Originally Posted by
srdshelly
As I read lots of threads on Flyertalk I often come across mention of this program or that which lots of people join, though they have no intention to fly that airline or stay in that chain's hotels. There are good reasons, such as access to a good, usable website, nice transfer options, advantageous opportunities for partner redemption, status and status match possibilities, readiness for periodic special offers, etc. I thought it might be useful to have a thread pulling these varied ideas together. I have not seen one, but point it out to me if it already exists. What are the programs you've joined, and others should consider, despite the fact you never actually use their facilities, and why?
First of all, there are two big categories that account for a lot of this:
1. People who join hotel programs (especially SPG's), or flexible points programs, for the purpose of transferring those points to airlines.
2. People who join one airline program with the intention of redeeming for partner airlines. There are sometimes very good reasons for not joining the program of the airline you intend to fly but instead joining the program of a partner airline. One of those is differening expiration policies: Miles in most US-based airline programs and at least some UK-based airline programs can be kept alive "forever" with just occasional activity, but many airline programs based elsewhere in the world have "hard" expiration, ie, expiration which cannot be avoided no matter what. If you're not absolutely sure you'll earn and then use the miles in such a foreign airline program, it's a huge risk to try, while it's not much a risk to earn the miles in one of it's US-based (or perhaps UK-based) partners.
3. People who join a program because a partner of that program has a promo where doing partner activities yeilds bonuses. The most famous case of this is the US "Grand Slam" promotion, but there are others.
4. People who join an airline just to transfer points to a hotel program. This is rarer, because fairly few airlines allow transfers out (while almost all hotel programs do), but where you find the exceptions (such as Hawaiian to Hilton), you find this going on sometimes.
In my case, I actually intend to use most of my hotel points for actual stays (with expiring points -- in hotel programs where expiration can't be avoided --an exception, where I would probably transfer to some airline).
I joined Delta after it was announced that it was merging with Northwest. I had already earned (including a couple flights) on Northwest. But I never have flown Delta yet (either pre- or post-merger). I don't have any idea whether I'll use my 300k+ miles on Delta or some partner; they're just easy to keep alive, and I figure I might need a SkyTeam redemption someday.
I've been collecting BA miles (now Avios points) for years, and during that time BA started charging huge "YQ" "fuel" surcharges. But not when you redeem Avios for flights on partner airlines in the Americas! So I'm not sure whether I'll use Avios for BA itself ever or only for partners.
I think a lot of people don't even consciously consider what you're talking about as a separate case. They just look at it procedurally: What do they want to redeem for? What are the options of earning something that can be redeemed for that? If the direct options are not useful enough, they just immediately move on to indirect options if those are useful.
Similarly, with collect-the-partners promotions, they just look at the promotion, see what's needed, and see what it takes to achieve that. For some people it then tends to be a mix of partners they actually use and other parnters they only sign up for because of the promotion. But again they think of it procedurally, and don't necessarily think of partners they'll never stay in or fly on as a separate category, the way you did.