Very poor, as pointed out repeatedly earlier in the thread.

Help needed!
 

Hi all,

I know this is the same as many other requests, but wanted to draw on your accumulated knowledge. Had Silver status with BMI, but with the BA merger I need a new programme. Most of my flying is with BA, but I still fly a bit with Star Alliance. It's all economy (unfortunately), but I'm not overly fussed about status/lounge access to be honest. I'm much more interested in decent earn/burn rates, limited taxes and miles not expiring.

From my research my main options are either UA, US or A3 (which would have the added benefit of relatively easy status).

I have a flight on Monday, so any advice before then much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

To summarize what's been discussed:

US: Probably best redemption rates of the lot (nothing close to BD's C+M). On the minus side, no one-way redemptions (for half miles). Credit card accrual in the UK only via SPG Amex card. Used to be easy to buy/win miles with promos.
UA: OK redemption rates (worse than US), but one-way redemptions available for half miles. UK credit card available with MBNA (1 mile/£)
A3: OK redemption rates, one-way redemptions available (for half miles), award bookings change/cancellation with penalty. Concerns about airline long term viability. No CC accrual.

Hopefully not missing anything.

A slight correction marwanb: on A3, the penalty for changing/cancelling award bookings is losing the miles and any YQ you have paid for those bookings.

If A3 would change this to a more sensible scheme (charge a fee for basic members to change/refund award bookings, a reduced fee for blue [silver], and free changes/refunds for gold) - and introduce some international miles earning credit cards and/or or points transfer from Amex MR and/or SPG - they would have a much more appealing scheme.

Probably worth adding that earning rates on A3 are much better than I had expected for travel in Y. Just as an exercise I looked up what I'd earn for four *A intra-Europe flights that I've got booked during the coming few weeks (including a couple on A3, as it happens).

The flights are all in cheap economy and were set to earn me a grand total of 531 miles with M&M (including the "executive bonus" for one LH-operated segment). With A3 they'll bring me 3,020 miles -- enough to reach *S once added to the 1,000-miles sign-up bonus. :)

Please suggest a new *A programme for me
 

I now fly longhaul only occasionally. Mostly in discounted business class (Z on most airlines, but occasionally D). Usual carriers would be LX or SK as their fares ex-UK are best, but sometimes TK is good to the Far East.

We fly to Turkey quite regularly though.

We earn most of our miles via a credit card these days :(

I'm not so worried about status as I don't fly enough to really benefit or retain it. (would be nice though)

Main goal is therefore mileage accumulation. A UK-based credit card is essential.

I have looked at the various *A programmes and I am surprised to say that Miles & More looks best for me - even though Z class will only earn at 1.5x miles from Sept 2012.

Aegean - no UK credit card it seems, and I can't read Greek to understand the site.

United - seems to have very poor earning rates

Turkish - earning rates on M&M seem to be better, even on TK flights! But no mileage earning on Z class flights (is this a business class code on TK?? or is it the class for redemptions in their Premium Economy class?).
There seems to be a credit card but the link does not work today. Mrs FD is Turkish so setting up a Turkish bank account to get the card would be possible if there is no UK based one.

So for us it looks like TK Miles & Smiles or LH M&M.

Spending rates seem less generous on M&M, but this might be balanced up by more generous earning from flying.

Am I missing something?

Given our particular circumstances, what is the collective wisdom of the group as to what's best for us?
Open to suggestions for other programmes too!

Thanks in advance

If you haven't seen it already, this might be a good place to start: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...dc-you-33.html

For those who have not joined or are not following A3 - the latest (genuine) enhancement to Miles&Bonus is that award bookings can now be changed or cancelled up to 30mins before departure.

A3 seems to become more like the best replacement for DC every day. One-way redemptions are available. Non-Greek Credit Card miles earning and household account/family miles transfer are just about the only two things missing from this programme.

Follow the discussion on the A3 board...

UA or US for new *Alliance FFP?
 

Hi there

I know this is a topic that is very well discussed, but I'm still in a loop regarding which FFP to transfer to.

My thoughts are:
- A3 or OZ for status
- UA or US for banking and redemption

I fly solely in Y, around the 50,000 miles per year mark.

I am a little put off by UA's own metal requirement, but I suppose if I have A3 for status, that won't matter (OK, won't get upgrades or Y+, but not really bothered about that).

I thought of TK, but have had bad experiences with them in the past.

Any thoughts? I have some miles that I need to credit retrospectively, so will need to make my mind up!

Thanks

LHR*G

Well discussed is right. That's why everyone else used the same thread...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/bmi-d...ce-dc-you.html

Where to post my *A travel to now?
 

The only *A airline I'm a member of is BMI

Most of my earning was / is via the BMI CC. I'm quite happy for the balance to move to my Avios account when the time comes.(again Avios miles mostly generated from BA Amex CC spend)

I have some upcoming travel on TG / SQ / UL / MH - mostly in business mid-haul apart from SQ in F long-haul. (you can probably guess where I'm traveling from:p)

Question is - which airlines / alliances should I be posting my miles to for these flights - are their any sign-up bonuses etc I need to know about?

Thanks

I'm sure there's a thread about that somewhere that this will get merged into, but until then...

Is it earn and burn, or lounge access that matters?

Since *S usually only gets you into the lounge of the programme owner then if you want lounge access but won't reach *G it would make sense to credit to whoever will have most lounges where you're travelling to/from.

Indeed there is ;)

When paying cash for tickets I usually fly in Bus or First so would already have lounge access - earn and burn is more important to me

I'd look at United, US Airways and the new kid on the block Avianca/Taca Lifemiles (which offers interesting cash+miles options)

I am still undecided which programme to use as a main *A replacement for DC. Aegean *G is all very well (and the recent change which allows rebooking/cancellation of award bookings up to 30 mins before departure is great), but the earn/burn is not ideal, especially given the sector-based redemption table and the lack of an UK credit card/Amex or SPG points transfer, miles for sale or miles and cash bookings.

I am weighing up between:

- Asiana - not brilliant earn/burn either but does accept Starpoints) and the *G qualification is a useful insurance should A3 go belly up. Lifetime *G possible, though we all know that is not something to be relied on. I hope that A3 will follow the changeable award bookings with other changes such as a sensible redemption table, miles-earning credit cards/points transfer from different countries and miles and cash bookings.

- Avianca/Taca LifeMiles - no chance of status of you don't fly them which probably counts me out and seemingly has a more random call centre and IT systems than BMI in its heyday, and short-lived miles, but I guess it's a new programme and will find its feet. Good cash and miles and good earn/burn if the stories are to be believed.

- Turkish Miles and Smiles - better earn and burn, reasonably low *G threshold, but but only 3 year miles validity. How are members who have joined and are using this scheme finding it?

- US Airways Dividend Miles - even better earn/burn, a more mature programme, but higher *G threshold, and a few drawbacks such as no one-way awards and a relatively high 150 USD fee for changing/cancelling award tickets.

I'd be interested to hear how those who have status matched are finding their new schemes.

Aegean is offering a mileage credit of 2,000 for new signups. Received the email today.

A3 seems to get more and more like DC every week now :-). Are we SURE Keeley from DC did not land there? ;)

this is all very complicated especially as you need to look at both earn and burn rates in the respective programmes.:confused:

So in the next 6 months I have the following travel booked

2 x SIN-LHR in F Class (SQ) *A
1 x CMB-BKK-RGN in J Class (TG) *A
1 x MLE-CMB in J Class (UL)
2 x RGN-KUL-SIN in J Class (MH)

I'm thinking of joining ML program Enrich for UL and MH bookings (as ML are joining OW soon and i can'r find a better place for them?).

I have many Avios (400k+) so it's likely I'd be using those to get to the Far East (BKK/SIN/ICN) in a premium cabin (so will have lounge access) and then *A (TG/SQ) to get to one of the islands for a nice beach break.

I can easily make Blue (*Silver) on Aegean with these flights (total of 15,396 miles flown - I assume tier points are just base miles?) but in the earn/burn rate the best as my SQ F flights will only earn 150% of miles flown whereas in M&M they would earn 300% - help !!!! :confused::confused::confused:

As SQ operates Suites on the SIN-LHR route, presumably you book into R class which earns 160% with A3. Two trips @ 6701 miles per leg x 1.6 takes you immediately to *G, even without the 2k A3 sign-up bonus.

TG J class earns 200%, so 1866 miles x 2 = 3732.

I'm booked in F on the suites which I think is 150% with A3 - still enough it appears to get *G but as I usually travel in premium cabins anyway what use would this be? (I don't need extra luggage allowance)

The only benefit you'll have, as A3 currently doesn't pay an Elite bonus, is when *G lounges are better than business lounges. This is pretty much restricted to LH, so if you choose Business with them you'd be slightly better off. It's probably a long shot given there's very few occasions when you'd choose LH in Business ahead of almost any other *A carriers, so I would tend to agree that you should concentrate on miles accumulation v burn rates.

You might actually find that A3 is more generous than LH in that regard - most Business classes are 2x, whereas M&M is moving towards 1x on discounted fares. It really does depend on exactly who your travel is mostly with, and how often you sit in F compared to discounted C.

Effectively dropping *A
 

I've been using BA pretty exclusively since the demise of BD and I have to say its much better than it used to be - both as an airline in general and also as a FF. I've found the Reward Flight Saver redemption facilty to be fantastic, great availabilty and very cost effective use of avios. Also being based near EDI the option to collect *A miles is very limited, much easier to colelct avios with BA.
For the minimal amount of *A travel I will have I managed to get a Gold Status match on TK for 2 years. Not sure if I'll ever burn the miles - just need to wait and see how things pan out but having the status for travel is a real bonus when required.

I've plumped for TK which will give me status till 2014, after which I will see if A3 will comp me. Now that bmi has gone and there's no * carrier worth talking about from GLA, my priority is to keep status for those rare occasions when I do fly *.

Speaking of which, I have just taken my first A3 flight and jolly good it was too.

I am typing this post from a sunkissed terrace in Oia, Santorini and we flew ATH - JTR on Sunday to get here.

The A3 lounge at Athens is really nice, and looks brand spanking new. It was empty at 0900 on a Sunday morning and offered a good selection of cold breakfast items, two coffee machines (1 Nespresso, 1 Bean to Cup) and enough booze to fell an elephant.

The very short flight was also excellent. Brand new looking A321, 30 minute flight, quick drinks service then land.

There was one oddity. When we arrived in JTR, we took a bus the 50m to the terminal and there were two bags already on the belt, including SWMBO's.

Now there wasn't time to get any bags from aircraft to hall whilst we were heading there and the rest of the bags took another 5 minutes, so I was left wondering whether her bag had been sent on an earlier flight by mistake. We were at the airport about 3 hours before take off, so theoretically possible.

Anyway, the bottom line is that as well as a decent FFP, A3 seems to be a more than decent airline.

IIRC this fee is waived for Golds and above...

Thats not allowed because what if you missed the flight for what ever reason a bag can not go on with out a passenger. It has been a rule since Lockerbie.

That was exactly my point. Not sure how else they could have got there.

The principle is that a passenger cannot voluntarily be separated from their bag. Involuntary separation is commonplace. Indeed, if that was not the case, an airline would be unable to ever return a lost bag to a passenger.

As long as the passenger is unaware that the bag has been placed on another flight, there is no issue so I would not see a security problem in the situation as described by thegoderic.

My bags have gone ahead from me numerous times, most recently on an oversold flight from the US-UK, where I VDB'ed myself after my bag had been loaded to the aircraft. I offered to them not to have to fish my bag out, and they accepted. My bag was waiting at my destination airport when I arrived, multiple hours later.

not strictly true on UK originating flights with the DfT Triple-A regs....Also, a bag that travels without either the passenger or an unaccompanied manifest (ie rush bags) are treated by the CAA as misloads

DC was an amazing program, both in terms of low miles needed for redemption in miles+cash but also in terms of what you could do with the miles, one ways allowed, free stop over each way, a lot of flexibility on routing depending on which ICC agent you got..

I am considering a trip from the UK to Brazil this year and would quite like to do something which I believe you could generally get away with in DC, which was to route from Brazil to Europe via North America as a free stopover for the same amount of miles as Brazil to Europe direct. I now primarily use BAEC but it looks like doing this kind of thing is impossible with them without paying nearly double the miles.

Can anyone tell me what the best *A airline to do this kind of indirect routing without shelling out more miles? From a little bit of research it looks like US does allow this, but they do not allow one way bookings and they only allow one stopover in a roundtrip. Are there any other FF programs in *A that allow the same kind of flexible routing that DC allowed? Preferably ones that allow one way bookings and have low redemption rates.

Perhaps US is the best but I would like to confirm this and find out any alternatives before I decide which program to pursue.

Take a look at Avianca Life Miles!

i hardly ever step foot on one of the airlines that are in the global alliance. All my points come from credit card. i am based in the uk. i transferred all of my diamond club balance over to ba avios. i've now spent all of my avios. but i guess that ba avios is the easiest for a uk credit card holder and tesco shopper to collect ?

I use Avianca's Lifemiles for cheap purchases of miles/mileage tickets that have low cancellation fees and allow for one-way tickets.

I use USAirways' Dividend Miles for relatively cheap purchases of miles to redeem for mileage tickets that I won't need to change in either direction. [The high cancel/change fees and the restrictions against changing the tickets after flying is one of the reasons why I don't invest more in the program.]

I use United's program for a plurality of my Star Alliance flight activity, mainly because I still fly UA a lot.

I use ANA's program for transferring points from other programs for select redemption purposes.

I use Scandinavian's program for intra-Scandinavia domestic flight redemptions since they provide me a very high CPM redemption value.

I keep an Aegean Star Gold account because it's so easy to earn/retain *G status with it.

Previously, I would pretty much consolidate at least a third of my Star Alliance flight activity in BD's program and sometimes even most of my Star Alliance flight activity. That era is over and now I'm diversifying across more programs than ever before as a result. In some ways, I'm better off now than ever before because of what the BD DC wrap up motivated me to do: get involved more deliberately with more programs and really up my gaming of them.

I have an upcoming flight with Brussels Airlines from MAN to COO and I currently have no foot in Star Alliance. Brussels Airlines don't have their own FF program, using Miles and More instead. Since M&M have already had a big, fat chance to earn my loyalty (hint: they blew it), what would our assembled experts recommend?

I've zero chance of earning any status for the foreseeable future so I'm looking at good earnings, no expiry and perhaps the opportunity to use accumulated miles for things other than flights.

I would cross-reference your ticket's fare booking codes with the following:

http://en.aegeanair.com/milesandbonu...iles/#BRUSSELS

3,000 miles of flight credit is enough for Star Silver with Aegean, given that the sign up bonus counts toward status too.

LifeMiles doesn't allow stopovers so not really a choice.