Originally Posted by
peterd87
Obviously I'm trying to get the most out of them, and especially the earlier comments made me rethink my choices. Though as you mentioned, priorities are different for all of us. Asia will not be my priority for this trip. Given the distances that we will cover, traveling with 2 young children (4 year old, 1 year old) we are indeed better off with a RTW ticket in BC vs buying these separately.
Considering FF programs to credit; Iberia doesn't seem to be best in terms of actual avios accrual based on the various programs, mostly at 125%. Alaska Airlines might be an option for my daughter. It would allow her to get MVP at the end of 2024 and MVP gold prior to the last 2 flights in 2025. Need to think if I'm going to switch Iberia to Alaska as well in that case.
If you're going for big RDM earnings, then AA or AS is likely to yield the best results. AS is easier than AA starting from scratch. But if you have big credit card spend you could earn status on AA with that and give yourself a head start. Without the elite bonuses then AS would generally yield more RDMs on these tickets, but AA elite bonuses count towards all OW flights vs just their own. The big caveat there is you have to avoid long haul AA flights and use codeshares where possible, and AA won't ticket those. AS is a simpler program per se, but their award chart can be less generous. It's distance based now, so there are some sweet spots that beat AA. AA also has a different qualification year, AS is the typical January-December, AA is March-February, where BA and IB are April-March. If you're doing one of these per year that'll balance out in the end, but if it's a one-off then it might weigh more into consideration.
I know very little about AY's program, but someone noted in another thread that they would net enough tier points for OW Emerald on a DONEx ticket, so could be worth a look. They recently switched to Avios but no one knows yet when the transfer to BA (and therefore IB and QR) will be implemented and apparently their own award chart is pretty bad.