Easiest way to get to tier membership on OneWorld

Can anyone enlighten me on how I can easily get to either Silver or Gold membership status on Oneworld. It doesnt have to be Finnair. I am accustomed to the SAS EuroBonus program & recently enjoyed the Finnair business lounge so I am thinking it would be nice to visit here often when travelling

You might want to look into AA Platinum challenge, especially if you travel to/within US.

In the end it all depends on your flight patterns...without knowing more it is difficult to comment.

+1 to that. Unless you are doing tons of long haul flights in full-fare business class fares, don't even consider AY Plus. AA has the most generous program crediting 100% miles even for AY discount fares. I made it from zero to Executive Platinum / OW Emerald in less than a year, with my own money, no company paid tickets!

Agree with above posters. In AY-scheme, hitting silver is not very difficult but that will only grant access to lounges connected with AY-flights and no guest. Gold and Platinum take some serious longhauling.

BAEC sapphire/silver and emerald/gold used to be easy to achieve. Their ruby/bronze is good next to nothing. 600 TP:s would require 30 short flights in Y resulting in 20 TP:s each. Those flights need not be Y-lettered (as with AY to get 100% accrual) but also several lower booking classes are recognised. Of those, 4 have to be BA coded annually. 1500 TP:s would be within reach e.g. by monthly shorthauling within EU and having some connecting flights within each of those trips.

The thing is that I fly leisure most of the time including from HEL to NY & up to the West Coast. Most of my trips are in economy class but once in a while, there might be business class trips in few. I was just wondering if there is any other oneworld airline that makes getting to gold more easier/faster than AY plus. I am now starting to use all points now on AY for upgrades since they (Finnair) havent been so attractive lately

There is a thread here where you can list your flying pattern and preferences, and maybe someone can steer you in the right direction. That thread is not very lively, but it might be worth a shot.

Many thanks intuition, will check it out.

I think this thread on its own is rather useful (although I would not tie it solely to Oneworld) as ex-HEL definitely rules a lot of interesting options out.

As a brand spankin new FTer I only now realise how badly AY compensates points (e.g. last long haul flight returned 1/4 of what it did last year). I am also in the lookout and as a leisure traveller would be happy with any tier (with any airline) that avoids queuing too long.

So so true... I am planning to achieve Gold on EuroBonus from June this year & I wont mind if I could with any OW or AY too.

Like you said, tier with any airline is a nice welcome for flying that airline and having a smooth time travelling. I have had lotsa points on AY without ever getting to tier and many of those became useless and end up used for couple business upgrades & some expired. Will have to wait for when I need to visit the US and I might take the challenge with AA

Had a look at the pre-info AB has on its internet site. As topbonus Gold will equal OW Sapphire it might be pretty simple to reach, taken that the levels will remain (silver 20k, gold 40k).

I fly practically weekly HEL-BER/FRA. If I only changed slightly my preference of direct HEL-FRA to via BER w/ AB (and distributed FRA and BER equally) after 8 RT I would reach silver status and with the help of its 20% bonus after 7 additional flights I would reach topbonus Gold.

And probably all this for cheaper tickets than if booking at AY (even on AY metal).

I don't even care to calculate how much I would have collected in AY+, definately not the needed 90k.

Now, one needs to compare the AY and AB OW Sapphire statuses but as the question was how to reach easily OW status at least it appeares that AB might be good alternative to AY+ for Finns and takes one pretty easily to OW status levels.

And if calculated correctly and the topbonus Platinum level stays at 100k I would reach it after addtional 18 HEL-BER/FRA flights making the total amount of needed RT in a year 33.

With your pattern I'd say AB is the way to go - they just introduced Plat level, with weekly RTs you'd be there in no time.

well, the level did not remain - now within OW you need 25k for silver and 50k for gold. Still quite attractive. Anyway, the old levels appear to be valid until the end of June 2012.

You are right, especially now that AB kindly gave me a status match to topbonus Gold against EB Gold and AY+ Gold.

Against AY Gold?? Vow, that's new, OW matching OW! AB seems to be in the status match mode, they were matching all comers until the end of Dec, now they match ex-MA status, and it seems that they even match SK and AY.

FRA-AY sent over evidence of SK*G credentials (in addition to sending over evidence of AY status), and the SK*G status is probably why the status match was granted.

If I can find an easy way to retain/get OW Emerald, I'd be very interested.