Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus - Flying LX, earning TG: do C bonus miles = qualifying miles?

Hi all,

I have a question that I hope one of you can help with.

With my planned flights for the rest of the year, I will currently fall a bit short of 50K to re-qualify for Gold. (And since I re-located from PNH to DAR a few months ago, it's neither easy nor cheap to do a mileage run.)

I expect to be doing some flying within Europe however, and was looking at LX. In playing with the bookings, I was offered the chance to buy up to C for an extra 200 euros r/t (original fare 290 euros). Normally this is of no interest, but I noticed that business fares on LX earn a minimum of 2000 miles for international segments and 1500 miles for domestic segments!

My question: will these miles be counted as Q miles by TG? If so, that would be great, and certainly worth the extra money, as I would net 7000 miles instead of around 1800, and it would bring me very very close to (or just over) 50K.

I note that the ROP website says this:
Qualifying Miles (Q Miles) are the actual miles flown* and additional class of service miles on THAI and Star Alliance airlines.
*Subject to paid fare or route exclusive with some Star Alliance airlines.

...which means that I really have no idea.

So...any ideas? Has anyone here flown LX C on short-haul flights (in Europe) and earned the full amount as Q miles (or not)?

Many, many thanks in advance...

Michael

Hi Michael,

The tickets to avoid are: E>P>T>W>L>V.

The likely upgrade is into Z or I, maybe J or D

Regardless, any of the above plus C and J will earn you 125% on your miles if you credit to ROP. Should you credit to LX you will earn the 1500/2000, or on BD you will earn 200%. FF will as a rule keep gold in the countries they visit most, for example I try to keep Indonesia Hong kong and Thailand covered, this way I am sure of an airticket and a lounge, and wing my way through Australia then credit to an European program. If your primary travel is to be through Bangkok, I would try to keep ROP*G, regardless of what you hear, when the going gets tough again, it gets you out of trouble, regards bkkrop

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: I understand that the Q-miles for C are 125% of actual miles flown. But what I am wondering is whether, given that LX is announcing a minimum number of miles per segment (rather than actual miles plus a percentage bonus), will the minimum number of miles be credited to my TG account? Or will TG receive from LX the actual miles and then do its own calculations (based on the 125% bonus)?

If anyone has recently flown LX short-haul --or, I suppose, any other *A partner that awards a minimum number of miles per segment -- I would greatly appreciate if you could check your statement and see what was credited as qualifying miles: the actual mileage or the minimum given by the *A partner?

I hope that's clear...

Thanks,
Michael

PS Since relocating to East Africa, my primary travel isn't going to be through BKK for a while -- but I'd still like to retain *G for the next two years. I anticipate being around 5,000 short of the 50K by year-end, and I'm trying to avoid an MR (which is both expensive and inconvenient from Dar).