Asiana Club - Aegean vs Asiana for Star Allaince Gold

As many who pay for their own flights I am looking for the fastest way to Gold and then maintaining it for the least amount.

I live in NZ and am trying to work out what is the quickest way to get to *G. I can never get to it with just AirNZ. I really only want it for the lounge access.

I will be living in UK for the next few years so don't really need AirNZ.

My thought was to
1) Get onto Aegean now. Earn the 20k miles in year 1. I should make this by April of 2012.

2) Once I get Gold then swap over to Asiana and start racking up the miles on them. I should reach Gold on Asiana by early-mid 2013. Then I will have Gold until October 2015. My start date on Asiana is today.


Can I get an Aegean Gold without ever flying with them? The thing is I will probably never fly on one of these airlines. Do I need to? I have confirmation from Asiana that I do not but have not heard back from Aegean.

Also with Aegean, once you hit Blue do your status miles get reset? Say I was on 3000 and traveled and earn 6000, do I move up to Blue and start on 0 Status miles or 5000 miles?

Any other thoughts or ideas?

Thanks!

Welcome to FT and the friendly OZ forum, NZBone! With Star Alliance programs you do not need to fly the airline to get status. The only exception to this is AC who have just introduced steep minimum requirements.

Personally, I would most probably stick to A3. They have a decent earn/burn ratio while OZ is among the worst. And I wouldn't split my miles. Just stay with A3 for the easy status and you will be fine. OZ is only really good if you are after lifetime Gold status or if you need some specialty redemptions with lots of stopovers which OZ allows.

Thanks mate,

What do you mean by earn/burn? Sorry such a newbie!

I'll probably want to use my redemption for flights from LHR to AKL.

I am currently with AirNZ but seems very slow to get anywhere. Is that your experience? If I had known if Aegaen I would probably be golds by now.

What specifically does asiana offer? How much would I need to fly to get to lifetime?

I may stop flying as much come 2014-2015 and it will be hard to maintain the gold I think even on Aegean. So I thought that if I had it out to 2015 with asiana then I would be sweet.

Also do you know about the question I asked below
"Also with Aegean, once you hit Blue do your status miles get reset? Say I was on 3000 and traveled and earn 6000, do I move up to Blue and start on 0 Status miles or 5000 miles?"

Thanks.

Also do you know about the question I asked below
"Also with Aegean, once you hit Blue do your status miles get reset? Say I was on 3000 and traveled and earn 6000, do I move up to Blue and start on 0 Status miles or 5000 miles?"

Thanks.

The miles don't reset when you hit blue so your total mileage for the year all counts towards gold.

Thanks mate,

What do you mean by earn/burn? Sorry such a newbie!

I'll probably want to use my redemption for flights from LHR to AKL.

I am currently with AirNZ but seems very slow to get anywhere. Is that your experience? If I had known if Aegaen I would probably be golds by now.

What specifically does asiana offer? How much would I need to fly to get to lifetime?

I may stop flying as much come 2014-2015 and it will be hard to maintain the gold I think even on Aegean. So I thought that if I had it out to 2015 with asiana then I would be sweet.

Also do you know about the question I asked below
"Also with Aegean, once you hit Blue do your status miles get reset? Say I was on 3000 and traveled and earn 6000, do I move up to Blue and start on 0 Status miles or 5000 miles?"

Thanks.

Earn/burn means that on OZ you don't get many miles but you need a lot of them for award flights. So the value of the miles you get is low. In order to get to lifetime you currently need 500,000 miles.

Also, if you want to fly to Aotearoa then you should pool your miles. Having two half awards in two programs is no fun.

One word of caution on A3. Look at the earning table carefully. There are fares that earn less than 100% EQM in Y, which would make achieving *G more difficult.

LAX

Thanks guys,

Yeah I saw the earnings table for A3 is a bit low for certain economy routes.

The same routes earn 100% on OZ.

Anyone have any experience with the two?

Thanks

I also see that both LAX and DownUnderFlyer are part of the OZ diamond.

Happy with it?

I also see that both LAX and DownUnderFlyer are part of the OZ diamond.

Happy with it?

For me, I get lounge access on domestic (US) flights, which is the main selling point. Nearly 4 years of "lounge membership" at the cost of 40K every 2 years is well worth it, IMHO. I consider the 40K a "sunk cost" because of OZ's terrible burn rate, so whatever I get out of them are bonus.

Aside from lounge access, *G also gets me extra luggage which has come handy on few occasions. Priority check-in, priority boarding, & priority security (where available) are also nice perks.

LAX

It is just sad to see more and more New Zealanders are opting for alternatives when their home carrier NZ and Airpoints are no longer their first choice given the stingy and illogical structure of the program.

A3's burn rates are decent, and status lasts 3 years. Those 2 considerations by themselves have made me pretty happy...

If you're going to Europe more often than Asia, stick with a European airlines becasue all the upgrade certs or upgrade points that comes with the status can only be used on the airline which you got the status.

I found the biggest benifit of status is the luggage allowance. I go to Asia and many times buy a lot of stuff and would require extra load or extra baggage. North American airlines charges for even first check in bags, so this is a good benifit.

Lounge is a hit or miss. Some lounges in US's like United Red Carpet Club for domestic passengers are not that great. Some crackers, some cheeze, some pop. It was fun the first 1 or 2 times, it's over-rated by the 5th time you enter these lounges.

Once a while, you get a very good lounge. Singapore Airlines's lounge in Singapore was a memorable buffet with lots of people. Tokyo's United Lounge have shower rooms or Tokyo's ANA lounge have hot noodles... At the end, how much can a person eat or drink. This benifit wears off.

As a Asiana's Diamond Plus member, I haven't tried Asiana's First Class Lounge in Seoul. I only tried the Business Class one when I was a normal diamond member. It was quite crowded when I went for a transfer. What I heard of First Class lounge was more exclusive, more quiet and Haagen-Dazs Ice cream. Personally, I rather have an extra hour of sleep than an extra hour in first class lounge.

Priorty check-in lines is good. It makes travel less stressful and you can arrive at the airport 10 - 15 min later than you would normally do without status.


Priority Luggage tags is a hit and miss. Sometimes, airport just ignores it. I also have many times where 1st luggage comes right away and the 2nd or 3rd one came with the masses which voids the whole priority luggage benifit... Most times, you'll be spending more time going through immigration that all the luggage would be out before you reach the luggage carousel.

I also see that both LAX and DownUnderFlyer are part of the OZ diamond.

Happy with it?

Sorry, I never replied to this one.

Am I happy? Yes. But: The only reason why I use OZ as a program is because of the lifetime status. If that wasn't my goal I would have gone with someone else. The other reason of course is because I fly OZ but from a program perspective it really is about the lifetime benefit.

As a Asiana's Diamond Plus member, I haven't tried Asiana's First Class Lounge in Seoul. I only tried the Business Class one when I was a normal diamond member. It was quite crowded when I went for a transfer. What I heard of First Class lounge was more exclusive, more quiet and Haagen-Dazs Ice cream. Personally, I rather have an extra hour of sleep than an extra hour in first class lounge.

The OZ ICN F lounge is much more peaceful than the C lounge.

The only reason why I use OZ as a program is because of the lifetime status. If that wasn't my goal I would have gone with someone else. The other reason of course is because I fly OZ but from a program perspective it really is about the lifetime benefit.

Likewise.

I think the flexibility of the stopovers on OZ makes it all the worth while. I was in a similar situation, but I decided to go with OZ because of that. Plus, it's two years rather than one, so if you have an inconsistent travel schedule like myself, you at least have the second year to meet the requirements.

I am in a very similar situation (except i'm from aus and living in US with planned trips back home once a year typically), except I have to decide very soon because I'm flying out (on OZ sea->icn->syd) at the end of next week.

I'm still undecided about this, A3 will only give me 80% credit for my 20.7k mile roundtrip, which would bring me to 16.5k roughly (A3 needs 19k for *G). I'd have to make some small domestic trip next year to get to the 19k.

OZ will give me 100% for this, and I will get *S now, but I would have to wait until after next years trip to get *G. However, OZ has a bonus coupon for reaching *G of 50% upgrade discount. It also has a 5000-mile discount coupon too when reaching *S, as well as 2 business-class lounge passes for Asiana-only. Which means, for my next trip home I'd have lounge-access regardless of which FFP I decide to choose. However, with OZ I could pretty much definately also get an upgrade to business class for my 3rd flight home (in..2013).

A3's advantage is I get *G sooner, and that I pretty much don't have to maintain it (You don't need to keep posting 19k miles to your account on A3, once you reach it, you just have to have some/any activity on your account every(?) year).

I guess what it comes down to is a choice between maintaining *G status quite easily (for as long as A3 doesn't change their rules), or getting to fly business class in 2 years time (which I would probably never bother paying for myself).

I have a question though if anyone could answer: Do free *G bumps from Y-class to anything better happen very often (chance-wise) on international flights or is it super rare and more common in domestic? (Does ICN even do free *G bumps?)

I have a question though if anyone could answer: Do free *G bumps from Y-class to anything better happen very often (chance-wise) on international flights or is it super rare and more common in domestic? (Does ICN even do free *G bumps?)

*G travel on partner airlines being bump from Y to C is slim to none on international flights. If you are talking about domestic as in domestic US, basically don't even think about it.

UA and CO have UDU, so basically all their own elites will get all their F and C seats occupy. There is almost zero chance on any domestic US flights will have F or C seats unoccupy with UDU, and even if there is one F or C seat unoccupy, no *G is subject for free upgrade into that seat, you still have to go thru *A upgrades using miles with certain booking class.

Your *G status is basically for lounge access, priority checkin, priority boarding, priority luggage, and extra luggage that's all.

Ah, someone had posted stories of upgrades on some AirNZ international flights (on the A3 M&B thread) so I thought it happens sometimes. Thanks for the info though, that makes my decision easier =D

OZ will give me 100% for this, and I will get *S now, but I would have to wait until after next years trip to get *G. However, OZ has a bonus coupon for reaching *G of 50% upgrade discount. It also has a 5000-mile discount coupon too when reaching *S, as well as 2 business-class lounge passes for Asiana-only. Which means, for my next trip home I'd have lounge-access regardless of which FFP I decide to choose. However, with OZ I could pretty much definately also get an upgrade to business class for my 3rd flight home (in..2013).

(emphasis mine)

Mind if I ask what coupon is this?

(emphasis mine)

Mind if I ask what coupon is this?

Its a coupon which gives you 50% off a miles upgrade or (IIRC) 10,000 miles off the cost of an award. Valid on OZ only.

Ah, someone had posted stories of upgrades on some AirNZ international flights (on the A3 M&B thread) so I thought it happens sometimes. Thanks for the info though, that makes my decision easier =D

I have gotten upgraded on occasion with one carrier while having *G status with another carrier, and have been told the reason for my being selected was my *G status. So it does happen. But I fly an awful lot, and it is a very rare event. So you shouldn't even consider that as part of your decision making process. Just be glad if you happen to get it, but don't at all expect it to happen.

Ah, someone had posted stories of upgrades on some AirNZ international flights (on the A3 M&B thread) so I thought it happens sometimes. Thanks for the info though, that makes my decision easier =D

If it is NZ, you would get upgrade to premium economy, just like NH.

It does happens sometimes, but keep that in mind, it will happen about 10% of the time, I had never gotten one being 7 years as a *G travelling on *A partners.

I have gotten upgraded on occasion with one carrier while having *G status with another carrier, and have been told the reason for my being selected was my *G status. So it does happen. But I fly an awful lot, and it is a very rare event. So you shouldn't even consider that as part of your decision making process. Just be glad if you happen to get it, but don't at all expect it to happen.

Among my 12 one-way transpacific flights each year for the past two years, I have been upgraded to business class twice by Air Canada due to crowded plane - 8% of the time.

I used Asiana's upgrade certs for 1 round trip. I was given 2 compensation certs ($100 & $200) for airplane delay take off (one by Air Canada - delayed for 1 day, the other one United for half a day). Amazingly, United gave me the $200 while the more seriously delayed Air Canada gave me $100.

My luggage was missing TWICE - one with United + Asiana, the other with.... United + ANA... It was stressful because I had frozen delicacies for my friends and fear it may not last 2 days even with cooler and ice packs. The more positve note was travel insurance each paid $US 400 for new clothes.

I do get perferential treatment by giving me emergency exit row over half the time I flew - most times with Air Canada or United.

I think the flexibility of the stopovers on OZ makes it all the worth while.

Agree 100% - the burn rate sucks, but you can put together some pretty cool award trips utilizing five stopovers.

What would be a better burn rate? for *A partner upgrades?

Cheers

If it is NZ, you would get upgrade to premium economy, just like NH.

It does happens sometimes, but keep that in mind, it will happen about 10% of the time, I had never gotten one being 7 years as a *G travelling on *A partners.
NH has been good to me for these. However, I tend to fly during peak holiday times, and am not exactly flying the rock bottom fare classes.