Although we often refer to BA here, many people might not be familiar with BAEC, so let's just take a simple illustration of the difference. Assume that you are Silver on EC and Plat on FB. You book a cheap discount Y return ticket from Europe to Asia (e.g. HK), say the distance is 6,000 miles or 12K return..

- On FB you will get 25% of the distance plus a 100% Plat bonus of those 25%, so a total of 50% of 12K or 6K.
- On EC you get 100% of the distance plus a 100% Silver bonus of those 100%, so a total of 200% of 12K or 24K.

- On FB you now need at least 200K for a J RT award. Hence you need 200/6 = 33.3 paid trips.
- On BA you now need 120K for a J RT award> Hence you need 120/24 = 5 paid trips.

Different destinations give different numbers but the comparison EC with FB is always dramatic. Eventhough BA flat bed is much better than the angled AF seat. And EC offers many more non-airline ways to earn miles. Also BA has family accounts, which means that a family of four doing one such Y trip will get very close to obtaining a J award with a single vacation. But these are minor details compared to the above numbers.