MilesBuzz! - Flying SAS -- Which mileage earning option to choose?

We're flying on an SAS xmas deal ($249 to Europe) in February and I want to maximize mileage. I have a host of FF partners to choose from to credit mileage on. Which should I use? My wife and I have returned to nobody status at UA MP (functionally zero balances) and my kids don't have MP accounts. None of us has a Eurobonus account.

Should I:

-- Find a signup offer to get bonus points for the kids and credit mileage to UA MP.

-- Find a signup offer to Eurobonus and credit points to that.

-- Same thing for QF. We are planning a trip to Oz in the next year or two.

-- SAS has a lot of FF partners. Are any others worth looking at?

The kids are under 18 and already have a number of FF accounts. MP and QF do not appear to have an age restriction and Eurobonus does not allow those under 18 to join. I'd rather end up with points in something I can transfer easily (UA to HH, for example) or use in conjunction with my Amex MR points. My usual carrier, CO, isn't partnered with any of those on the SAS list.



------------------
Please be careful when opening the overhead bins as the coach custmers may have shifted in flight...

You might consider Aeroplan (AC). Mapleflot has the full backing of the Canadian government and will not go away (like UA might) until Canada itself does, God Forbid!

You can get a short haul flight on AC for just 15000 miles.

Or get an Air New Zealand FF card and use that account to save for a future ticket on Qantas, after it merges with ANZ.

AC might not be such a bad idea... AirNZ says this about my joining their program:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
New Airpoints membership is not available in the Americas.</font>

I can join the Qantas program but they say this about earning miles on SAS:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
SAS: Discounted fares booked in R and N Class. Points can only be earned on flights operated by SAS with an 'SK' flight number within Scandinavia and between Scandinavia and Asia.
</font>

SAS says I'm booked into W class but I'm traveling from the US to Scandinavia.

Grumble...

OK... I'm both an MP and EuroBonus card holder. I'd go with the Mileage Plus for mileage accrual. You have more options to accrue mileage in the US and more options for transferring the points out (i.e., SAS cannot earn or transfer to Hilton). The SAS points are not easy to use when you're in the US. I've got about 55K points in Eurobonus because I travel to the Baltics a lot, but changed as the perks aren't there and the points are not all that easy to use, especially since you'll have one flight.

Dont forget that you can earn and redeem EuroBonus points on UA,AC and MX operated flights as well.

depends if you want the status or the points and where you will use the points to fly to.

If you want status, I would credit yours (at least) to Air Canada Aeroplan.

If you want future mileage earning potential given your base in USA, I would credit UA.

Air Canada gives gold status for just 35k status miles which will give you Red Carpet Club and other Star Alliance lounge access.

------------------
BlondeBomber's Star Alliance Gold Comparison Chart 2002 (http://members.shaw.ca/deercroft/starall02.html)
Dorian's Star Alliance RTW Price Chart (http://www.informationlab.com/rtw.htm)
Hilton HHonors Rewards Hotel Levels (http://members.shaw.ca/twallis/hiltonglobal.xls)
The FT Get Together Index (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/002719.html)

We're mainly after mileage as I've not flown UA in a while and have no plans to in the future. I've been moving my UA miles to HH, but maybe I'll try moving some to CO through Amtrak since I'll have far fewer than 25k to move.

So, I'm inclined to sign the kids up for UA and maybe Amtrak too. Anyone know of any signup bonuses? I know a few UA ones recently expired.

You could sign up with Lufthansa's Miles & More program. SAS is a partner, so you get mileage credit (except, I think, for some *really* reduced fares). UA is also an LH partner, so you get credit with LH for UA flights (1000 miles minimum per segment, vice 500 in Mileage Plus). LH also gives a bonus of 100% for paid business, and 200% for paid first, and these bonus miles also count for status. After you get 35,000 status miles, you get an additional 25% bonus on top of the others and that bonus also counts toward status!

If you're a member with a mailing address outside Germany/Austria, you only need 35K status miles to get Silver (FTL), and 100K status miles to get Gold (Senator). (Remember, class of service bonuses are status miles as well.)

As I said earlier, we're not worried about status. Methinks I'll do the UA thing. Anyone know of signup bonuses? The ones I've found all expired 12/31/02