Hello OW forum. I'm a regular on the AC and Asia forums and I'm looking for a bit of help deciding on a OW FFP for the upcoming year and beyond.
(1) What is your home airport?
YYC and EWR
Moving to either ITH or RDU in August
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
75k in 2012, looking to do ~50-75k in 2013
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Discount Y within North America, discount C international
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
I can choose the airline when flying domestically to a reasonable extent but cannot fly. Current international travel is mainly for business within the US + YYC but also int'l flights for leisure.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
SFO/LAX-NYC and YYC-US are my most frequent flights but my flying is truly a mixed bag.
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it?
AC Super Elite exp 2/2013, UA Silver exp 1/2013
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Intl upgrades, priority check-in/boarding, lounge access (already have Amex Plat for AC access), TPAC C award redemptions
(8) Preferred Airlines
OZ, NH, CX, but willing to chase cheap C fares on any carrier. Do not like flying on WS.
(9) Other
Easy requalification for flying international C
I have 2 months of *G left and although I'm considering doing a US challenge to quickly get *G before the end of February, I'm drawn by the often cheap C fares NYC-Europe on AY and YVR-Asia on JL. I used to be CX Gold but I feel that MPC is not at all suited to my current flying. One thing which is important for me is to get some kind of status as soon as possible for as little cost as possible. I know I can do an AA challenge and get 10k EQP for ~$1k before the end of January but I don't feel AA is particularly generous towards people who fly international premium classes although I like AAdvantage overall. BA and IB are all quite generous for Tier/Elite Points for flying C but I'm not sure how easy it would be to meet their own-metal requirements considering I don't fly BA or IB that much. RJ seems to be very easy to requalify, does anyone have experience with their FFP?