MilesBuzz! - Relocating to Belgium - DL, AA? Help Us Strategize!

I guess I'll have to change my username.

My husband and I are being transferred to Brussels in a few months. To date, I haven't traveled terribly frequently and he hasn't approached the miles thing very methodically. All this is about to change.

Starting this summer or fall, we'll be making 2 or 3 visits home to the US per year (BRU to JFK or BOS), plus plenty of intra-Europe travel. It looks like we'll be on Brussels Airlines perhaps 12x a year between business and leisure.

Our only miles now are on Delta (me: 25k him: 60k, no status right now for either of us), which does fly BRU to JFK nonstop. American also flies this route. Probably the most pleasant equipment to fly, though, is to connect with KLM and take Northwest's A330 from AMS to BOS, which we have done recently.

So, I see two possible scenarios, though maybe you experts will see more:

1) We join the Brussels Airlines frequent flyer program as such, and use those intra-Europe flights basically to earn free intra-Europe flights. For flights home to the US, we stick with Skyteam, either Delta direct to JFK or NW via AMS.

2) We join American's AAdvantage and count the Brussels Airlines miles toward AAdvantage, and make sure to fly American to JFK when we visit the US.

My husband seems somewhat loyal to Delta, but I'm thinking American makes more sense going forward. Can you help us reason through this?

Many, many thanks!

It is perhaps worth noting that flights on AA, DL, KL and NW (as well as BA, AF) could all be credited to a single frequent flyer program, Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan...

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileageplan/MileagePartners_Airline.asp

This won't allow you to integrate the Brussels Airlines miles, and I'm not sure if earning status on Alaska would have any benefit when flying any of those partners, but it would accumulate all of your longhaul miles in a single pile and give a great degree of flexibility for earning and redeeming.

1) We join the Brussels Airlines frequent flyer program as such, and use those intra-Europe flights basically to earn free intra-Europe flights. For flights home to the US, we stick with Skyteam, either Delta direct to JFK or NW via AMS.

It'll take you a very long time to get to a free intra-Europe flight by crediting your miles to a European FF program. Don't bother -- also, since intra-European flights are relatively inexpensive, it's a wasteful use of the miles. Better to spend 90k miles on a transatlantic business class ticket valued at $3000 than 20k miles on an intra-European flight costing $250.

My husband seems somewhat loyal to Delta, but I'm thinking American makes more sense going forward. Can you help us reason through this?

I've travelled on AA from BRU and I can recommend it, although they use a 767 which isn't as comfortable in economy as the 777. Nonetheless, if you want the 777, you can connect through LHR via a codeshare on BA, which gives you many more options of flights to the USA.

Note that AA also has a non-stop BRU-ORD as well as a BRU-JFK, so you can earn extra miles to reach BOS via ORD as opposed to JFK (if that appeals to you).

AA's mileage is easiest to redeem, and to my mind it'd make sense to credit everything to AA.

Don't bother joining a European FF program -- you won't gain status. the miles are likely to expire more quickly, and it's not worth orphaning the miles in a separate program. Better to credit everything to AA (then you can top up by applying for a US-based AA credit card, and also a Belgian based AA-Citibank credit card which should give you some more bonus miles and also miles on your spending in Euros. This of course depends on your having a good enough credit rating in Belgium, which may take a while to build up. But perhaps if you already have a citibank relationship in the USA it will be easier.

Here's the list of international Citi/AA credit cards:

http://www.citicards.com/cards/wv/copy.do?screenID=1214

and specifically for Belgium:
http://www.citibank.be/cards/miles_aadvantage.asp?lang=en

I'd ask what is the main importance? Elite status or the accumulation of miles? 3 returns to the states will net you about 30K miles app. Add on various intra-Europe minimum mileage segments of 750 OW (10) and you have another 7500 points - not very much.

If you opt for AF-KL Flying Blue through CDG or AMS for each of these flights you will achieve at least Gold which translates into Skyteam Elite Plus status.

For what that is worth you will have lounge access with Skyteam in Europe, free domestic upgrades on NW and lounge access in the states on NW domestic itin. It is much easier to achieve Elite+ status in Skyteam by opting for AFKL rather than Delta.

Note that this will be by segments: FB Gold Elite+ 30
NW Silver 30 segments

* Don't go for SN's FF program
* Stay with DL or alternatively go for CO (only airline who has 777 between bru-US) or AA
* Being based in FRA you'll mostly have non-stop flights to destinations in Europe, question is what where will be your most visited destination? There's LH, IB, BA, AF (but from BRU you can't fly to CDG anymore so don't bother with AF). IB and BA are OW and so is AA, so that would certainly be a good option. If you plan on flying more eastward then you should probably go with LH with its massive hub at FRA. You can then credit your points to United which flies to Dulles.

so to summarize, if your trips are mainly going to be eastward go for LH/UA
if your trips are mainly going to be north/south/west you should go with either BA or AA (not that you can get your SN miles credited to AA, don't know about other airlines)

Good luck on your move!

I think you would be best with KLM if the value of the lounge access is worth the extra connection in AMS and you will make enough miles for it to work. If not, I think I'd go with AA (where you would probably make Gold on miles) and route all the mileage to that program to accumulate faster.

I just got back from a biz trip to Brussels this weekend and thought I would weigh in.

Brussels Airlines (formerly SN Brussels) has excellent connections throughout continental Europe. Although I understand the reasoning behind some people's suggestions to continue to focus on ST, IMHO it would be a PITA to route through AMS/CDG every time you go somewhere intra-Europe simply to maintain your allegience to ST. Because of its central location, an hour or so flight will have you just about anywhere in Europe, be it north, east, south or west. That would easily become three to four hours if you route through AMS or CDG (both are much larger than BRU)

BRU is a wonderful airport in every respect, although some people grumble that the walk to Terminal A (flights to Schengen countries) is a bit long (5 minutes). Trains service to the airport is fast (~15 minutes), frequent (every 15 minutes) and cheap (5.80 euro RT) which means you can leave work at 5 and be dining out in Barcelona or Krakow at 9. And given it's fare pricing structure, you can typically get very cheap tickets on BA

Nobody has mentioned this yet, but don't forget that NW is starting nonstop DTW-BRU service as of 15 June 2007. With this, I think SkyTeam might be your best bet, if only for the sheer number of non-stop flights to the US:

CO: BRU-EWR
DL: BRU-JFK, BRU-ATL
NW: BRU-DTW

plus a host of flights, to the US, Europe and elsewhere, on KLM via AMS (2.5hrs by direct train from Brussels South station - of course you can also fly there) orr on AF from CDG (1:15hrs by train from Brussels South - AF sells through fares from BRU and prices are normally better starting in BRU than in CDG).

typically get very cheap tickets on BA
meaning Brussels Airways, or SN. :)

AMS is not exactly convenient from Brussels. If the OP is planning on traveling at least 10 x per year on business & 3 times leisure, he may not be fond of the 3-hour train ride to AMS. I'd personally stay in BRU. For really long flights (e.g. DFW/LAX/SIN/HKG etc...) the OP may want to take the train to either CDG (1h30 with the high speed train) or AMS. AA only flies from CDG though.

I think you would be best with KLM if the value of the lounge access is worth the extra connection in AMS and you will make enough miles for it to work. If not, I think I'd go with AA (where you would probably make Gold on miles) and route all the mileage to that program to accumulate faster.

We were actually referring to flying from BRU via AMS on KL to get the extra miles and be able to get status faster.