Originally Posted by
ridepow
I'm an ElitePlus member on Skyteam based in the States, but I'm being forced to fly a *A itinerary on Air New Zealand for business. The trip should yield about 20k miles.
I'm not super familiar with the *A program and have a couple of questions:
-being based in PDX in the States, which airline would you recommend making my "base airline"...CO? UA?
-I'm currently trying to match my Platinum Delta status on CO and using this account to collect the miles from the Air NZ trip. Is this a wise choice?
Any recommendations would be super helpful.
Thanks.
You'll see a lot of different opinions on this site, and doing a bit of searching will give you some ideas to chew over. Basically, it boils down to which airline you will fly the most, and also comparing programs. As you may be aware, UA and CO are working on merging, which may affect your decision.
A lot of folks like UA and find it fairly easy to use, however there are issues with what is called Starnet Blocking, where UA makes it difficult to get award on other *A partners. I don't recall if they don't allow UA miles for *A upgrades or if that has changed, as I don't use their program that much.
If I had to choose between UA and CO, however, I'd go for UA. There are many CO loyalists who would vote otherwise, so spend some time on the respective forums and get a feel for each one!
Happy hunting - oh and you'll enjoy NZ, both the airline and the country!
