midoben

hello,
i'am flying soon with turkish airlines(economy),i have the A3 gold card,i want to use it to have access to the lounge in istanbul,but the problem is i want to credit the miles to TK program,it is possible?
i've read that with A3 you should credit the miles to their programs if you use their gold card or it will be canceled!
what can i do?
excuse my english!

Jma12

Yes it is possible to do that. Just tell the agent that you would like to credit to tk instead, and show your A3 gold card.

Since the gold ffp is paying for the lounge access, some members are against it when you are crediting to another FFP, however this is a subjective matter.

midoben

The problem is that when you'll want to have the access to the lounge they will let you go in and note that it thanks to the aegean gold card(aegean pays for the entrance) and if i didn't credit the miles to the aegean program,they will cancel my card! Is there any solution?

benberg2013

Why will they cancel your gold card if you don't credit the miles to it?

Anyway, How exactly could they cancel your gold card?

midoben

i don't know how it works,i read once on this forum that you should credit to them the miles if you used their card to have access to the lounge!


so you want to say that it is okay if i credit the miles to them?
how can i do that?where should i show the aegean card and when should i credit the miles to tk program?
the aegean gold card will be saved in the system or not?

tmac100

FWIW, getting access into and *A lounge is totally disconnected with the *A system you are crediting those flight miles to. There is absolutely NO linkage with using any lounge you are entitled to using with your A3 *G card and crediting your "miles" to any other *A airline. Absolutely NO LINKAGE. It is irrelevant what you read on FT. This is *A policy.

I lave flown LH at Christmas (DXB-FRA-LIS-MUC-DXB) and credited my "miles" to A3 in spite of having access to LH lounges in FRA and MUC, and *A lounges in DXB and LIS.

Similarly, my BAEC Silver status allows me to access UL lounges while the miles are credited to BA. Also, I have had no difficulty in accessing QR and QF lounges while flying with them while having the "miles" credited to BAEC.

Should be no sweat for the check-in folks either. Just make sure you have the appropriate airline FFP on your ticket when you go to check in (just ask them to credit it to the airline you want) - regardless of going to the TK lounge. Check in at the TK lounge is just based on you showing your *G card.

Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill

gvipin

Completely agree with tmac100 here.

In-fact common sense will suggest otherwise....any mile you credit to them is a future liability on their balance sheet while they are not getting any money you paid to TK and already paying for your lounge access. So they shall be happy if you do not credit to them

NWIFlyer

That's not quite how it works. There is a future liability, true, but there is also an immediate payment from the operating airline to the FFP credited to. The value of that payment will exceed the value of the miles awarded (and the cost of the lounge access), so the FFP makes a profit from you taking that flight.

If you do not credit to A3, but still use their card to gain lounge access, A3 will possibly be paying out for lounge access but will not receive anything back in return. For that reason, they will actually be very unhappy that a passenger doesn't credit to them.

However, under *A rules there is nothing they can do about this. You are entitled to use the card for lounge access and credit elsewhere.

A3 used to have the rule that your card could be cancelled if you used the benefits without crediting to them. That was, frankly, unsustainable and there are absolutely no reports on FT that the clause was ever enacted - but it was there, so it's not just a random FT theory. It has now disappeared in the new M+B anyway.

Of course, this is only ever a short term thing - if a passenger routinely fails to credit to the FFP they hold status with, that status will disappeared at the end of the year.

Maluko

Hello Everyone,

I am quite new to this forum, and I indeed plan to participate much more in the discussions are they are very interesting, but I would have a first question on this topic.

Would you know what happens when a booking class is not eligible for miles accrual?
if the FF number is on the boarding pass (e.g. to enjoy benefits) does the FFP still get an immediate payment of some sort from the operating airline?

gvipin

didn't know that there was a payment to FFP. So what you say make sense.

However in an alliance, this would go against larger airlines at the expense of smaller airline as any small airline might have attractive FFP policy attracting customers not only from natural base (country) but also from outside [exactly what A3 is doing] and hence getting a significant revenue stream from larger airlines?

NWIFlyer

Maluko, firstly and most importantly, a very warm welcome to FT and the A3 forum. It's good to see you here, and what a corking question to start with!

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer.

The agreements between airlines which govern how much is paid to a FFP for given fare buckets are individual and highly commercially sensitive - so the details will never be available on FT.

When it comes to non-earning fares, it becomes all the more complicated. We don't know whether any money is paid to the FFP for the flight, but it's just not enough to justify awarding miles to the passenger. If no money at all is paid, would it be reasonable to expect a FFP to pay for the lounge access? Probably not, so you might assume that on non-earning fares the Operating Carrier picks up the lounge costs. There again, perhaps this is too complicated to administer and so they simply settle for an overall deal to simplify accounting.

Bottom line - we really don't know!

NWIFlyer

Yes, correct - although don't forget that the larger airline can control their exposure by agreeing a very low price per mile they pay to the FFP, and charging a very high cost back when it comes to redemptions.

The best FFPs (BD's Diamond Club was a good example) has multiple income sources from hotels, miles buying (e.g. points.com), credit cards etc so the risk is diversified. I get the impression credit card spend is very lucrative for airlines. We see A3 starting to do this now with the expansion of partners, but it still lacks the international partner profile of Diamond Club. Until it gets that, it is likely to remain - at best - a European program with relatively limited US members. That is probably why they made it much harder to qualify if you didn't live in Europe - the non-European members who never flew with the airline and not crediting from other sources such as credit card spend simply didn't generate enough per person revenue.

midoben

thank you everyone for helping me!

blackball

I renewed my A3 gold status after a few months, and I've decided to start crediting to miles&more (not sure there's anything to be gained here, but I've moved to Germany and *perhaps* I'll achieve status at some point).

So it's clear that lounge access is possible with A3 M&B Gold, while crediting to LH M&M (with the caveats people have mentioned). But what about other benefits such as priority boarding? My guess is that what matters there is what's on the boarding pass, i.e. if I have no status with LH M&M, I will not get the benefit. Is my assumption correct?

benberg2013

P Boarding can be done by showing your A3 gold card