(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.)
OTP (Bucharest, Romania)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.)
Always Y (charity projects)
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
25-50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Premier, M&M Senator etc)
CO Silver (narrowly missed Gold), FB still showing up as Platinum (last year's status not updated yet - based on mileage flown last year I should get Silver but hopefully they'll do a soft downgrade to Gold)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.)
Er.. all
in order of preference: free lounge access, upgrades, good award availability and (as a special) extra baggage allowance on transatlantic flights (US)
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc)
OTP to US (DEN) and Africa (eg KGL,MPM,LLW,ACC,DAR)
(7) Preferred Airlines
Anything, really, whatever gives more benefits at (5).
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?)
Work. Can only do coach but have some flexibility when choosing the fare (as long as it stays under $2k/trip).
Since most of my trips were to Africa I used to fly ST because of the great connections in "lovely" NBO (been plat with AF/KL for a few years until the dreaded April 1st). I switched to CO when they left ST and am now happy with them, given the good connections to DEN and the use of JNB when going to Africa (which also works better for miles).
Am wondering though if there's a better choice, particularly for achieving/retaining *A Gold (for less than 50k). I was considering TK but after reading some reviews I'm seriously doubting this would be a good choice, after also going through my own nightmare with them last year (IST and CAI).
Since I reside in Eastern Europe I'm also considering connecting through the Middle East, if there are any decent options (like DXB).
Any help please?