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No Status and 20K miles on South African Flight -- How Can I maximize this?

No Status and 20K miles on South African Flight -- How Can I maximize this?

Old Apr 9, 2015, 4:03 pm
  #1  
Original Poster
 
Join Date: Apr 2013
Posts: 156
No Status and 20K miles on South African Flight -- How Can I maximize this?

Good Afternoon,

A friend of mine is traveling JFK to JNB then to Capetown and then to Malawi and then back to Capetown via JNB all on South African Airways. The trip is pretty much booked with a fairly large group, so the routing can't be changed. It's slightly less than 20K miles, and I'm looking around the internet trying to decide how she can maximize this trip to get the most miles/status.

She has zero status with any Star Alliance partners and no plans to fly them again this year.

Can anyone think of a good place to credit these flights? Maybe there's something I'm not thinking of (status challenge, first flight bonus, etc.).

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!
NathanL104 is offline  
Old Apr 9, 2015, 4:21 pm
  #2  
 
Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: DCA
Programs: UA 1K; *G and *A Top 1000; HHonors Diamond; *$ Gold; Global Entry
Posts: 2,263
No Status and 20K miles on South African Flight -- How Can I maximize this?

Assuming your friend lives near NYC, I'd recommend United. They have the only *A hub in the tristate area at EWR.
sannmann is offline  
Old Apr 9, 2015, 8:37 pm
  #3  
 
Join Date: Sep 2013
Location: NYC
Programs: UA - 1K, Marriott Titanium
Posts: 85
Originally Posted by sannmann
Assuming your friend lives near NYC, I'd recommend United. They have the only *A hub in the tristate area at EWR.
Agreed, but OP, check the fare class to make sure the miles will count first.

http://www.united.com/CMS/en-US/Marketing/CustComm/Promotions/Pages/AirlinePartnerDetails.aspx?ItemId=316

You won't get spend credit (qualifying dollars towards status) but could get up to 20k miles for a redemption. If the fare class isn't listed on the United page, then credit elsewhere, because you won't see the miles.
mrsyeltzin is offline  
Old Apr 10, 2015, 4:47 am
  #4  
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: NRT / HND
Programs: AA EXP, NH Plat, Former UA 1K
Posts: 5,496
Fare class is important here. SA has a couple that earn a pittance. They always come up if I try to fly out of Beijing, so I always fly from Hong Kong instead since its the same price but in a higher fare bucket.

I don't know that UA is the best answer, this is probably going to be a low earning fare class unless they are flying Business. I'd shop around some of the lesser known programs and see if they'll earn 100% anywhere then use those miles on a short haul flight. This is all assuming your friends are not frequent enough flyers to earn more miles anytime soon, that's the way it sounds in the original post. Using miles for shortish segments in places like Africa and North Asia where tickets are fairly expensive even for economy makes most sense but if they'll never visit those places than even NY to Florida is better than nothing.

As far as status, 20k even at 100% isn't enough anymore to get anything useful. You may get A3 silver but *S status is more or less worthless.

I forget who SAs non *A partners are, but worth a look too, maybe something more useful for them than a *A airline. I know EY (Etihad) is a new one but forget the others.
dvs7310 is offline  

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