Switch from aeroplan to which star program.
 

I would appreciate Fters input For disscussion and to educate some Fters on the some of the other Star FF programs benifits if one was to SWITCH from aeroplan.

If one was to fly 1000-24900 miles per year
If one was to fly 25000-34900 miles per year
If one was to fly 35000-49900 miles per year
If one was to fly 50000-74900 miles per year
If one was to fly 75000-99900 miles per year
If one was to fly 100000-250000 miles per year.

Mind you Aeroplan does provide some nice mini-round the world trips for a decent amount of mileage.

Thank-you for your input..

If you go to the star alliance forum, there are some really knowledgeable people who can help you with this - depends on where you fly those miles from/to, and whether you're more interested in top tier status or points accrual (for example I'm looking at Aegean for its easy gold qualification, but the points don't work out to be so useful).

Good luck!

If one was to fly 1000-24900 miles per year ---Aegean 4000 mile Star Silver
If one was to fly 25000-34900 miles per year
If one was to fly 35000-49900 miles per year -- Air Canada Star Gold
If one was to fly 50000-74900 miles per year
If one was to fly 75000-99900 miles per year
If one was to fly 100000-250000 miles per year.

20000-34999 miles per year - Turkish or Asiana (2 year qualification window)

As I answered similar questions in the *A forum, my general advice without taking location/flying pattern into account would be:

<25k miles: A3 (low qualification threshold, and redemptions for intra-NA C and TATL F are decent)

20k-40k miles: TK or OZ (low qualification threshold, qualification over two years, OZ offers very generous 1MM status which counts flights on all *A partners)

50k-100k miles: UA/CO may be an option for those flying from Canada to/through the US (*G status, 100% miles bonus, UDU)

>100k miles: pretty much any program ;)

BD is an excellent option if you pay for full-fare Y, C or F, but the program will be folded into M&M this year. If you can qualify for Gold status (55k miles when starting from scratch) until summer, this definitely is an option, as there is a good chance BD Golds will be grandfathered into the M&M SEN program (though possibly with fewer benefits than other SENs)

LH M&M SEN status (100k status miles every other year) isn´t that bad if you pay for C/F and offers some nice status perks like booking guarantee etc., but apart from that M&M sucks (redemption rates are ridiculous, award rules VERY restrictive, fuel surcharges on *A awards, one long-haul upgrade every two years; only good thing about SEN status is it´s valid for 2-3 years)

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Basically there aren´t that many good *A programs, I´d therefore recommend to look at OneWorld:

BA: low qualification thresholds for those flying PE/C/F, redemption rates slightly worse than AP, 100% bonus for Silver/Gold members, upgrades using miles provides excellent value

AA: excellent program for EXPs (100k status miles/year): 8SWUs valid on all fares, UDU, very good redemption rates

Hmm...interesting. Off-hand, do you know what the earn/burn rates for OZ compared to AC? I could actually give up AE altogether and give my final transpac to CX instead of maintaining Elite.

Earning miles is pretty comparable, though there are more booking classes which earn fewer miles (50%/70% vs. 100%), and of course no 50%/100% bonus miles on AC/UA/CO.

Burning miles is based on the distance flown, so creative routings are prohibitively expensive ("mini-RTW"), also awards within one region tend to be more expensive with OZ. The (only) benefit of the mileage-based award redemptions is you can touch several regions without paying high dedemption rates.

Awards with 10k-15k BIS miles are 78k/115k/150k miles in Y/C/F which should cover most destinations from Canada, so slightly more expensive than AC/AP.

Asiana award redemption table

Is anyone looking at UA 1K for being able to use the SWU's with LH? I will be flying between BLR and YYZ several times next year and being able to upgrade on LH seems attractive to me.

Another option is to fly BA on this route on PE but BA gold program does not seem as attractive to me -- 2 upgrades vs 6 with UA.

Just be aware that SWU printed for LH can only be used on a stand-by basis on the day of departure. You´ll also need to buy the more expensive fares on LH (all discounted economy fares are excluded from upgrading, and the upgradable fares can easily be 2x the price of the lowest fare)

Not sure whether all details of the CO/UA merger have been released regarding the use of SWUs, but the CO EWR-DEL flight may be a good option to use your SWUs.

Actually it´s even worse. Not all Golds get 2 upgrade certs, only those earning a particular number of tier points oer year (which is (much) higher than the requalification threshold)

IMO there´s no huge value in BA EC Gold status, Silver is pretty sufficient IMO. The big advantage of BA status is 100% bonus miles, miles for upgrades from PE to C at a very reasonable cost.

Star Silver:
Aegean: 4.000 miles in 12 months, status valid 12 months
Asiana: 20.000 in 24 months, status valid minimum 24 months

Star Gold:
Aegean: 20.000 miles in 12 months, status valid 12 months
Asiana: 40.000 in 24 months, status valid minimum 24 months

Also depends on what you want from the programme.

If you are looking for upgrades (not using miles), then UA/CO would be your best bet.

If lounge access is your only requirement, then Aegean/Asiana as some others have said.

do anyone know if OZ is charging YQ on *A award tickets & how much is the change fee for award tickets?

One other small bonus for choosing A3 as your dumping ground for miles: A reward ticket to Africa is MUCH cheaper than using AP. However, since there isn't a tier bonus given, it might cancel each other out...

just received today my A3 (Aegean) gold card & its valid up to 12/2014 !!
btw you dont need to earn 20.000 miles in 12 months, you have to earn 16.000 miles in 12 months after you earn silber.

Wow, that's awesome. Let's hope that A3 is not going to impose a minimum flight requirement for the status like AC did. It would not be very easy to take an A3 flight if you live in Canada.

Just booked myself one, as it happened.

And I need to book a second one very soon.

Not that I want to join their FF program.

:D

Careful with Aegean though. They were trying to merge with Olympic, although the merger was disallowed by the EU:

http://atwonline.com/international-a...t-grounds-0126

Still, it looks like they may try other things, which might get them out of star in the future?

There is a discussion on another FT forum (I can't remember which one, but if I find it I will link it here) about Aegean and qualifying for Star Gold. As far as I recall (and I haven't verified this on the Aegean site), UA first fares get 300% of the mileage so a fairly small number of first miles will get one that status. I'm poking around for a decent first fare that will net status. There are some in the $1000-1200 range, so it can be done for cheap-ish.