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.

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 !!!!

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.

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.