Originally Posted by
deadlocklegend
(1) What is your home airport? PEK (Beijing, China)
(2) Do you currently have any status? CA Platinum. It is about as useless as not having one.
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? regular to full fare economy
(4) Which airlines/routes do you usually fly? 30-40 PEK-PVG, and 3-4 PEK-LAX and 1-2 PEK-Intl for vacation.
(5) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 70-100k
(6) Do you mainly fly for work or for leisure? / Do you have any flexibility in choosing the airline/fare bucket etc.? Mostly for family reasons, 1-2 China-US for work on regular to full fare economy
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? upgrades on intīl travel and easy award redemption
Because I now live and work in China, I am somewhat bound by the airlines I can fly with, but I have had enough with the crappy service CA provides and looking to make a change. Thanks for your help.
Thatīs not an easy one.
I think there are two issues that pretty much contradict each other:
1. CA is the only remaining *A carrier to fly PEK-PVG non-stop. Both Shanghai Airlines and China Eastern Airlines fly this route, but both are supposed to join SkyTeam, so you may be able to get a status match to SkyTeam. (Unfortunately I donīt know enough about SkyTeam to give any helpful advice)
2. Regarding intīl upgrades to North America I think UA and AC are your best bets, but it will very much depend on the exact amount of miles you fly each year:
UA 1k status requires 100k miles each year, you get 6SWUs which you can use to upgrade Y -> C on PEK-SFO-LAX (I assume thatīs the route you usually take?).
PEK-SFO-LAX is 13k+ miles x 4 = 52k miles
2 trips for leisure (where?) = 20k-30k miles
So 1k status isnīt impossible, but youīd likely have to modify your flying pattern / do a MR while in the US / hope for a DEQM promo etc.
Especially if you buy the more expensive economy fares, Iīd also recommend checking out AC (PEK-YVR-LAX). Elite status (= *G) only requires 35k miles/year and you can upgrade from Y -> C at time of booking using upgrade vouchers, if there is availabiliry and you have bought a B/Y fare (lower fares can only be upgraded a few days before the flight)
Iīd probably go for AC due to lounge access in the US, better redepmtion rates, lower threshold for *G status (35k vs. 100k), but youīll have to make the decision.