Originally Posted by
flyinghorse82
(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: Lounge access, priority boarding, security fast track
Okay, so from the questionnaire it should be pretty obvious I have 0 status in OW right now and being based in Europe BA would seem like the natural choice as a program. I've always loved AY, but I'm not sure they have a future at all (aren't they expected to get fully merged into BA Ex anyways?). Though starting out at completely 0 and with first flights on QR likely only being in Y will hardly give any credit at all, I'm not sure it's useful at all.
I wouldn't mind gaining options over LH group within Europe though.
My current consideration is paying for the JR status match for 1 year, enjoying it for the time being and then trying to fly MS or TK on my *G status most of the time after that runs out.
Thank you for your thoughts and recommendations.
Since lounge and priority boarding are your main points, in OW you'd really want to aim for OW Emerald, since you're already getting business lounges on your business tickets anyway (not sure what ratio you're flying business vs. Premium Economy?) OW Emerald gives you First lounges in locations that have them. You'd also already be getting priority boarding on business and PY tickets but OW Emerald will generally give you a higher priority on both.
Without a firm idea of your annual flight patterns it's really hard to say, but I'd suggest evaluating your past year or two's flights and see where you'd come out in QR Privilege Club, AS Mileage Plan, AY Plus and possibly BA and IB. BA and QR both require minimum segments on their flights, but sounds like you'd have no problems with either (just 4 per year), the others don't have that requirement.
AS MVP 75 is pretty easy if you're premium cabin heavy but their award chart sucks for anything longer than a few thousand miles. AYs award chart is pretty awful too but you can transfer to BA, IB, and QR which are all more palatable.AA's award chart is generally superior to all of the mentioned programs, but it's the hardest one to gain meaningful status from zero, you'd need to be able to hit 120k Loyalty Points between March and February the following year for Platinum Pro, the lowest tier for OW Emerald. Qualification year is another point to consider, depending on when you do most of your flying. BA and IB are May to April, AS is January to December (I believe AY is too but not 100% sure), QR is flexible based on your first Q Points earning flight.
Someone in one of the RTW threads mentioned it was pretty easy to get to AY Platinum in just one DONEx. (Something you should really look into as well from what it sounds, you could easily get 2x of your DOH trips into one of those if well planned plus a bunch of other places you want to visit as bonus, right now ex-Japan starts in the upper US$4k range due to the weak yen). You can optimize a DONEx to easily get OW Sapphire in one trip, Emerald in a couple of programs, and very close to BA Gold or QR Platinum (OW Emerald). Since you mention DOH as a frequent destination, if you go with QR Platinum they allow you Al Safwa (QR's special First lounge) access on paid QR business tickets (RTW counts for that). If you're buying even a few business class tickets per year already then the cost is pretty easy to justify and since it books into D, a mid-range fare code (not discount) it has strong earning multipliers in certain programs. There are several sticky threads in this forum for RTW info and questions to start your journey if that's of interest.