I can see the advantages of US, but for me, UA tops US providing I can keep my 1K status since that gives me 6 SWUs (= Global Premier Upgrades) rather than US's measly 2 upgrades. Given the amount of Y international travel I do, that's a big difference and very attractive to me. If I have spare miles left over, I may put them in A3 to get United Club access when travelling internally, but given most of my internal travel is on same day as international, then it's hardly worth it. I'll still miss DC though...

Only TK award flights can be booked online or over the phone.
*A flight can be booked over the phone but you will have to go to the office to have the ticket issued. Very inconvenient.
Also staff at the call centre speak often very poor English, making it very difficult to discuss with them (and you have to call to Turkey)

With only 150 % earning in C, miles staying only 3 years valid and no credit card earning (at least not outside Turkey), it is quite difficult to earn enough miles for a long haul flight for a family holiday in C (or F)

If based in London, it is almost impossible to find available seats during the holidays to Istanbul unless you use the guaranteed seat (but in this case a return ticket from Europe to Istanbul would set you about 100,000 miles back!!)
From other airports (and outside the major holidays) the limited capacity on TK only has reasonable availability.

changing from DC/Exec club to Aadvantage
 

I'm going to miss Diamond Club- especially on my main redemption route from MAN to DEL. I am DC Gold and BA Exec Club Silver now (losing status in March). Flying from MAN- it is hard to travel with BA because it is so much more expensive than Star alliance. However, in terms of cheap (in terms of miles) redemptions to India, it is hard to find cheaper ones than Aadvantage (30k miles one way in business, 60k return). I will still hold on to some OW status (CX gold card, through AMEX plat), but I think my plan is to earn Aadvantage miles on OW flights and credit card, mainly for cheap redemptions from UK to India. It's a bit crazy, as I don't plan to fly AA at all, so perhaps others may persuade me otherwise

Coming around to US
 

I was looking closely at UA but US is starting to appeal a little more after reading suggestions here.

- Bonus miles on US, LH and UA/CO operated flights depending on status level (25, 50, 75, 100% bonuses)
- You can buy up to preferred status levels if you are a few miles short
- Status and award miles on Virgin Atlantic flights
- No US metal requirement for status

On the downside:
- no E+
- Talk of them leaving *A

Not sure about the burn rates, on face value they appear ok but it is not clear if these are return (I assume they are) or one-way. This popup is confusing me too "One-way award travel reservations are available for the same number of miles as a roundtrip award travel" :confused:

The award chart is for RT. You can ticket OW awards as well, but you need to pay the RT price.

Ouch, that's a pretty big negative right there.

I just got done with burning well over 100,000 miles. Now down to chump change. I suppose this will convert into three or so Avios.

For the last half year, crediting was to UA, AC. At this time, only Gold status remains to transfer (for whatever this will be worth).

Good-bye BD. It was always entertaining: Will the website work? Does the agent in the ICC manage a simple booking? Does someone take responsibility after BD forgot to ticket a reservation?

Unlike US, UA does have one-ways :)

Delta thinking about purchase of US airways http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/us-ai...usition-2.html

Yep, now looking back at UA again!

How useful do you find the SWUs? Flying UA would probably take me to Europe via the US so these would be handy but how useful are they in reality? Compared to say DC eGUVs? Worse, worser or worserest :D?

After seriously considering SK (as I wrote about some pages ago), I finally made my decision today to move into CO/UA. The main reason for doing this is that TK is offering some really good V-fares GOT-ICN and I just bought a couple of roundtrips with them. Beside TK it appears as if only UA will offer 100% credit for these fares (and these V-fares cost 600 EUR compared to a 100% earning fare with SK which is 950 EUR so in total I save more than 1200 EUR).

The reason I went for CO/UA is (a) some odd 16k+ miles I have with them since the old pre-Star CO-days and (b) that TK miles expire after 3 years which is really short. The 1MM long-term future is also appealing.

My only problem now is the 4 paid flights with CO/UA requirement, for the moment I only have 2 paid flights with them booked this year, if bad comes to worse I will do a quick ICN-NRT run but I will first write a letter asking for a status match of my BD Gold once we know what will happen. I have already requalified for next year so I guess my new BD card will come more or less at the same time as the program is discontinued... sigh...

That's exactly what I have done, perhaps a bit prematurely but I'm flying with them in two weeks time, I'll let you know how I get on with it. Still waiting for a reply but over in the UA forum the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ed-2010-a.html thread says this is not uncommon.

Look at Avianca/Taca Lifemiles program
 

I posted about the new Lifemiles program on the Star board, however here are some key areas:

Much like both UA/US, there are unlimited domestic upgrades (Columbia) however, there are also unlimited international upgrades (on any published fare) and four 1 way vouchers upgrades (on any published fare) for Europe.

Under there program you can buy miles, sometimes for 2X.
There is a mile and cash option just like BMI.

The high mileage redemption---includes earning miles based on class of redemption and miles flown: thus you can redeem a reward and earn millage on it.

Lifemiles is soon to be a star member, with a very strong Latin American network and several US gateways.@:-)

Yes, please keep me updated! Actually, I just sent that letter as well but perhaps not so smart since I will be unlikely to meet any challenge (except the two flights already book, any UA flights will only be later this year).

A business class ticket from South America to europe: 184,000 miles! :eek: