williwaw

Yeah, a PDX-HNL-PDX-DCA-PDX trip last year made a good dent in my status requirements....

WrightHI

Flying for Fun

There is always a risk but somewhat mitigated with status. On April 1st I was flying through SEA to PDX with a 5 hour layover to start an award booked via AA on QR to KGL. All 17 flights were sold out that day. As a 75K, I wasn't able to confirm a SDC to an earlier flight but when I arrived in SEA I headed over to the gate of the next departure and requested to standby. I jumped to the top of the standy list and about 15 minutes later had my boarding pass. The savings was ~$100 over booking the flight when I made the initial reservation.

James in Dubai

Flying for Fun

Is the $200 additional an upfare on EK or additional over other alternative flights/airlines?

I am currently in the EK Business Class lounge in DXB awaiting my next flight to GRU. I am flying economy for the first time on EK as I seriously wanted to try economy. I flew in from CPT on the B777 and flying to GRU on the A380.

I won't fly a partner flight that doesn't earn 100% base miles. Often the EK upfare to W class (the first fare class that accrues 100% base miles) is minimal. The $700 fare for nearly 14K miles would only produce 7K EQM & 15,750 RDM for a 75K Elite making EQM 10 cpm & RDM 4.4 cpm.

The upfare to W class added $225 to the fare producing 14K EQM & 31.5K RDM making EQM 6.6 cpm and RDM 2.93 cpm. Still a little more that what is cost to buy unbonused AS miles but I think a lot would jump on being able to purchase 7K EQM for $225. Notwithstanding the 31,500 RDM is enough for a CX J flight Australia to Hong Kong if we value AS at 2 cpm the rebate is $630 on a $925 flight. Without 100% base miles the rebate would be $315 on a $700 flight with 7K less EQM.

James in Dubai

nearlysober

When you say you upfare to W - whats the process behind that?

Its hard to shop online for specific fare codes on most airlines. EK likes to hide their fare codes pretty well from what I recall.

To you buy the original ticket online, then call in to ask to up-fare and pay the difference?
Or do you just buy a ticket via a rep in the first place and get a quote for W fare?

I wish all airlines let us just price out each fare online so no phones were involved

alaskaforlife

additional over other alternative flights/airlines

garykung

Late to the party.

Yes and no.

In theory, you have done nothing wrong. This is simply how it works. If there is one thing you actually did wrong, that would be your choosing of AS.

AS is mainly a domestic airline, with limited international routes, and limited geographical coverage. Routes are limited. AS's partner earning is as usual - not that good. So even you are able, it is, by nature, difficult to earn AS status unless you really fly enough with AS.

VegasGambler

I actually think it's far easier to earn AS status with partners than with AS. A big part of that is distance (eg, USA-Asia is just a lot more miles than anything domestic) but it also depends on your buying patterns.

If you buy economy international flights then earning is not great (although, still better than partner earning on other US-based airlines). If you buy premium cabin you really rack up the miles in no time.

Re: economy travel, just do a simple comparison. Look at AS's chart for CX... then look at the AA chart. Yes, there are some 25% and 50% figures in the AS chart but those all earn 0% on AA. Do similar comparisons for other partners, comparing the AS chart with the "big 3" alliance partner and AS is usually a lot better.

jinglish

This is where the fact that AS doesn't split out distance flown and money paid can be a big pain point. With DL, you still get 100% MQMs on their closest partners, and a lot of those discount Y tickets wind up giving more MQDs than you're actually spending on the ticket. With AS only crediting 30% on discount economy with JL, for example, you're getting way less progress toward elite qualification even though you may be spending a decent amount of cash.

VegasGambler

Why would AS split out money? They don't have MQD.

Think of it another way -- take a single flight with AS or a partner and you get INFINITE MQD!!!!!!! Enough MQD to qualify for whatever status level you want. Now you just need the EQM...

Flying for Fun

I always use ITA Matrix when looking at fares. If you have ExpertFlyer you can also check fares and each fare class will show the associated fare.

Since I know what classes pay 100% base miles for each partner I can ask the Matrix for those fares. In the case of EK, Y, R, E & W are all economy fare classes that earn 100% with W being the lowest. In the advanced controls : extension controls I enter f ek..; f bc=w. That prompts the query to extract EK fare in Booking Class W. Without the control the query will return the cheapest fares for all airlines while adding just f ek.. will return just EK fares. Leave the Cabin set as cheapest available so there isn't any conflict. ie looking for a W fare when Cabin is set to Business will return an error since W is not an EK Business Class fare.

It makes it easy to determine price differentials between the lowest fare (usually U, but could be a higher class if U is sold out) and the W fare for your specific EK flight. Given the differntial it is easy to deterine if it is cost effective to buy up for the additional EQM and RDM that comes with that.

In my case, I just printed my itinerary and took it to the Emirates office in Capetown for ticketing. A call to EK, as you said, should realize the same result. Book with Matrix will take you through to EK but I don't trust that I am getting the actual fare class I want.

James in Santiago.

jinglish

They don't have EQD, so since the partner doesn't want to compensate them for too many miles earned on a discount economy ticket, they wind up reducing the only thing they can: EQM. So yeah, spend isn't a concern, but you get shafted on flown distance instead. Not needing to worry about MQD isn't terribly helpful when you're only getting 3800 EQM for a JL trip that, if flying DL, would've gotten 10k MQM and about $630 EQM, or more than a fifth of the way to Silver qualification on spend--not an amazing value for the latter, but still proportionally more toward status thresholds than what AS gave me.

garykung

It is obvious that you can earn status by spending more money. The art here, as always, is to earn status with the least money spent.

Yes. However, it may not be as good as the home program.

If you pick CX, then I have to ask you this - Do you know that UA actually has a better program for those who fly to HKG frequently?

(Note - there is a reason why UA's #1 corporate customer is Apple.)

VegasGambler

Maybe that's your goal. My goal is to earn status with my normal travel patterns.


Best what? FF program? Not even close. I assure you that the reason that Apple chooses UA is not because of the FF program. They choose them because they have a great network out of SFO and they can negotiate good corporate rates.

I fly UA for a few reasons but the miles earning is crap.

I've only paid for one trip to HKG and it was $780 for round trip premium economy (fare sale) which is hard to beat. I got about 30k rdm for it (as MVPG). If UA were to offer that fare I'd be looking at, what... 6200 miles or so as Gold?

Visconti

No, I didn't know that, at all (irrelevant to me what Apple or its people choose to or not to do).

I can see where UA has better options & flexibility when flying out of SFO, but the reverse certainly isn't true on the return from HKG. Perhaps things will change, but the experience on CX is now and has always been superior to that of UA.

Unlike many I know, I don't like doing any work on the flight, and prefer to nap & watch movies. In that sense, I value lounge access more than most to finish up whatever work I may have, relax on the flight, and just hit the ground running, fully refreshed. With CX's lounge in Intl A, there's no need for Polaris or Cent; and, goes without saying, in HKG, CX lounge options are superior to UA's lone option. Pier lounges are better than HKG Cent, in my view.

So, even aside from the miles (where AS is infinitely superior to that of UA's), I don't see how UA overall has a "better" program than CX currently for frequent HKG flyers.