Originally Posted by
peggypwr1
Hello,
My family and I booked business class tickers from SFO to Mumbai roundtrip this coming December on Turkish Airlines.
We don't travel often, once every 16-24 months.
My question, is it better to apply this trip's miles to Turkish Smiles and Miles or apply it to United since they have that alliance, or does it even matter?
oh, our each business class ticket roundtrip is $3,890.00. For us it sounded like a good deal. Leaving 12/20.
We usually go thru Europe during the summer and avoid Europe during the winter. The points can transfer between any Star Alliance carrier?
Thank you.
You cannot transfer points between Star Alliance carriers; once you make your selection for where to credit them, you can't move them.
For someone who travels infrequently, the biggest concern I'd have is expiration. M&S miles expire three years
after they're earned, although you can pay (at a rate of $10/1K miles) to extend them another three years. MileagePlus miles expire 18 months
after the last account activity. As a US resident, you'd have lots of opportunities to earn additional MileagePlus miles in order to extend expiration (there's a whole thread on this:
Consolidated "How to Keep/Refresh Expiring Miles" Thread ).
The next thing I'd be interested in are the number of miles I'd earn. For someone who doesn't travel regularly, "status" miles aren't useful -- you likely won't attain any frequent flyer status by one trip, and, even if you did, it'd expire by the start of the next trip. Therefore, you're looking for "redeemable" miles -- that is, the ones that are used to get travel / upgrades / etc.
In order to find out how many miles you'd earn, you need to know the booking class of your trip. You would then look it up on the MileagePlus and Miles & Smiles sites to see which is a better value. You can also use the tool at
www.wheretocredit.com , although you should always double-check on the airline website. For MileagePlus, you'd want the "Ticket number does not start with 016" chart
here; for M&S, it's the "Classic Card" line
here. Based on the fare, you're likely looking at some combination of J & K fares. TK J earns 100% of the distance flown in MileagePlus and 135% in Miles & Smiles; TK K earns 125% in MP and 135% in M&S.
Personally, I would accept the slightly lower earnings in exchange for the more flexible expiration policy, but I don't think there's a wrong answer either way.
The final consideration is how you plan to use the miles. You might consider taking a look at the award charts for MileagePlus and Miles & Smiles to see how many miles you need for an award that you want -- but keep in mind that these values change regularly, and rarely in the customer's favor. So, I'm not sure I'd pick one program over the other just based on the award chart unless I had a plan in place to redeem my miles quickly.
Hope this helps.
ETA:
Originally Posted by
WineCountryUA
Not exactly.On TK the award miles for discount business (J) book as 100% of miles flown (SFO-IST-BOM 9,722 miles). For UA that same TK flight with also earn 100% or if booked via UA 5 times fare (minus taxes) (estimate 17,000 plus miles).
This is somewhat misleading, as you're comparing the one-way mileage in the first case with the roundtrip mileage in the second case. SFO-IST-BOM is 19,444 miles RT. There's zero chance that this fare earns more when booked via UA.
Furthermore, it appears that OP has already purchased the tickets, so this is more of a "for future consideration" point: MileagePlus credits partner flights differently depending upon whether you bought the ticket through United or through a partner airline.