Zeehe

Hi, I am currently a LH SEN and consider to change to Asiana as I can't maintain the status with LH. Since the default benefits of *G are all that I look for I think it might be a good choice to aim for Asiana Diamond. I understand this requires 40K miles within the two year period that starts with me joining the program and then every two year period another 40K for re-qualification.

I am based in Europe and right now only intra-European award flights on *A would be of any use for me. I would like to learn about the availability (typically I'd fly LH or SK) when booking with Asiana miles and the taxes and fees that are charged. Also it is unclear to me if and for which airlines YQ is charged and how much that is.

I am not registered yet (I'd do so shortly before the next long haul) and can't seem to find this information anywhere. If anyone could advice regarding the availability of *A intra-European awards (e.g. LH CPH-FRA-NUE or LH/SK's CPH-HAM would be a typical flight that would be useful for me) it would be highly appreciated.
Can I pay taxes/fees/YQ with miles or how much would one estimate for it? Will the amount be equal to what I see for these tickets on ITA, hence can I use ITA to estimate the additional costs of award tickets?

Thank you for your advice.

lee_apromise

1. You will pay the same amount of taxes + fees charged on a revenue ticket.
2. The availability depends on the operating carrier's inventory management.
3. Only Korean website, one can search for *A redemption flights. If you are not a Korean speaker, you must contact OZ offices in Europe.
4. You are not allowed to pay taxes + fees with miles.

P.S: You are wasting your miles. OZ *A redemption is one of the worst, it is only good for multiple stop-overs. I'm sure you will be able to hit *G with AC or TK without a problem.

TPJ

As lee_apromise mentioned DON'T even think about redeeming miles for short-haul flights. YQ (fuel surcharge) is not exempt on redemption tickets here in Europe. Just search for promos.. If booked in advance - with some luck - you would pay like 150.00 EUR (including YQ) for an European short haul RT ticket.

Zeehe

Thanks to both of you. If I understand correctly the redemption of *A awards it pretty much the same everywhere unless using the miles of the operating carrier (which would be LH or SK) itself. Hence independent of my choice of program (unless it is EB or M&M) I have the same taxes/fees/YQ and availability - correct?

Since I can neither reach LH's nor SK's gold level right now it therefore seems to not matter which program I choose for *G (which could be either AC, TK, OZ or A3) -> I will lose the miles in any case - correct? I might be missing something so, lee_apromise seems to indicated there is something I've overlooked with AC and TK?

sunrider101

during your intra flight, as people mentioned above, if you do many stopovers (which OZ allows 5), you can pretty much fly around for dirt cheap miles. you just have to be creative. OZ allows you to stop over 5 times and you can stop at a single country twice. so work it out. if this works, OZ is for you. if not, then stick with someone else

Zeehe

sunrider, thanks for replying. What you say is that for the 25k or 30k (forgot the exact number) miles required for a intra-European *A award I could fly six legs if I choose wisely?

I might need to learn to use it well, but it could be interesting. On the other hand (in terms of *A intra-European awards) I still don't seem to see the big difference between AC/TK/A3 and OZ then - hence it would probably simply be the one with the easiest way or reaching and maintaining status.

DownUnderFlyer

The problem is that with OZ you need a minimum of 35,000 miles for the shortest European return trip. Longer flights within Europe (over 1500 miles) require more miles. With A3, you only need 25,000 miles even for the longest segment between Northern Africa and Europe. Plus you usually earn more miles when flying. So the earn/burn rate of OZ is much worse than with other programs unless you have some specialty itineraries (short flight across zone boundaries, lots of stopovers etc.)
Also, taxes and fees are significantly different between programs used. You will usually pay less for a flight when using UA miles than with OZ miles for example.

And last but not least, stay away from AC as they now require 5 AC flights or 10k miles p.a. on AC flights to retain status.

sunrider101

My apologies! I forgot about this thread and failed to respond back to you in time!

It all depends on which locations you wanna hit up. I personally believe that best bang for the buck is Z4 business class, where for 80k OZ miles, you get to fly max 15 segments with 5 stopovers up to 10k miles (flown miles). I am actually about to go on a trip tomorrow, that i was able to fit 9.9k miles with 4 stopover and 13 segments in Intra-Asia travel.


Back to your question. One thing you MUST keep in mind is that, starting country and ending country must be same. So if you start your trip from Germany, you have to end your trip at Germany. But.. key here is term "country". you can technically make your trip be 6 stops if you start and end your travel in different cities. For an example, you can start in Berlin - Paris - London- Madrid - Rome - Budapest - Frankfurt. and if you book domestic flight separate from Frankfurt to Berlin (if you wanna), then voila, you got 6 stops technically.

Another tactic that is well used by OZ fans is using its "transit" rule. If you fly out less than 24 hrs, then it doesn't count as a stopover. Since OZ allows 15 segments, you can, if you plan it wisely, make your "stops" more than 5... as long as it is within the mile limit (zone segmentation) that you seek.

SirJman

What's your YQ for this ticket?

sunrider101

total came out to about $520