(1) What is your home airport? AKL
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Economy long haul
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Large variation. Likely to start flying to conferences, which is why I'm asking. I have at least 40k planned the next 12 months, will likely be more in the 25k zone for the following years but will deviate a lot. Unlikely to maintain a high amount of miles in the short term.
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? No.
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Maybe lounge access, understand too little about rewards. I do want a program that I can use in the next decade since I hope to do much more travel once I graduate.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? AKL-TPE, almost all my flights are long-haul.
(7) Preferred Airlines: Since I'm based in NZ right now, often the only choice is Air NZ, Singapore (which I like)
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Both. I can choose my airline for work (economy), we go through a travel agent so I can send specific itineraries.
I've haven't traveled much before, but I will start going to conferences on a semi-regular basis. Planning separate trips to California, Europe and Asia in the next 12 months so I should be able to rack up a couple of miles in the near future. Since I'm looking to be able to travel much more in the future, it would be good to be in a program that would be future proof, particularly because I do not know what city I will be based in in the future.
Star Alliance seems like my only choice right now, since I often need to rely on Air NZ flights, let me know if I'm wrong though. I've done a bit of background research, and it does seem like I'll fit under Asiana Airlines as it says in the FAQ (also I have family who travel much more infrequently which I can mileage pool). One thing I'm really confused about though is class fares (let me know if I should post this somewhere else), for example I'm planning to go AKL-SFO/LAX return in May, and the tickets are L class, which it seems won't be able earn mileage on, or am I misunderstanding something? Thanks