dadamn

For the past couple years, I've been hitting about 60k miles banked to AS. Most of it is from directly flying on AS, but about 10k of that is from flying 20-25k on AA or DL to Europe (and a rare domestic to somewhere AS doesn't fly).

Rather than continue to bank fractional partner miles to AS, I figure I could keep getting MVPG with AS flights and start to credit partner miles to another program where I could get basic low-tier status.

So, what other programs should I look at?

mrapollinax

Out of PDX DL would probably give you the best coverage as they will fly direct to AMS and NRT as well as several large domestic hubs. AA will also get you the coverage just no directs into EU or SEA from PDX.

PV_Premier

You probably are not spending enough on those low $ coach tickets to make the elite qualifying spend on AA or DL. If you fly twice to EU on a 50% earning fare on DL credited to AS, you're probably only spending $1500-2000 MQD on those trips...so you'd be $1000 MQD short of Silver despite flying the miles and would have to fly and spend more. Of course, if you get the CC spend waiver I guess you are fine...

I would rather have low level DL status than low level AA status, I think. Perhaps UA is worth considering as well to diversify, particularly w/ the strength of *A in Europe. *A miles can be very useful for getting to/from/around EU.

Certain overseas FFP might also be workable (eg, A3 or NH) and could yield some lounge access benefits for domestic travel as well.

Dieuwer

To attain DL silver, you would need to flying a minimum 25,000 AND spend $3000 in base fares + fees.
Of course, you would be collecting SkyPeso. Meaning, you better scrap together a few trillion SkyPeso to redeem for PDX-AMS, or no deal

eponymous_coward

DL probably has more low saver J availability on USA-Europe than AA does right now. Granted it's all offseason, but AA's availability blows chunks.

xliioper

DL has flash sales on a fairly regular basis. There was one for Delta One to Europe last month for 99K RT. There was a flash sale to the Caribbean a few months ago and I got two RT coach tix for DTW-SXM for 22K each.

Dieuwer

There is no "low saver" anymore. Award charts have been gone for a while. The price is what Delta says it is.

eponymous_coward

Not if you're redeeming using a partner. Like, say, AS (through 4/30). Or KE. Or AF/KL. Or... well, you get the idea.

And if you're using DL, the aforementioned flash sales are pretty decent. It's not going to get you J during peak travel, but that's going to be true elsewhere too.

Frankly, AA's program at this point is arguably worse than DL's, fixed value award chart and all. Yeah, CX/JL to Asia's still pretty great, and you get access to F redemptions, but AA premium awards to Europe are really bad on availability unless you want to pay BA YQ, and DL has partner options to Asia and Australia that aren't bad.

All told *A/UA may be better than both AA or DL as a pure award program for getting awards in premium classes at this point...

Dieuwer

For now. But that Dodo is on the list to extinction also

True.

AA is definitely worst. But UA is probably better than DL.

Mwenenzi

What airline/routes do you(could) do fly to earrn these surplus ff miles?
What will use these miles, and AS miles, for?
What useful benefits from status?

Having multiple ffp’s with low balances is never a good idea. You may never get enough ff miles/points to be of use before they expire.
However at times it makes sense to have a ff membership with an airline in another alliance. (e.g. Oneworld & Star).
AS has many Oneworld & Skyteam ff partners.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html
Be mindful of expiry http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...-t-expire.html
Some ffp's have an own segment rule for status.

The grass in not always greener on the other side

MissJ

I'm out of PDX and I do DL. I've had the DL AmEx for years though and that gives me a pass on the spending requirements. Especially with the break between AS and DL coming up, I will still use DL to cover a lot of the south that is a pain with any other carrier. Yeah, it can take a lot of miles to book a TPAC or TATL reward with DL, but the miles add up quickly for me and I always am happy with what I get in the end.

dadamn

Thanks for the input everyone!

On DL: I used to be gold with them, until a year or two before they decided that miles = $$. Generally I wouldn't want to go back... but I have been thinking about something like Flying Blue, which would cover me if I were taking DL to Europe, but appears not to have the spend requirement. Also FB publishes an award chart vs. DL being secret.

I guess that's the creative angle I was curious about: If AS covers 90% of my domestic travel, is there a good, non-DL/AA/UA program, but likely part of one of the big 3 alliances that would primarily cover my occasional international trips and the rare domestic flight that AS doesn't service?

eponymous_coward

Define "good". Are you looking for lounge access? Miles to be dumped to hopefully not expire? Best possible rates? Access to premium cabins? Best award rules?

AS can handle miles from a fair number of SkyTeam and oneworld partners, so the obvious answer is "Star Alliance", since AS has no *A partners, and this would give you pretty maximal coeverage. United MileagePlus is a reasonable choice as far as that goes, and even has some ways outside flying to earn substantial mileage (2k per every 3 day Hertz rental, MPDining, Chase UR).

But if you pile enough miles into it, programs like SQ KrisFlyer could be a good choice (miles expire in 3 years after earning, but can also take flexible loyalty currencies, and you ALSO get SQ premium inventory at attractive pricing), or A3 (easiest to get *A Gold and lounge access, has a decent chart in places), Avianca LifeMiles lets you buy miles for cheap, and so on. There really isn't a hard and fast answer, like Mwenenzi says.

mrapollinax

A3 had added segment minimums a couple years back. So unless you plan on flying in and out of Greece a couple times a year it isn't as attractive as before

dadamn

I think my priorities in a secondary program would be:

1. No EQD/spend or at least an easy way to exempt/meet it (e.g. credit card)
2. Ideally RDM based on miles flown since I'd use the program primarily for long flights.
3. Decent award availability and fair rules. I imagine that if going on flights alone, I'd be able to collect enough to redeem every few years. And my international travel is regular enough that miles shouldn't expire.