Originally Posted by
olindacat
Notwithstanding remeption availability and 'pricing', if you were joing to do MRs with one of those listed in your "Eager" list, which would you choose and why, if any? Not sure NYC-BKK is real MR 'material', but sure seems so. What milestone would you need to 'get to', with which airline, to get the most 'bang' for your buck? Just curious, as I'll try to max out the cash spends and get all I can from them. (I'm an FIT, not a biz traveller, so paying with my own hay.)
1) many of these top airlines (e.g. JAL, ANA, SQ, QR) require some form of flying with them to earn their status, so if you dont fly them consistently, then you dont even need to consider them
2) i agree with the preceding posts by zvzzt and goodeats, but also note that you kind of only get better handling for irrops if you are the elite member of the airline you are flying. UA is not going to give you preferential treatment even if you are *A gold or TPPS with SQ. and looking at your profile, an UA silver and a SQ silver isnt going to mean anything in these situations
3) you may wish to note that the miles of quite a number of the top options (JAL, ANA, BR, SQ just off my head) have a hard expiry of 3 years. SQ allows you to pay to extend for 6 months but that's it. the miles may not expire if you hit a certain status, such as PPS or higher with SQ or diamond status with ANA, but all of these requires a lot of flying (or a lot of money) on their respective metal
4) BR and SQ will be releasing their new seats soon, probably in 2026 or early 2027. many posters complained about the awkward j seats in SQ, but that should go away with the new seats. or if you are PPS, then you can get early access to bulkhead seats which are much better