MemoryMan

Hi, first time post, so pls. forgive if I leave something out:

I've been invited to travel to TPE on Elite/Evergreen Deluxe class of Eva Air. This is great because I'd be flying from SFO and Eva is only one of 2 airlines to do a nonstop to TPE (china air is the other). A nonstop would save me about 4 hours of travel relative to an itinerary with a connecting flight. The downside is I do not believe that they can credit miles to my Mileage Plus account, and United is my primary airline (I just got to Premier Exec status!).

I think Eva Air will credit miles to Continental OnePass, so I had an idea. I've heard that OnePass and Mileage plus will be merged by Jan 1 2012. So what if I create a Continental OnePass account and get credit on it for my Eva Air flight? Do you think I'll be able to merge the miles with my Mileage Plus account later on? Or, do any of you have a better idea for how to work this out?

Thanks in advance!

mahasamatman

Welcome to FT, MemoryMan!

That will happen automatically at the end of the year.

mherdeg

Do be sure to look closely at the rules for accruing miles from EVA Air onto Continental -- http://www.continental.com/CMS/en-US...aspx?ItemId=71.

Note that you'll only earn miles for fares in the Y or K booking classes. (The cheapest EVA flight I see on a random weekend in February is in the K booking class, so you should probably be OK -- but you might want to double-check before you buy.)

In general, go to "Earn Miles" -> "Airline Partners" on both united.com and continental.com to see the mileage accrual rules.

Of course since they're not a Star Alliance member you'll only earn redeemable miles (for free trips!), not elite qualifying miles (for frequent flyer status).

sinoflyer

Evergreen Deluxe books into Y, so you will definitely receive miles into Onepass. I have two of those trips from several years ago in my Onepass account that will become very useful to me when the programs are merged, whenever it happens. Welcome to FT!

SFflyer123

I had no idea that we could earn EVA miles. I just took a flight on EVA, and I just lost the miles. I will call and try to get them! Thanks to FT! ^

MemoryMan

Thank you for these really helpful replies. It is good to know that everyone seems optimistic that the OnePass miles will transfer to the Mileage Plus account.

I didn't realize, though, that these will not count as EQMs. This could be important, because I want to make sure to keep my premier exec status.

So is it the case that you can only get EQMs from Star Alliance members?

SEA1K4EVR

Yes. Your EVA miles will not count as EQM's.. only *A miles count.

DaveSFO

This is not really the case these days. Do a random flight search on the EVA website and you'll see that the cheapest Elite/Evergreen Deluxe fares are not Y (usually comes up as L or Q). The Y fare for Elite is more than twice the price as the cheapest fare. I used to fly EVA to Asia quite a bit until a couple years ago when the EQMs when away. I always flew in Elite and it was never a Y fare.

sinoflyer

Wow, you are right. Perhaps it was because I bought my tickets from a consolidator. My booking codes were always Y.

DaveSFO

I was very sad to see this go when CO joined *A. I was buying Elite class to Asia for usually about $1200. While not the greatest premium economy out there, it was certainly comfortable and big step up over economy. Though I wasn't too upset because now I have the option of using miles to get an F ticket (which I've done a couple times already). VERY nice.

NickP 1K

With CI in Skyteam here's hoping EVA down the road does become *; TPE is a huge missing link cross APAC with UA/CO. Feed only to NRT is irksome at best; NRT-TPE segment has enough capacity but getting to NRT to connect to TPE is a pain at best (especially when you want to upgrade).

Even with OW; CX does fly TPE-NRT; TPE-KIX and TPE-ICN (existing rights CX had and had not modified); Asiana and ANA timing on these ex-TPE flights are not good for a day trip/transit late. (ANA Songshan/Taipei;TSA-HND/Haneda - are the exception to this)

Here's hoping TPE comes back from SFO with the 787's....

sinoflyer

Our experiences are similar. I also stopping BR after the EQMs went away, but partly because I wasn't flying so much anymore to substantiate status in two programs. I paid around $1,000 RT between LAX-TPE. Now that I've learned that Deluxe/Elite can also be booked in Q or M, I wonder what code is used by the consolidators these days, if not it's not Y as I had before.

I hope so too! Also, with the UA/NH JV, I think UA will eventually drop their own NRT-TPE and resume SFO-TPE with 777.

jimrgraham

I took an EVA flight (Y) class about 6 months ago and the R/T never credited to my Onepass account. Is there a chance now to get the credit now that CO and UA have merged systems?