As a newly minted PR Premier Elite this year, after switching from BR, KE and OZ so far I have to say I am pretty satisfied with PR. As an airline I place them a notch below the afore mentioned airlines but IMO the FF program is now pretty generous compared to the competition.
Upsides, It is very easy to achieve Elite an Premier Elite. Basically it only takes two USA-Asia trips a year to earn and maintain Elite and three USA-Asia trips a year would earn and maintain Premier Elite so long as at least one of those trips was to an Asian destination beyond the Philippines. 75% bonus miles as Premier Elite is good. Business class awards USA-Asia are only 90,000 miles which is great. You are entitled to two TPAC upgrades upon reaching Premier Elite and in practice I have been getting op-ups rather regularly. If that keeps up, that alone will keep me flying PAL. As an EVA Gold I had not received an op-up for YEARS. PR is FAR more generous with op-ups for their elites than BR has been for a long time. It looks like a program where us lowly economy class fliers get to spend allot of time in business class.
Downsides. Lack of partners of course and fuel surcharges on regular and award tickets. Fuel surcharges p&%$ me off. I wish they would just say what the fare is and skip the dishonest runaround. I understand if the fare is more, trying to conceal it with a completely fabricated surcharge just makes them look bad. It costs well over $300 to redeem a USA-Asia award which diminishes it's value but I suppose with 90,000 mile business class awards I can live with it. Definitely hardly worth it for economy awards.
Also, miles expire in three years. This frequent flyer program will only be useful for......frequent fliers. Occasional fliers who may take years to earn enough miles for an award will not benefit from the program. I can live with this because I AM a frequent flier.
Non posting miles have been an issue. But I am the one who said they very promptly responded to the web form. Vigilance is warranted but I have had no problem getting miles to post with the web form if they failed to post on their own.
As for non mileage earning fare classes I have resorted to mostly booking through travel agents and specifying a K fare for USA-Asia flights. On LAX-Asia fares these have been averaging ~$100 more than the lowest W or other promotional fare. I notice that E fares purchased on philippineairlines.com also earn 100% miles but E fares from travel agents apparently do not? It's kind of confusing but the upshot is prepare to pay ~$100 more for full milage earning USA to Asia, learn how to pull up booking classes and fare rules on matrix1.itasoftware.com, scrutinize the fine print, and buy from a travel agent or ticket office if you can't find what you need on philippineairlines.com. $100 more for full mileage, 75% Premier Elite bonus miles and a fairly decent chance of getting upgraded. I can live with that.
As far as redeeming award tickets, I have not tried it yet. The method seems archaic though. Since the LAX ticket counter that is ran next to check-in is the closest thing to my home that would remotely qualify as a PAL "ticket office" and that is 120 miles away, I am assume that being in the US I can call the Elite line for an award reservation the day before an upcoming paid trip and then stop by the ticket counter at LAX to pick up the ticket (??? is it a paper ticket really???) after I check in for my paid flight. The whole process sounds down right bizarre in this day and age. I could see if they can't do it on-line but am I correct that it can't even be completed over the phone??? In any case I guess I can work with it.
Booking paid tickets on philippineairlines.com also inevitably results in a fraud alert being put on my credit card and and the charge being rejected by my bank. To the point I have to call my bank first before each and every purchase and tell them I will be making a foreign purchase. One time after being rejected and calling my bank 4 times in a row I actually had to sit on the phone with my bank and purchase the ticket on-line WHILE I was on the phone with my banks fraud department. Lately I have just been sticking with US based travel agents for international tickets.
As for any potential strike, I have one PR trip next week and then in November I'm on OZ, SQ and TG and not back on PR until the end of January so hopefully they will be over any little strike they are having by then.