Originally Posted by
Duck1981
Thanks for your replies so far - I am also especially interested to find out what's best for my wife.
I believe she would only need 300 TP with QR to qualify for OW Sapphire vs. 600 with BAEC and in example, we get the same 70 TP for a CE return to Germany from the UK, so I think in practical terms she would get the same status with half the TP requirement? 300 TP I see as manageable for her, she won't get 600 a year.
For Lifetime, I am at least 5 years away given how I forecast my travel.... for my wife several more years. I have plenty of BA points but mostly never use them, so redemptions are not key, I mostly interested how I can get OW Sapphire for my wife so she can enjoy it for her travels without me (assuming we have any lounges available in the next year
So my thinking was if QR would allow my wife to get her Sapphire with half of the requirements, maybe I join QR as well given my regular flights to Doha.
Does my thinking make any sense when I see it purely from the 'how to get Sapphire fastest (and for me potentially Emerald)' perspective?
If your main objective is earning status easily, I would advise you not to choose QRPC - BAEC is a much easier programme to earn status in. As noted by Matt4, LHR-FRA return in CE would earn you 24 Qpoints of the 300 required, therefore it would take 13 such trips to earn OWS through QRPC (12 trips to retain OWS due to the slightly reduced 270 Qpoint threshold). In contrast, the same return trip credited to BAEC would only take 8 trips to either earn or retain OWS.
That's before considering that you'd also earn 1,020 Qmiles per round trip in QRPC as OWS, but 2000 (R/I) or 3,000 (J/C/D) Avios per round trip in BAEC. And the BAEC Avios are more valuable than Qmiles per unit too. The calculations are similar at the OWE level (although slightly closer). The main value in QRPC is either i) flying QR long haul enough to be able to use the Qcredits for upgrades and ii) getting Al Safwa access as QRPC Platinum. If you can't use either of these benefits the program is beaten by almost any other oneworld loyalty scheme even if you mostly fly QR, but particularly BAEC and AAdvantage.
Edit: I see you already decided. Correct choice!