Originally Posted by hugolover

I have been sitting on this post for a while as I have many ideas going through my head on what to replace DC with and I have come to no conclusion. Perhaps some of you have some comments, I apologise this is in no logical order and for potentially leaving out some important points or having a flawed understanding of the other FFPs.

DC was great, weighing up all the +/- I really have become to appreciate what an amazing FFP it was.

I was happy to credit everything to it, I actually flew BD as well so I could benefit from the many promos, I managed to use most of my GUV's and on mid-hauls too, only 3 wasted over the years.

1k points per night at Hilton, max 3k. Flying Blue offers me 500 per stay and so does M&M, that seems terrible in comparison. It wasn’t a pain to change hotels every 3 days, but I’d have to change hotels every day to get only 50% of what DC offered.

Family account, not offered with FB or LH, only BA.

25% bonus on all *A partners and 35% on LH and BD. M&M offers 25% only on LH group flights and UA/US.

I am slightly appealed to go for FB Platinum and I would be in my very early 30s when I achieved it and I don’t plan to stop flying then. But I have learned to be careful about lifetime programmes given the financial circumstances of the airline. Indeed I would have been lifetime BD*G in a few years too. With FB I will qualify on segments only, as the majority of my flying is intra-EU and given the low miles award I will have accumulated very few miles for all the flying I will have done, plus the miles are useless, even YQ is calculated per segment which penalises us connecting folks. So FB Plat would be a status programme and maybe enough miles to go the US in a few years.

I would be quite happy to have no SEN at all and stick solely with DC. The only negative is to not be able to assign a seat in advance and choose an exit row, this is a small benefit and 100k for two years with very little promos and a measly 500 miles per HHonors stay is rubbish.

Am I missing something in the value of DC miles? The M&M Amex gives a terrible 1500 miles signup whereas DC is offering 20k that would get me a return to ATH in C or a one way to the US with C+M. I don’t understand why anyone bothers with M&M because the miles are worth so much less. I have had no problems using my DC miles too and then there was miles plus cash, which is great value. There is the 50% for partner redemptions but the miles needed for these redemptions seem very high.

Living outside DE and NL means I cannot take advantage of the many miles promos from newspapers or the credit card offering from FB. Now I am fully aware that BA is the home market and BAEC may be the natural progression. Having looked at it, it’s certainly appealing on the Zone 1-3 offers but beyond that it does show its limitations in its route network which is quite small and the availability of seats doesn’t seem as good plus the miles needed is relatively high.

£10k on a credit card does seem like a lot just to get one companion voucher, not forgetting the £150 fee.

Plus I did fly BD for a reason and Star Alliance is a good network to be apart of given there are no limitations for us non-US based members with regards to lounge access a la SkyTeam on domestic flights. SA tends to have better lounges and a better on-board product compared to ST. I can’t ignore that OW has significantly expanded its network with S7 and AB joining.

Weighing up for an example A3’s M&B it doesn’t sound too bad but it is no place to credit miles as the burn rates aren’t particularly good and there is no bonus miles but it would offer everything SEN status does except seat pre-assignment in economy on European flights and exit rows as well as preferred seats on intercontinental. *G can get the quiet zone on European flights plus the seat block works on LH/SN/OS. I noticed with LX’s K class A3 gives 500 miles vs M&M’s terrible 125. In this case, 4 times as many miles and 5 times as less to qualify for *G. That seems like a no brainer but what about the miles I want to collect to burn on flights.

So, what are the options for me? Do I get a BA credit card and put miles there? Start forgetting the local businesses and spend more at Tesco? Take out the M&M card? Build up status with A3 and then use that for FQTS and credit to another programme, for example US? What about the Hilton miles?

It’s clear that DC was a one for all to me, it did everything and I was happy with it. Now it’s going to get more complicated as I will need to split my mileage and miles earning habits. I always felt like being part of DC was the savvy option. a great little airline with a great FFP. M&M was for the captive German market with its Denglisch name and wasn’t particularly good nor particularly bad and those who flew BA well…

I think it would be really good for those in the know to provide a specific rundown on the other programmes out there and give me some solid advice!