FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Need advice on which *A FF scheme to join? - please post here
Old Nov 29, 2025 | 12:30 am
  #2659  
yuchung5
All eyes on you!
20 Years on Site
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: TPE, MNL
Programs: AA lifetime GOLD. BR Silver. TK Elite. Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 990
Looking suggestions for a FFP ex TPE

Hello experts.

I want to determine what is the best program for me. Below are my current situations.

(1) What is your home airport? Somewhat TPE, but common airports would be MNL TPE HKG or SZX.
(2) What types of fares do you usually buy? Most in economy if moving between HKG, TPE, and MNL. Sometimes business class if long haul.
(3) How many miles do you usually fly each year? Around 50k
(4) Do you have any kind of status at present? What is it? Currently Turkish Airlines ElitePlus. And I have status protection until 2028 (I believe.)
(5) What is most important to you in a FFP? priority services when flying the airline and good award redemption rates.
(6) Which routes do you fly most often? HKG(SZX)-TPE-MNL about 10 times a year and I fly BR on this route. EU once or twice a year from Asia. Middle East once a year from Asia.
(7) Preferred Airlines? Well, I am trying to find out here.
(8) Do you travel for work or pleasure? Work. But work only pays economy

I currently have ElitePlus status from Turkish Airlines, which will give me priority check in and priority luggage which are the most important thing for me. However, the redemption rate is very bad now. Since I have status protection from TK until 2028, I am looking for another FFP that has better redemption rate and also can provide priority service while I am flying economy.
Although my base is in TPE, but I personally had bad experience with CI. I prefer not to fly CI. But I don’t have very good experience with BR anyway. If everyone suggests CI, I can give it a try again.
Regarding BR, I requested for status match for Gold. I flew 80K miles in 2024 and 49K until Oct 2025 in 2025. They declined due to “not meeting the requirements”.
I just finished 2 segments with BR as a BR silver instead of Star Alliance Gold from TK. Not feeling good due to no priority luggage, checkin, and boarding.
My options.
1. Continue to fly BR and earn the gold in the hard way. Is there an easy way?
2. I have 4 segment flights on SQ in February 2026. I am Marriott Elite. I can request for matching to KrisFlyer Elite Silver Status and Accelerate to KrisFlyer Elite Gold Status when I finish those 4 segments. But KrisFlyer only last for 1 year instead of 2 years like TK and BR. It should be no problem, but might be a little nervous if company travel goes down a little bit.
3. Jump ship to CI or other Skyteam program which will give me status match, easier to maintain the status, and better redemption rate than TK.

Any suggestions, feedbacks, and tips are more than welcome.
Thanks
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