Originally Posted by
Swanson29
Dear all,
This is my first post and I am an amateur in trying to create the best Frequent Flyer program.
I currently work full-time in Shanghai, China and travel quite often throughout the country. Normally, I fly China Eastern Airlines (Star Alliance) on a bi-monthly basis. In addition to flying around mainland China, every now and then I fly to Hong Kong for business purposes.
My flights are always economy class and our accountant is always trying to get the cheapest price and does not always consider China Eastern Airline.
The issue is I will be moving back to the USA (Chicago) in October 2014 and will most likely slow down on flights for the time being. However, I will be flying from Chicago - China on an annual basis, and at times to Germany. Again, these flights will all be economy class.
Are there any suggestions on a Frequent Flyer program I should choose that would involve flights most common for me in China and USA?
Hi Swanson,
Welcome to FT. No need to apologize.
Minor point is that China Eastern is in Skyteam. For those flights, I'd go ahead and open a Delta account for now and credit those flights to DL. But check their partner page on Delta.com and make sure your fare classes earn miles. If not, then have to see what airlines in Skyteam would allow for credit, or if it is just China Eastern themselves.
Since you do not have the choice on booking your own flights, I'd choose one airline program in each alliance and start collecting there so that whichever airline you're booked on you can keep those miles. Most common choices are United for Star Alliance and American for Oneworld. Since you will be in Chicago soon, where both of these have hubs, that also makes sense. If you're flying Air China for now, you could credit to United (again depending on the fare class, some might be excluded). China Southern would also go to your Delta account. Other domestic China airlines I'm not sure about.
It's not ideal to have low balances in several accounts, but since it is not your control you will have to do the best you can. Once you're in Chicago, you will have many choices to get to China and Europe, too, so if you still don't get to choose you might end up continuing with smaller balances, but at least you will get a feel for what you're looking for.
To answer more we would need to know what you want out of the program, but I think those 3 programs are a good start for you in your scenario.