Originally Posted by
flyingJAPman
(1) What is your home airport? NGO
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? Y
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? <25K
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Good award redemption rates, lounge access, long expiration of miles
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? Intra asia
(7) Preferred Airlines? Any *A airline
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure
I will travel on discount Y in asia and at least once a year in Toronto on J/Y class. I want to decide if I will put those future miles in NH or UA or whichever programme will suit me.
Looking forward for your feedback!
Judging by your profile, it seems UA is the only way to go. They give 100% mileage for most intra-Asia flights on NH and all TPAC flights. US has a better overall award chart (although there are some caveats about Dividend Miles) but they don't give 100% mileage for cheap NH Y fares. If you make status on UA, you will get tier bonus RDMs for the airlines you probably fly already. (AC, UA, NH) If you fly to YYZ from NGO, your NGO-NRT segment on NH will also earn 500 miles.
As for lounge access, you just won't get it flying <25k per year on cheap NH/CA/OZ fares. (perhaps TK, but I still doubt it) However, if you get 25k EQMs with UA, they'll give you a slight discount on United Club membership which you can use to access most *A business class lounges in the world. (some *G lounges are not business class lounges)