welcometyu

I do most of my flying internationally from the U.S. on United but will likely fall short of maintaining my UA Gold status this year. I am considering switching to Turkish Air's Miles&Smiles program to take advantage of their generous status match offer and less required miles to maintain Gold status. They also appear to have less mile requirements for award seats than United, although I'm not a fan of their clunky website. Am I crazy for considering this switch?

If I continue to earn miles on United for all StarAlliance flights....
- Can I use my Miles&Smiles Gold status to access StarAlliance lounges?
- Can I use my Turkish Gold status to secure EconomyPlus seats on United flights? (I suspect not as my reservation would show my United status)

If I make the full switch and link all my StarAlliance flights to my Turkish Air's Miles&Smiles account....
- Would United recognize my Gold status and allow me to book EconomyPlus seats?
- Could I book award seats and upgrades on United flights via Miles&Smiles or would they only have access to a limited capacity of United awards?
- Are there credit card programs that I can use for Miles&Smiles StarAlliance awards?

Are there other StarAlliance programs you would recommend instead of Turkish Air?

Thanks

hiima

Yes, you will have star alliance lounge access with tk star alliance gold. No you will not have access to eplus seats, you may be able to ask for it at check in, long shot but possible. Upgrades are only available to full fare economy, y and b. Awards are the same as saver awards, no anytime awards. Who wants anytime awards anyway.

fassy

Depends on where you go a lot, e.g. if you fly a lot to Asia and Asian Program might make more sense. Or where do you want to go on awards, e.g. SK has a great program for awards in Scandinavia and on long-haul operated SK metal.

I heard booking rewards is quite tricky with TK.

If I would be based in the US I probably would stay on UA MP due to the great reward system and try to maintain Gold somehow.

Mwenenzi

The grass in not always greener on the other side

USA based airline ffp's tend to more generous (earn/burn/upgrades/award cost/award cash surcharges)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...post-here.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

flymexico2010

As a former United gold I could give you my opinion also: I will not get to united gold this year so I matched to TK *G and will try to requalify in the first year of gold to have it until 2019.
Then I will be back with UA to get at least to silver, to accumulate my miles balance with them, although:

1. baggage allowance will have to always switch TK to UA to get miles in UA ( this will be the most difficult part to use).
2. E+ as a silver in years to come.
3. lounge access as gold in years to come.

Hope it helps you to decide.