Originally Posted by
bleeckercat
Hi all! I have several upcoming flights on different star alliance airlines which probably will give me status if I link them to one ff programme (several ETH long haul flights on J). I hardly ever use ETH so not interested in that programme. I have united, and last year I put my points on that but I didn´t make the 4 required united flights so I didn´t get status. My question is which other programme could I log in and make best use of my points? I was thinking aeroplan or copa. grateful for your views! TIA
(1) What is your home airport? NYC, (mainly JFK, also LGA, prefer to avoid EWR)
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Business for work, Econ or Prem econ for pleasure
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? over 50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? nothing on Star Alliance. silver on oneworld and skyteam
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? good redemption for business tickets
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? transatlantic
(7) Preferred Airlines? No preference
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? both
Between Aeroplan and Copa, I’d go with Aeroplan if you want to maximize redeemable mileage earning potential as well. Besides the Star Alliance partners, you can earn redeemable miles on flying other non *A airlines e.g. Etihad, Emirates, Aer Lingus etc. although these won’t earn status miles. If you have certain credit cards, you can top up points for redemption. Although it seems you can easily get to 50k miles threshold for *A Gold with Aeroplan, they have 6k SQD requirements, which can only be earned on flights (including *A partners) ticketed on AC. If that’s something that can easily be done, then it’s a good FFP to earn miles and status with. With Copa, although you only need 40K miles, I think they require 4 segments on Copa to get status.
If 6K SQD and 50k EQM every year on Aeroplan interferes with your OW and ST status maintenance and you don’t think you fly on *A enough yearly to retain the status, you may also want to check out TK. They only require 40K to attain Star Gold, no minimum segment or spend requirements, and to retain you only need 30K/year or 45K in 2 years. The only thing to watch out for is business P fares on LH don’t earn miles with them. Redemption can be a bit cumbersome compared to Aeroplan though.