Originally Posted by
kobuse
Right - any expert help would be really appreciated.
I joined Aegean due to great *G threshold (when I still flew less) and decent redemption on *A ex South Africa. Due to my most frequent flights being on SA in discounted economy (TLVW) and Aegean earning only 50% for those buckets, I am wondering if there is a more efficient option. My main consideration is Krisflyer due to 100% earn, but redemptions are hard to puzzle out and have heard some annoying things about award availability. (I do have a CPT - SIN - BKK - CPT in C booked on them so at least that would also be a start to re-earning gold again.)
Question is - do I stick with Miles + Bonus (only have about 24k miles balance now) or should I jump ship somewhere else?
(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, LAX, MCO, etc.) CPT
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? (C, F, Y, etc.) C internationally, Y locally (at least 2k miles per week, all SA, mostly TLVW buckets). (F on miles ;-) )
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) 120k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? (UA Silver, M&M Senator etc) EK Silver, A3 Gold
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? (Frequent upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, good award redemption rates, free lounge access, etc.) Miles earning/redemption and the normal *A perks
(6) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific etc) South Africa -> Asia/Europe, and domestic CPT-JNB shuttle
(7) Preferred Airlines SQ, TG, (EK), (CX). SA domestic
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? (Can you chooose your airlines, class of service?) Both.
Seems like you wouldn't have any problem getting and retain KF Gold with those miles and C class long-haul flights. I'd say SQ makes a lot of sense if it's your preferred airline and credits the Y flights 100%, as A3 is more useful for those who might struggle to clear the hurdle for Gold requalification (12K is stupidly low compared to many others). What's the issue with booking award flights on SQ if you end up KF Gold? I'd say that is just about your only chance at getting long-haul premium redemptions on SQ - you can pretty much forget about it otherwise. That means getting elite status on KF makes even more sense for you.