Originally Posted by ffly

Hey everybody!

Been lurking around this forum for a long time.. now I think I need some help with this decision.

(1) PVG, possibly by end of next year NRT/HND
(2) leisure travel (40%) Y, Y+ / business travel (60%) J (70%), Y (30%)
(3) 80-100k
(4) AC 75K
(5) *G, award redemption, upgrades - in that order. *G is imperative
(6) a lot intra asia, biz and leisure to Europe, leisure to NA
(7) depends on destination - LX to Europe, AC to NA, intra Asia SQ but their fares are usually not competitive if compared with TG, OZ but their intra Asia network is not good for connections from PVG
(8) generally I can choose airlines

I've been thinking about leaving AC for a while now, now with the new "enhancements" even more. Though, I might make it to SE100K this year (one reason to stay).

At the moment I am leaning towards staying with AC.

For this and the last year I've been keeping track how many miles I've flown with Star Alliance and how many miles I would have earned with another program, here's the data:

year 2012 --- 2013 (currently booked travel by end of year)
miles flown 59,134 --- 79,441
earning LX 83,764 --- 112,312
earning TK 66,695 --- not calculated
earning AC 62,306 --- 89,712
earning OZ 61,572 --- 88,508
earning SQ 58,247 --- not calculated
earning BR not calculated --- 80,473
earinng NH 52,754 --- 77,579

Pro/Con
LX:
pro: good recognition within LH/LX (e.g. exit rows SEN exclusive), Status good for 2 years, 2 upgrade vouchers per year
con: unclear if I make 100k with them every year
TK: out due to removal of Y+ long haul as I would only fly them privately and take the hassle of changing on IST if they offer Y+ long haul (even though the IST lounge is awesome)
AC:
pro: good recognition within AC, SE100K good availability of upgrades, low *G qualifier
con: co-pay for non SE starting next year
OZ:
pro: lifetime *G with 500k miles, low *G qualifier
con: hard to connect from PVG (e.g. impossible to book PVG-ICN-Europe on their website)
SQ: out due to too high mileage redemption levels and bad recognition with SQ unless you're PPS (which I won't)
BR: new member, no real insight into them yet
NH: hard to qualify due to NH metal miles, low mileage earning levels

Overall it seems I am either stuck with AC (and doing an MR to get SE if I don't make it anyways as its 500/750 USD co-pay per upgrade which is easily "redeemed" with one/two upgrades), take my chances with LX or go with OZ and next to never fly the airline I hold the membership with.

With AC I will get my *G for sure every year as with OZ. With LX it might be a stretch. Or am I missing something?

Thanks for your input!

F