Originally Posted by
t00thpaste
-Based in Frankfurt.
-currently Gold with FlyingBlue/Skyteam.
-Expect increased business travel to various destinations in Asia on fully flexible business fare (5-10 round trips per year)
-secretary booked 3 of my upcoming trips to Asia with Finnair/JAL (coincidence?) in business class. wanting to join a OW ffp to not "waste" the sweet miles
Questions
(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: good award redemption rates - better award access
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: At least 50k miles, 5-10 round trips Europe to Asia/USA
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Reply: Business (for intercontinental flights) fully flexible D fares, for personal travel I buy business class sale fare with KLM and Air France
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: no. Travel for work
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
Reply: Europe-Asia/USA, 5-10 round trips/year, which airline? i havent figured out the pattern yet. mostly will depend on what the corporate travel agency books for me
(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: FRA Frankfurt
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Reply: Flyingblue Skyteam Gold, nothing with OW so far...
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: for personal travel I fly with KLM mostly, for business trips airlines are decided randomly (perhaps the cheapest fare for fully flexible business class)
Thank you in advance for your advice!!
While I agree that AY or JL would be the most logical choice if you would use those airlines predictably in the future, seeing that any OW miles earned might well be orphaned points and earning them depends solely on the whim of your employers' travel staff, I`d forgo chasing status on OW and focus purely on earning redeemable miles and keeping the balance alive over a longer period of time. Best is to park them in a program with generous expiration policies.
The best programs for this are AA or BA/IB, as those programs have the most liberal expiration policies (ANY activity will keep the whole account balance alive). Decide between the two according to desired redemptions (AA better for longhaul travel, BA better for shorter flights).