Originally Posted by
bts628
Hi all. Thanks for your replies. Really helpful.
Most of the award tickets I would want to book are also on Ethiopian. I live in Hargeisa, so I always fly at least one segment on Ethiopian (to Addis) to get out, because the only airlines that currently fly here are Ethiopian, Air Djibouti, and one of the Saudi airlines -- not really interested in Djibouti or Saudi. FlyDubai used to fly here, but even if they come back, it doesn't help much, since Emirates doesn't offer much I want.
At least I think that's right. The main places I want to go are Geneva, Oslo, Nairobi and New Delhi; given that I have to fly to Addis on my first leg, there might be airlines with better connections from Addis to these places, but probably not that consistently.
So I really want to earn points on a Star Alliance carrier that I can use to book award tickets on Ethiopian. I think. But I'm open to alternative views.
Just doing a very non scientific search. Some random dates in September, the cheapest ET fares to
DEL: M
OSL: V
GVA: L
NBO: V
Here's the hard part, for all of those routes, in theory the cheapest award ticket is from LH Miles & More, but on those fares they only earn at 50% on revenue tickets. They all credit at 70% to NH (ANA), and ANA has a great award chart for Africa to Africa, and Africa to Europe, but not as sexy to India (still not bad). A3 (Aegean) has the best earnings, 100% on all of those fares, but their award chart from HRA to Europe and India is not good, it's only good for the intra-Africa flights like NBO.
Then there's the issue of Credit Cards that you can use for supplementary mile earnings. Both LH and NH have credit cards in the US market (I'm only assuming US because you mentioned the Delta Skymiles Amex,
please correct me if you are credit eligible in a different country). The only good way I'm aware to get credit card points to A3 from US based cards is Marriott Bonvoy, so the earn rate is slightly lower than a 1:1 card. They are about 0.8 miles per $1 spend if you include the 25% airline transfer bonus (60,000 points turn into to 25,000 miles, but you have to transfer in those intervals to get the bonus.
For comparison, crediting the same flights above to Sheba Miles earns at 75% but there is no way to get credit card points to ET's program.
I think it's necessary to evaluate, where do most of your miles come from? Credit card spend or actual flying? What fares do you buy when you pay for your own ticket? Always cheapest economy ticket on ET, business class on ET? etc.
There are a lot of "IF's" still right now. But If you get a good balance between flying and credit card points, if you fly on the above listed fare codes regularly (and NEVER on ET P fares, the dreaded discount business fare that only credits to a total of 3 *A programs), and IF you can get a credit card in the US then I'd be looking at NH or LH programs. They both offer good award deals on those routes for economy class, and exceptional deals in business class. There isn't any perfect answer though, while you earn more while flying by crediting to NH, if you find you're going to India much more than Europe then the extra miles earned will be lost on that since NH award ticket to India is much higher than LH. If it's more like 80% Europe and 20% India then I think you may be better off with NH.
A few good sites to know to help compare:
matrix.itasoftware.com for prices and fare class
https://www.wheretocredit.com to find what % you'll earn on each fare in each partner program
https://www.awardhacker.com to get an idea of what awards cost in various programs for economy or business class, note for OSL you have to select 2 stops because it stops in ARN also.
https://www.travelcodex.com/ similar to the above site, note both sites don't cover every program, they focus on programs that have mileage cards in the US or are partners with Amex, Chase, Citi, or Capital One.