miklcct

I have only one FF program, which is Aeroplan from Air Canada. I signed up for it 7 years before when I was a youth just because my leader told me to do so when booking a flight to Vancouver on AC.

In this two months, I have taken a few flights and hope that l can accumulate thousands of miles into the program and presented my Aeroplan membership card when checking in, but I only found out after taking the flight that, although the number is printed on the boarding pass, the airline involved does not participate in the FF program. I found that, among the 4 different airlines I have taken, AY (oneworld), J2 (non alliance), CA (*A) and CZ (SkyTeam), only CA participated in the program.

Have I made a mistake of using a wrong program? Is it possible to make most out of the flights even I have taken them already?

ChrisA330

Not necessarily the wrong program, perhaps just not fully understanding how it works.

Typically programs are associated with the airline and their partners. In the case of Air Canada/Aeroplan, the only carriers you can earn on are Star Alliance carrier. There are a few exceptions to this rule.

Similarly with your AY flight, you could credit this to multiple airlines, most of them would be OneWorld affiliated.

What type of travel do you typically do - perhaps some of the wiser people on this forum could suggest alternatives.

You can find Aeroplan's partners here: https://www.aeroplan.com/earn_miles/...OurPartners_EN

miklcct

I'm mainly for travel to international competitions and conferences. I'm based in Hong Kong but seldom take Hong Kong based airlines, while highly prefer to take airline based in destination airport outside Hong Kong.

Symmetre

Frequent flier programs work best if you do all of your flying, or most of it, on the airline that operates the program.

If you fly to conferences that are held in different locations around the world, you would be best to join a frequent flier program operated by an airline that serves all of those different markets. That will be the fastest way to accumulate both points and status. If you're based in Hong Kong, why not fly everywhere on Cathay Pacific as a member of their Marco Polo club?

irishguy28

There is no single programme that will allow you to accumulate frequent flyer miles no matter which airline you are flying on.

I'm not saying this in a facetious or trivialising manner - but you should probably not worry about miles so much. You clearly "shop around" for the best deal - which is good - it is FAR BETTER for you to make savings RIGHT NOW by going with the cheapest/best ticket for each trip, than worrying about builidng up a mileage balance that may, eventually, several years from now, save you some money by booking a "free" trip.

The thing is that, even if you had been able to accumulate miles for each of those trips in your Aeroplan account, you would still need to do quite a bit more flying before you had an amount of miles that would be usable for anything worthwhile. And, even then, you may find that you cannot book the ticket you want with miles - there are always strings attached to making mileage bookings - AND they are not free.

Don't worry so much about miles. But as you fly a range of carriers, you should open a mileage account with a oneworld carrier, and a Skyteam carrier, and credit any oneworld flights to your oneworld FFP (frequent flyer programme), and any Skyteam flights to your Skyteam FFP. Any Star Alliance flights you take can be put in your Aeroplan account.

You can still receive credit for Finnair and China Southern flights if you open an account with a oneworld airline (for Finnair flights) and a Skyteam airline (for the China Southern flights) and follow the procedure of your chosen programme for "retroclaiming mileage", i.e. asking for miles for flights already taken. Most programmes allow you to claim miles for flights made within a certain period - typically 3 months - prior to joining, though in some cases, they may only give you miles for flights made with that airline specifically.

irishguy28

I would recommend that picking Marco Polo as your oneworld FFP makes sense.

However, dedicating yourself to always flying Cathay Pacific from Hong Kong -their home market where they can charge a premium - means you will seldom be buying the cheapest ticket.

Again, rather than "obsessing" about building up a mileage balance by always flying with one carrier - which can mean spending 5%, 10%, 25%, 50% or more on your tickets than you would have to if you went with a different carrier - just fly as you normally would have. Just have more than one frequent flyer account open in your name - and direct the miles from each trip to whichever programme makes sense for that trip.

An extreme example: Economy class, HKG-LHR-HKG, outbound 13 September, inbound 20 September: cheapest non-stop is HK$7930 on either BA or Virgin Atlantic; cheapest fare on CX is $27600. [Cheapest one-stop is HK$5312 on LX; plenty of other options for less than BA/VS]

Keisuke Himuro

No. Aeroplan is still the best program in star alliance. What you mentioned are different airline alliances like oneworld, skyteam etc.

If you want to collect aeroplan, you will need to find flights operated by star alliance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_alliance

If you flight economy only, don't be royal to any airlines or programs. Just pick the cheapest and best available flight. Basically I collect all 3 programs which are AAdvantage, skymiles and aeroplan. So that I can collect points for almost all my flights.

But if you travel a lot (like every week or 2 weeks). Then you will need to find a best airline program to suit you and try to fly that airline all the time.

Also I wouldn't recommend to pick airlines in destinations. You should always pick the largest at your home hub. In your case, that's Cathay Pacific. The reason is the fastest way to get points is to sign up CC. But you can also collect points by staying at hotels, car rental etc.

miklcct

I don't fly CX because their flights are expensive. It makes no sense to me to buy expensive flights in order to accumulate miles.

jc94

Whatever program you choose, it's worth seeing if there is a specific credit card you can own that allows you to accumulate miles there.

I actually accrue CC miles to Avios because I wasn't able to get the TD AP one. Bearing in mind the current state of AP that's not all bad - but it does mean I have my available miles spread across two different programs - only one of which I currently have status with.

lcohen999

Well then... you have come to the wrong place

(p.s. I'm just kidding)

Kagehitokiri

3 alliances >
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_A...and_affiliates
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneworld#Member_airlines
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTeam#Member_airlines

also >
alaskaair.com/content/mileage-plan/how-to-earn-miles/airline-partners?lid=mileageplan:how-to-earn:airline-partners-overview
6 (of 14) oneworld - american airlines, british airways, cathay, finnair, LATAM, qantas
4 (of 20) skyteam - air france, aeromexico, KLM, korean air
other - emirates, condor, fiji airways, virgin america, Icelandair, hainan airlines, penair, ravn alaska

in HK there are american express cards that can transfer points to these miles >
cathay, british airways, china airlines, emirates, malaysia airlines, finnair, singapore airlines, virgin atlantic

miklcct

In Hong Kong people commonly uses cards to accrue Asia Miles, but it is for CX (hence oneworld), which is mostly useless to me as I specifically want to exchange Taiwan tickets but no Taiwan carrier is in Oneworld. I would like *A (EVA air) or SkyTeam (China Airlines).

Stranger

You can join both.

Or you join only one and you do your best to fly only on airlines that belong in the corresponding alliance.

Thiss said, it may not make much sense to join an airline that don't really plan to fly on.

Now it may be that the BR or CI programs are not very good. So, do your homework and compare.

keitherson

Why would you join a loyalty program that's about to terminate in 3 years?

Symmetre

Agreed. This is a perfectly rational argument against participating in a frequent flier scheme of any kind.

If you're paying for your travel out of pocket, then buy the flights that make the most sense for you and forget about frequent flier programs altogether. In the long run, you'll come out ahead.

If work pays for your flights, or you can bill them to someone else, then concentrate your flying on a single carrier (or at least, a single alliance) to maximize your potential benefits.

There's really no magic to any of it.