer

This would make perfect sense. Airbee's IATA code used to be 'BM'. That's now been allocated to BMI (British Midland) Regional. BMI-R do indeed operate some flights for LH from BRS, but these are indeed on a codeshare basis rather than a wetlease, so would not attract miles in M&B (although may do in Miles & More as a partner airline).

A spot of history to understand the *A relationship:

The old BD, of which Regional was part, was a *A member in its own right (irrespective of the LH ownership). That all ceased when LH sold to BA, and consequently the company was broken up once in BA's control. Regional, with Embraer jets, became an independent airline (actually owned by the people that sold their airline business to BD many years before, so things went full circle). BMI Baby, the low cost arm which mostly operated from East Mids Airport in the UK, was dissolved due to lack of buyers and the (very old) 737's put into storage at NWI (where KLM Engineering maintained them for a while) whilst awaiting buyers.

ben434

I already credited many AC Rouge flights. Also some United Express flights that were explicitly "operated by [insert random local company name]". Although the airplanes were always branded United Express. Only exception where no miles were credited is when flying SilkAir (regional airlines of SQ) which is not at all part of *A, so no privilege for gold (except priority luggage and greater allowance if connection to SQ)

DELLAS

You can understand why people get confused I miss the old BMI Regional as it was. Still the new operation seems to get good reviews. Just a shame we don't see them at DUB or LHR anymore.

NWIFlyer

It doesn't usually take that much to confuse me in my advancing years ... although I am lucky that my work car park is adjacent to the perimeter fence for NWI, so I continue to see the last vestiges of BMI as the Regional planes come and go from ABZ - this being the last link because the final Baby plane that was parked up has now disappeared.

In the UK, BMI-R now operate out of BRS, ABZ, MAN, BHX, NWI & EMA to mainland Europe, including many *A hubs or focus cities. There is certainly good synergy for them to build a UK feeder network into Star, much as KLM do now with connecting traffic into AMS, but of course they would need a good chunk of money from any codeshare agreements with the *A members and competing with a very well established operator like KL is not an easy task - one suspects some seedcorn funding from Star to offset the losses in setting routes up would be necessary. BM also doesn't currently have a big enough fleet to support this, and certainly a highly profitable oil/gas route such as NWI-ABZ would never be pulled to allow a *A feed. For the moment, therefore, I see little prospect of any BM flights becoming mileage-earning wetleases and even less of the airline (re)-joining Star.

Anyway, to keep my ramblings vaguely on-topic, this is the link that confirms BM flights are codeshares rather than wetleases for LH, and therefore will not earn miles in M&B:
http://www.bmiregional.com/en/bottom...ack-to-bristol

tancredi

Hi, I'd just like to add another data point.

I've flown several LH flights operated by Air Dolomiti (typically on the BLQ-MUC route) and they always credited miles on the A3 program.

Moreover, they always let me use the BLQ lounge without fuss by virtue of my A3 gold.

Xayma

I believe Germanwings is similar. In many ways its more annoying because Lufthansa transferred a bunch of routes to them once they were purchased (versus SilkAir which predates *A) and they still sell miles to a few programs (UA, AC at least) but without any of the *A benefits unless you happen to be a M&M Senator.

Airprox

Another data point from me, SK flights on the Blue1 717s have all posted correctly 1 or 2 days after the flight.

Knobbgb

Thanks for all that! I'm pleased about the Blue1/SAS flights as I really like flying the 717.

As for the "Airbee", I think this was simply a bug in the codes in the booking site I was using. The LH website does show these as BmI Regional. I had heard of the original Airbee going out of business an I'd kind of assumed LH was somehow ressurecting them as a regional arm. So, I'm assuming those flight can also be booked directly through Bmi? That would make it a codeshare rather than wetlease.

Looking forward to flying the Helvetic F100 again too. A bit of a blast from the past when boarding, but you quickly realise that 1980 style searing was so much more comfortable than the current Swiss or Lufthansa offering which are about 4mm thick, too short in the base and feel like they have no padding at all - after an hour or so anyway.

eurotexan

Additional data points from me:

I've flown both the F100 Helvetic flights to/from ZRH (January 2015) and it posted no problem (fine for me and fine for 3 additional family members in my Together Account). These posted 3 days after the flight.

I've flown Blue1 service from CPH to HEL (again January 2015) and it posted no problem. These posted 2 days after the flight.

hawklx

Can confirm.
I had a few BRS-FRA flights and there was no way to credit them