Originally Posted by dmm27

(1) What is your home airport? London/MAN
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy ? discount economy in Europe several times a year. 1 long haul discount business class a year
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? 15K
4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? None
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? Given my flying patterns, probably redeeming rewards flights.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often: none (apart from LON-TLS)
(7) Preferred Airlines: none
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Pleasure

I've got an upcoming MAN-PVG rtn via FRA with LH in F for my wife and me. Its ticketed by Lufthansa so will only seem to earn a relatively small amount of miles based on £, compared to crediting to other FFPs. Most of our miles accrual is via credit card spend (350K miles with BA, 100k between us with Virgin, 50k with Etihad which expire at the end of this year!).

I don't fly enough to get status, so my plan is to generally accrue enough to redeem for a pair of long haul flights in business or above (or upgrade to that) at some point in the future. Long expiry and decent redemption rates seem to be the key - who should I go with? Planning a long haul holiday each year from now on to various destinations, so I am likely to be able to add to them later. Thanks