Hi there!

I am currently a Platinum Elite on KLM. The next year I'm going to be commuting back and forth AMS-PHL about once a month. I used to fly Continental to EWR and connect to a train, but starting the end of this month they have moved their EWR-AMS flight to 7pm, instead of 11pm, which is undoable for me.

Because of this I'm pretty certain I'll be
flying AMS-PHL on US.

I will probably move my inter european
flights from KL to Lufthansa, but they're
not (yet) partnered with US.

Any thoughts whether I should join the US Airways program, or the United Airlines program.

Yours,

Eljakim

Hi there,

How much intra-european travel are you going to do during Q1 2004? Every indication is that LH and US's partnership will be up and running by the end of March, so if you're not doing a tremendous amount of travel in the first three months - or most of it is to PHL, I would suggest going with a US DM membership.

If you're going to be flying a lot on LH, you may want to consider UA MP - but you'll make your chances of upgrading on the AMS-PHL flight later on much more difficult.

You didn't mention this - but why not consider LH's program? The bonus miles as you gain status tend to be better than most american programs and if you're going to be flying a lot within Europe, the status and benefits might put you in better stead.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by eljakim:
Hi there!

I am currently a Platinum Elite on KLM. The next year I'm going to be commuting back and forth AMS-PHL about once a month. I used to fly Continental to EWR and connect to a train, but starting the end of this month they have moved their EWR-AMS flight to 7pm, instead of 11pm, which is undoable for me.

Because of this I'm pretty certain I'll be
flying AMS-PHL on US.

I will probably move my inter european
flights from KL to Lufthansa, but they're
not (yet) partnered with US.

Any thoughts whether I should join the US Airways program, or the United Airlines program.

Yours,

Eljakim</font>

I would go for Lufthansa M&M membership.

Consider benefits:
- coming Oct 26, 2003, you earn miles on ALL US Airways flights (1000 miles minimum), longer trips actual mileage
- if you become M&M Senator (*A gold), you get free access to US RCC flying on any *A carrier (US airways should become *A member spring'04)- US Airways lounges should be accessible at that point for sure
- you get 1000 miles minimum for LH, UA, US flights
- you get 25% tier bonus if you are Silver (frequent Traveler) or Gold (Senator) M&M member
- you get 100% bonus (200% miles credited) for flying US Airways business class (+ tier bonus FROM 200% miles)

Everything counts as status miles

So if you are just concerned about miles being earned on US Airways, here is the link for peace of mind:
http://www.miles-and-more.com/mam/de/en/par/0,3678,0-0-1062216,00.html

[This message has been edited by cjva (edited 10-06-2003).]