Originally Posted by malmostoso

Hello joakimu and welcome to FT!

First the bad news: not many programs allow crediting flights flown before you joined their program, so unless you already have some membership to a FFP of a *A airline your options are extremely limited. Do a search in the forum to see which programs allow this, in particular CA since you flew with them.

With the amount of flying you do, and with the fact that you fly the cheapest fare, if you really want to maximise the value of your miles you have to pick a carrier to fly every time and join their FFP. The majority of FFPs do not give you many (if any) miles for deep discounted economy fares on other carriers, so again you are limited by the combination of fare class and best mileage earning.

I think you should write off these flights and stick to Finnair for the future, since they are normally on the cheaper side and as you say they have the most convenient schedule. I don't know whether their FFP is any good. I also wouldn't bother with CA, as connecting in China is less than a glamorous experience.