.jack

Hey,

I'm not sure whether this has been answered before but which FF programs do you recommend moving to when M&M comes into play. If it has been asked before, apologies, please point me in the right direction!

For me personally, the best things about DC for me are Miles+Cash awards, the ability to earn miles on the ground via Credit Card & Online Shopping and Family Membership. I've only been a member for 1 year and earned around 170k miles.

After (albeit very little) research I'm leaning towards VS Flying Club just because of the credit card and online shopping options for the UK but no decent miles+cash or family membership that I can see.

Any ideas / better suggestions on where to go with similar benefits?

Thanks in advance for your help and advice.

HIDDY

The BAEC is your best bet.

FlyingDentist

+1, but maybe not for the reasons you're thinking of...

HIDDY is right about BAEC - the recent changes make it much more attractive than it has been for a long time (I can remember back to 1993 when I joined - they are now a lot more generous than before).

Add in the BA Amex card (with its 2-4-1 vouchers), +/- Mastercards that can get BA miles via Tesco clubcard points, and you can rack up a decent balance pretty fast. (see discussions on the BA board.)

And that's not forgetting that UK tax bills can also be paid on Visa/Mastercards, earning even more miles. (see discussion on the bmi board sticky)

However, if you have freedom to choose who you fly with, +/- a lot of business expenses that can be cycled through a credit card, I would suggest you maintain a decent mileage balance in both BAEC and a *A programme.

It will give you a lot more freedom to choose reward bookings if you have two alliances to choose between.

Via the tactical use of mileage-earning credit cards, you can build up balances wherever you need then use them for redemptions as the need arises.

I do not know about VS's programme but the redemptions may be more limited than BA or *A.

FlyingDentist

To actually answer the OP's question...

I used to fly a lot. Now, not anything like as much, fortunately. But this means that I am unlikely to have any kind of gold card on any airline for quite some time.

Therefore my goal in choosing an FFP is to build up miles to use for redemptions in premium cabins, mostly via use of credit cards as I can put a lot of practice expenses through then very easily.

To that end, I have made an effort to build up miles with BA over the last 18 months.

We have an almighty ton of DC miles, so we will burn off our miles in DC (and presumably afterwards M&M) at whatever rate is prevailing at the time then will see which *A carrier I will turn to... or else maybe stick with M&M if the credit card earns miles at a favourable rate.

My 'life post DC' decision will be based on the availability of a UK-based credit card (preferable Visa/Mastercard), and the rate of earning points via that card vs burning them for premium flights.

HIDDY

And what reasons was I thinking of FlyingDentist?

It's the best FFP out there now for someone based in the London area as well as the more fortunate people who stay near a BA served regional aerodrome.

.jack

So I've looked at BA and looks pretty good... My only issue is in getting the Amex... right now I have the bmi Amex from MBNA which didn't seem to have a minimum income from what I remember. But the BA one has a minimum of £30k of which I'm not quite there! I'm guessing it's pretty strict but if you guys have any ideas around it I'm all ears... I'd even be willing to pay the £150 for the Premium Card!

Thanks for your help.

taff_2003

If the Paypal top-up card becomes available in the future, this could allow you to earn BAEC miles if you top-up the card with a BA Amex (no doubt weekly, monthly and yearly top-up limits will apply if it does come back.)

I was one of the lucky ones to get the Paypal top-up card when you still could and it works a treat.

The above could equally apply to the VS credit card which I think is also an Amex.

Merry Christmas!

zkzkz

I'm in a similar boat with the cuts over at AC this year. i'm also looking at BAEC. However I'm finding it really hard to make the numbers work.

Even with the 100% bonus miles I won't have enough miles for quite as many MFU longhauls as I get upgrades from AC even after the cuts. Almost, but not quite.

And Silver (I have little chance of maintaining Gold) doesn't have access to arrivals lounges which is probably the best thing about elite status. It does have access to business departure lounges.

And having to take the train to T5 and meet their silly conformance rules means a lot more stressful connections and wasted time sitting around terminals which I'm not looking forward to.

On the plus side having some miles with BAEC would be nice for redemptions but the redemptions don't sound very flexible with redemptions involving more than one airline sounding very complex to obtain.


I haven't found any other good candidates. AA and United are often quoted but there seem to be a lot of downsides and not many upsides with either of them for me. I don't think i can make elite status with Virgin. I wonder if there are any others I haven't considered.

.jack

Well if you are after status you can get *A Gold with just 20k miles with Aegean...and you get 1k for just signing up. No credit card or any other benefits that I'm aware of (correct me if I'm wrong) but great if you're a frequent flyer and want access to the *A Gold lounges including when flying US Domestic (again correct me if I'm wrong)

Tiger_lily

Aegean has terrible burn rates I hear so as long as you've got a spare 20k miles to chuck at hitting gold & have no desperate need to burn that 20k that'll do you for a gold card.

.jack

Totally agree... just for status ie *A gold only! And on that point... if I wasn't to go for BAEC which *A FF program would you recommend for me?

Tiger_lily

It totally depends on your flying pattern and your ability to accrue miles in addition to flying combined with good burn rates.

Right now, there's nothing for me that ticks the right boxes. I am going to burn the last of my miles and then sit tight and see what happens.

Rambuster

If you actually want to redeem anything, I'd stick with M&M.
BAEC is driving me nuts with the very poor award availability.

Oxon Flyer

if/when M&M comes into play.

HIDDY

Get yourself am address in mainland Europe and Gold is a breeze to maintain.