Originally Posted by mlin32

Honestly, in my opinion, FB works best for those based in Europe when it comes to earning for status. That's because where a cross-country flight from say, YUL to YVR will only earn 2XP (6XP in J) on WestJet, a 50mn flight from say, AMS to CDG earns you 5XP (15XP in J) and this XP for status is fixed regardless of who markets the flight. You'll see in the XP Runs thread, our goal is often to maximise these short, international flights on cheap J tickets to rack up the XP for status.

So FB is still a frequent flyer programme in that sense, not so much a frequent spender programme like the US-based airline programmes.

The mileage earnings are kind of secondary for prime tickets; there are occasional good deals in the monthly promos but in my opinion, the redemption rates (dynamic pricing) have gotten worse ever since a lot of the US-based flyers jumped ship on DL and started redeeming their easy-to-earn credit card points for AF/KLM flights especially TATL, kind of like a monetary inflation.