phb

As a BMI DC gold, I naturally tried to enroll my 14 year old son when he needed to fly to LHR from MME. Unfortunately he is too young for BMI.

Not being too keen to throw away some miles, we need to enroll in another Star Alliance FF programme, a subject I am woefully ignorant of.

Can anyone suggest the best, bearing in mind the following

-Infrequent flier
-No potential for rental car/hotel etc. miles
-14 years old
-unlikely to build up status

Any help would be much appreciated

PROSESS

In SAS you have to be 18 years of ages to be a member of EuroBonus. My kids are member of United MilagePlus and have earn more than 30k that way. UA from 2 years of ages.

cslusarc

AC aeroplan also has a minimum age of 2 to enroll.

Leviticus

The same goes for Lufthansas Miles and More program, this is what I would recommend.

RichardMEL

That's amazing to have such an age restriction. You'd think an airline would find it useful to get someone in young - in such a situation - such that when your son grows up and travels for himself he'll always have that BD alliegence. What does it cost them to issue a card? I wonder if BA has a similar limit?

Anyway, that's a different issue. I think some logic can be applied here to find the best solution. Given that he's going to be a UK resident for.. well at least a FEW more years then you want a carrier that serves the UK to some degree. I would thus knock out: JK NZ TG as fairly small players in this regard. The next thing is to consider likely travel patterns, and possible requirements in the future. Given there won't be much travel planned then you'd want something with an award structure that makes sense to someone who flies infrequently but could perhaps save up for a big award someday. MME is a domestic UK destination and I doubt any other carrier flies there, so no real help there.

If he was in the US (or possibly Canada) I'd suggest UA Mileage Plus, since they have something called College Plus, which would come in us in a few years (hopefully ). However since it's european I think LH Miles&More is likely a good idea. It covers 3 major carrier groupings in the region (LH, OS and LO) so you could save some points for an upgrade, or award to most european destinations (did someone say: SPAIN? ).

(of course I can't really see a young student choosing a legacy carrier at higher cost for points vs. a Ryanair or Easyjet cheapie, but that's a different issue).

Gustaf

If he will fly 10 returns LHR-MME it would give him *S with TG (which is only 10k)

ual744777sta

Did you try UA? I have been a UA MP since I was 5. I have been travelling with UA ever since. Right now as teenager, UA has treated me well. I think there might be a 250-mile minimum for domestic (UK) flights on BD.

erik123

As a follow-up -what about a program that allows kids but with these variables:
- Flying mostly premium flights (about 10-15k flight miles in C each year)
- Miles don't expire easily (don't fancy M&M for this reason)
- If available - family pooling of miles (BD allows but can't sign up under 18s).

Jasper2009

I´d probably go for LH:
LH offers a FFP called JetFriends for customers under age 18. AFAIK the T&C are the same as those of M&M, with the exception that miles don´t expire.

Also M&M gives 200% miles for C and 300% for F (including domestic F).

steve32

Maybe a reason to look at another airline/alliance?

There is at least one thread in the American Airlines forum about youngest Executive Platinums (EXP--the highest elite tier).

One father wrote that his daughter was EXP in the year she was born, but his son only made it to Platinum because he was born in October.

Also, the young one can still go on Bing.com and do those word puzzles for miles, and other things are available.

Families wanting to do vacations on miles will burn through lots of FF miles, so at least on American there are quite a lot of kids who go along with one or both parents on Mileage Runs to rack up more miles for cheap to build for those bigger and better vacations. Most are happy plugged into their video game or DVD player anyways, so it might as well be on an airplane racking up miles for cheap, right?

Steve32

caz312

BD do allow you sign under 18s now (one of the changes that came the same time as the family pooling)

erik123

Thanks all for the helpful info - I signed up the kids and wife (her with instant silver promo)? What a killer program!

naitkris

For your first two points, SAS EuroBonus (no age limit anymore) gives 200% points (miles) earning in C across *A and miles expire after 5 years regardless of activity which should be enough time in which to use them.