igibus

I am Flying Blue Platinum for the last 6 years and I am going to leave them before my next trip next week. Which program do you suggest?
Where did all the heavy travelers went and are they happy with their new choice?

I flight 95% internationnal and all around the world. Then any airline program could work for me. I was thinking Delta or Continental or maybe an Asian one?

Thank you

PS: I fly about 50 000 to 60 000 qualifying miles a month, then I can get the highest level pretty fast.

NickB

Plenty of discussion of this about a year ago with the April 1st 2009 programme devaluation. A couple of threads you may want to have a look at such as this one or that one. Not everything will be necessarily uptodate in these threads (notably re discussion of status matches) but may still be useful reading to get you started. Enjoy your reading.

igibus

Thank you NickB, I did read theses threads, but I was looking for the result one year later...Was it worth the change or not? and which program is atually better? I heard that with Delta, you get plenty of miles but it is very hard to redeem them at a regular rate...

cityflyer369

1. If you fly so much you should check if you have already collected enough miles for Platinum for Life membership or if you are about do to so. It might be useful later in life.

2. There is no such thing as a best frequent flyer programme. It depends on what you want to do with the programme.

3. If I were you I would compare FFP with respect to
- "non-miles" perks, such as lounge access, upgrade, etc.
- miles earning and spending.

4. Regarding the latter, I would compare the ratio of
- miles earned according to my typical flight pattern (routes, airlines, booking classes) and miles earned otherwise (credit, card hotel, cars, etc.)
- miles you have to spend for the rewards you would like to have.

I did such a comparison on the occassion of 1 Apr last year and it turned out that, for me, it makes sense to continue with FB for a while. (It was only slightly better for me than the other programmes though.)

hfly

Once upon a time I put almost all my eggs in a basket and a half, namely Delta and BA. First Delta screwed around with their program (I am speaking about many permutatons ago in the last century) and BA was never that great (and then they screwed up the program more). I learned at that time to spread things around many baskets as I am fortunate enough to be able to maintain top tier in many programs at once. I myself had a pretty good run with FB, and will very soon be lifetime Plat, that being said, because of the changes they have made and the decimation of the programme, I will not be giving them a lot of business after this year unless they change something.

Personally I have always found it useful to maintain at least one top status in each alliance. Until recently I had little time for non-alliance carriers. I have tempered that recently by getting top tier in Etihad's program, they are an excellent airline, they fit my schedule for some flights and treat me well, something a lot of carriers do not do.

So the question you must ask yourself is; What do you want out of a programme?

1. If you fly in the US a lot then domestic Us upgrades are important, if not the US programs may not be the best. That being said, most give out some sort of SWU for top tiers, so that could be useful.

2. Lounge is important, or even more important if your program has an "open doors" policy that allows you to use their lounges irrespective of what airline or class of service you fly. An example is that I have found the BA lounge at MXP to be a lifesaver on several occasions when I was flying a different airline/alliance.

There are many factors, and you must look and see what is important to you and then we can properly advise.

igibus

Thank you Cityflyer369.
I did not know you could be platinum for life before the 10years... I will check into that!
I did compare a lot of programs the last few days and the only ones that could match my flying pattern are Delta and Continental, but like I said above, the awards availibilities on Delta seems to be pretty low.. where I almost never had any availibility issue on AF awards and I do like the 50%off awards on AF which I cannot find on Delta or Continental... Well I will keep thinking few more days

sturejan

Yes it’s worth the change. I was very loyal before April fools day but have now experienced that the grass really is much greener.
On the other side of the fence I have found, not only better earnings and better redemptions, but also better service and nicer lounges. The only KL flights I take now are for burning my miles. Don’t hesitate. It’s an easy jump.
Which program is the best? For me switching to Diamond Club did the trick.

cityflyer369

@ igibus:
To make it easier for you to check out the Platinum for life thing:
The reason why you might have collected enough status miles for Platinum for life is the roll-over feature of FB. All status miles that go beyond a certain threshold (I think it is 115k or so), will be rolled-over to the year after. So if you have, say, 500000 status miles at the end of the year, this should be enough for qualifying for Platinum status for 4 more years or so (4 times 115k = 460k).
Of course, you will not be an official Platinum-for-life member until altogether 10 years have passed. But this is just a matter of time and does not have any practical impact.
In any case, if I were you, I would not leave FB before I have collected enough miles for Platinum-for-life.

neuromancer

Actually you will not become Plat for life before the 10 years. You just will not need to qualify 10 years in a row if you have accumulated more than 700 000 status miles. This is not personal experience, but based on what people wrote here.
I found BMI Diamond club quite generous. You need less miles than FB to some zones and can buy awards with miles + cash at half miles, while the cash portion + taxes can be less than just taxes on Air France.
However their booking centre is horrible and you can be in quite a mess if you are out of luck. And, the future of DC is uncertain.

Fly Upstairs

I would certainly look into how close you may be to plat for life, I agree it is quite useful. I would strongly advise against Delta, it is horrific for international flyers.

Continental would be a nice choice, and I have found *A to be very good since I left FB. They also have an extensive "status for life" program. I would not rule out Lufthansa as well, as it seems you fly often enough to gain HON status, which is unmatched in air travel, IMHO. Lufthansa's premium class earning is also superior in FB by double in many cases.

OneWorld has never proven to be strong enough at any turn, so I avoid their alliance.

couscous

I have given my entire business to Star Alliance so far this year and I really don't miss AF's ......... I am storing my miles on UA as I travel to the US regularly. I get 6 systeme wide upgrades a year.

brunos

I would agree with sturejan that grass is grener elsewhere. Especially for high flyers like you.

Of course, it all depends on your flying pattern and where you are based. On FB you will have a soft landing to Gold which gives similar privileges to Plat. And if you are based in France with AMEX FB it is trivial to retain gold. So you will have lounge access even in cheaper fares. There is no advantage beyond Plat on FB, while there is in other FFPs.

Some choose their flights primarily to optimize their miles/FFP and that is not my attitude. Convenience, quality and value come first. And I fly enough to achieve top status in a couple of alliances, so that I can get lounge access even on a dirt-cheap leisure fare.

Although France is a major destination for me; I find the combination of FB and AFKL poor in all respects. I do not fly as much as you (around 20,000 DISTANCE miles per month) and I mostly do in premium cabins. I am happy with my combination of BD (Diamond Club DC) for *A and BA (executive club) for OW (I mostly fly CX and BA on OW). I never fly on BD. For longhaul, the products of AFKL are poor and FB unattractive so I will only choose AFKL if they offer geat savings and convenience.


The reason I picked BD DC is that the gold qualifying level is low (and they comp) and they have many attractions such as part cash awards; most cheap coch fares earn 100%; and the major one is the double dip. Once you reach 55,000 miles (adjusted for the class of service in a year, then you get double miles. For example a LH or TG flight in F class will credit 300% of the miles (because of F), doubled (because of over 55,000), plus the gold premium of 25%, so a grand total of 625%. Fly business class CDG-USA on CO and you will earn 425% miles (200% for Biz, then doubled then 25% Gold), that compares to 125% (Z class) + 100% (Plat)= 225% on AF. And their redemption features/levels are quite attractive. People have worried about disapearance of DC for years. But they are money-making (the FFP DC) and the worst that can happen is transfer toLH M&M which is also quite attractive if you fly premium cabins. If you are based in the US other *A FFP (CO, UA, ..) might be attractive if you fly often on that specific airlines, as they have frequent promotions.

BA is a natural FFP for OW if you are based in Europe, as Europeans get lower qualification levels. Need only 400 tier point for silver (equivalent of gold or plat on AF FB) and 800 TP for gold (benefits well above FB Plat, such as access to F lounges of OW, and free access to BA lounges worldwide even if you do not fly on OW). Plus they have benfits for high flyers who fly well beyond Gold qualification level.

Asian FFPs are not attractive! Sharing my time between Hong Kong and France, with a lot of CX flights, it is more attractive for me to credit miles on BA.
If you are based in US, then AA is a good OW choice as they are so generous with earning miles, promotions, upgrades and granting status.

orbitmic

Just to add a vote of support to what others have said - if your balance already shows somewhere near 400,000 qualifying miles, I would add whatever is needed before switching (after all, after 6 years, a few weeks won't make a big difference!! )

For the rest, my only slight difference with others is that I think that while for most of us, programmes such as BMI are great because qualification levels are low.

My next quesiton would be whether most of your flights are in business/first class or in economy. If I had the same pattern as you and flew mostly J/F, I would go for LH M&M which probably rewards their most frequent flyers most in terms of non-flying perks. If you already fly 50,000+ qualifying miles a month, I doubt if you have much of a chance to use up all your miles flying for free (and if you ever do, you might as well do it in F, which is decently 'priced' on M&M) so I wouldn't look into that too much personally. And with LH, you will get to use the first class terminal all the time.

If most of your business is booked in Y, I would probably choose a US programme though as they are usually more generous with international upgrades (check the latest developments as I have lost track of the new top tiers created by many programmes).

igibus

Thank you everybody for your insight. I just called Flying Blue and I will be Platinum for life in few more flight. (I did not travel as much as now the last few years).
I guess I will keep Flying Blue to get the life status and start trying other programs to find a better match.

Thanks again for your details, it did help me to narrow my choices. Now I have to dig more into theses programs and I will let you know in few months how that works for me

KLouis

I also left FB after being Plat for seven years. I chose *A, mostly because my home airline, Aegean, will be joining it next summer. Till then, already being Gold in their programme (Miles & Bonus) due to domestic flights with Aegean, and with fewer long haul flights over the last 12 months due to different reasons, I've been mostly using Swiss and, thus, accumulating miles in M&M. I've qualified FT easily (but not Senator), and I'll have to see whether my choice of moving all of my travel to *A was good only after next summer, i.e. after Aegean possibly restructures its own programme (required miles/sectors for reaching Gold level, etc.). All in all, though, I can say that I haven't seen any major problems compared to AF/KL.