lhr baby

I'd generally go along with most of what has been said about BAEC. Earn rates have improved a lot and award availability isn't all that bad in my experience. Others disagree, so perhaps I have been lucky. There is no miles expiry if you don't make status providing you have an occassional transaction, which can be a hire car, hotel and others. However, Gold qualification is very tough.

KLM isn't a bad option for status using the flight segments method, especially if you do connections in Schiphol with four legs per round trip on a regular basis. You do have to fly to prevent miles expiring but not very often. Earnings are fairly average but burn rates are very poor. Hence, this scheme is only worth considering if the SkyTeam route network attracts you and you value status more than redemption.

Within Star Alliance, M+M really isn't attractive for status. 100k miles is a tall order. There is the option of investing 20k miles on Aegean status but that's 20k miles you lose from your LH earnings, and if you don't make at least 35k, you could run into expiry problems after 3 years. This makes the LH and Aegean combination a no-go area for me.

For an all round scheme I'm somewhat tempted by Continental. Burn rates are virtually identical to LH M+M and availability of rewards is pretty good. There are different levels of burn rate, the upshot of which is that if you are desperate for a redemption on specific dates you are likely to get one on the Continental network at a high burn rate. However, SaverPass redemptions appear to be readily available. For example Business Class rdemptions are available between Birmingham and Newark for 105,000 miles (same miles as M+M) on most dates 3-4 months in advance. Redemptions across the Star Alliance network seem to be at least as good as DC. The advantage over M+M is that currently, Continental miles don't expire if you miss out on status providing there is some account activity within a 18 month period (need not be a flight). You only need 50k to make *A Gold, which at least gives the advantage of putting all your miles in one scheme and still getting Gold at a reasonable rate. Most earning rates seem on a par with DC in economy, but there is a downside in premium cabins, where you can't do better than 1.5x, rather than the 2x or 3x points with DC. However, this is compensated for to some extent by much better availability of upgrades, so you may not always need to pay for a business class ticket.

FlyingDentist

Those reasons are pretty good ones, HIDDY, and i agree with you.

My point was that many people get too fixated on status. If that isn't a massive consideration (as in my case), then earn/burn rates using a credit card become more important - ignoring status but getting redemptions at the most favourable rate possible.

For anyone in the UK, BAEC has to be the best FFP at present.

FlyingDentist

+1 on all counts. My experience with J or F redemption availability has been pretty reasonable. Earn rates used to be very stingy but are now much better.

The issue of mileage expiration is a good point - and, as you mention, might become a problem on LH...

Interesting. How good is the redemption availability on their *A partners - e.g. if I want to book LH or LH F?

Roger

The VS card is issued by MBNA, not by AmEx itself. There's a risk that they will treat funding of a PayPal top up card as a cash advance and charge for it.Exactly. The OP doesn't tell us where he wants to redeem. He is already considering a VS AmEx, which implies that he may be interested in TATL travel. One more to consider is the American Airlines AAdvantage programme with a linked AmEx card from MBNA.

Easier redemption availability (also including BA), some of which needs fewer miles than BA, lower 'taxes, charges and fees', 1.5 miles per £ on the fee-free card. No 2-4-1, so if that's important, BA would be the one. (VS is pants in this respect.)Flying Blue is dreadful in this respect. You do need to make a qualifying flight at least once every 20 months, and partner credits (hotels, car rental, etc) don't extend miles life.Yes. I wouldn't recomment FB to anybody starting out as it has so many disadvantages.Interesting point. I'm too committed to AA/BA/BD to start afresh, but if I did want to join a *A programme, I'd be considering CO.

Flying Lawyer

Agreed. As long as you cannot book a year in advance or be rather flexible or fly TATL to NYC, you will face problems with BAEC. M&M always has availablitiy whenever and whereever I want. Burn rates are similar, however earn rates are still better for business class flyers: A Business Class return between Germany scores 5000 M&M miles compared to 2500 BAEC miles for a Gold member.

.jack

In terms of destination, any long haul flight destination that UA doesn't fly to or has poor standby availability - Domestic to MIA or MCO stand out (but would never use an award just for the domestic leg so would fly LHR-MIA etc) and places like SYD when their flights are weight restricted out of SFO/LAX.

In terms of alliance, I've never used a FF program that hasn't been *A and like the choice of airlines and destinations that *A offers in South America / South Africa and SE Asia. Do oneworld and skyteam have good worldwide coverage?

When redeeming, are the oneworld / skyteam alliances as flexible with routings / multiple airlines / stopovers as *A and Diamond Club?

Thanks again (and Merry Christmas to you all!)

Roger

I think there'll be many (different) answers, depending on individual experiences.For me, *A generally has the best worldwide coverage, even if award availability on some airlines is restricted (e.g. F on LH, F and C on SQ), though it does depend on individual membership programmes as discussed above. IMO SkyTeam has gaping holes, as does oneWorld to some extent.*A probably has the edge. My main SkyTeam experience is with Flying Blue, which is the pits in multi-sector/-airline redemptions. My only OW redemptions have been on BA, so I can't comment - other than to say that I haven't had the BA availability problems mentioned by some.

In the end YMMV, and with the eventual demise of BD, there'll be no obvious good value alternative as other programmes have their pluses and minuses.

You'll need to work out which alliance is most likely to cover your planned or possible future travel and then from that select a programme. IMO miles earning with credit cards and other partners is peripheral as they generally are much of a muchness. The obvious exception is BA with Tesco.

For M&M to compete successfully in the UK market, they would need to recruit more high profile partners*, as in Germany, and most of the likely suspects are already tied up so they would have to poach - a bit like Tesco replacing Sainsbury's as BA's partner a while ago.

* How many UK M&M members knew that they could earn 1,000 M&M miles a month with Trip Advisor - but only on the German website http://www.tripadvisor.de/ - details at http://www.miles-and-more.com/online...l=en&cid=18002 (That promotion is due to expire soon.)

TPJ

Do we already know what would happen after CO/UA merger... Isn't it too risky to commit to CO just a few months before the full merger

lfc84

i just wrote a review on the DE site, but i didnt see any field for the M&M number.

lhr baby

Very unreliable and non-statistically significant answer but when I was checking BHX to EWR and SFO for a possible trip in the Spring recently I believe the Continental site offered the same solutions as ANA. Only difference from ANA was more Continental options at a very high mileage burn rate.

For the dates I was looking at there were no LH flights showing up using either tool. I wasn't paying too much attention to non-CO carriers though, as there were CO direct options to EWR both ways. I was only looking at Business not First.

Roger

Using the link I mentioned (tripadvisor.de), click on 'Bewertung schreiben' and you should come to this:
http://www.tripadvisor.de/UserReview...__2E__de__2F__

The Miles&More promotion is on the right of that page. You get to enter your M&M number after entering your review and the various evaluation buttons.