Why would any business worry about trying to snap them up? If they were not already flying with you, then you obviously had insufficient appeal. If the loss of AA means they need to use another carrier they would only come to you if it suited them. I suspect these are not customers who can be "snapped up" if you have nothing to offer them.

For example with the demise of BD I am awaiting to see what appears as an alternative. I already have *G, and have BA Gold too - so nothing to be offered there for me. If the AF/KLM alliance were trying to "snap me up" it would be pointless, they don't fly anywhere I do and it is years since I sat on one of their aircraft. I would just have to go with the airline that goes where I want to fly. Of course for those who gather miles by shopping and not by flying the planning is very different - and status does not come from shopping!

I could do with some help....
 

I'm one of those infrequent flyers that collects miles almost exclusively from credit card spend and buying miles.

At the moment, I have 500k plus Avios, collected mainly through Amex Platinum spend and bonuses (inc referral bonuses to and by hubby and the 100% Amex transfer bonus in the summer which was too good to resist). Plus about 150k DC miles, almost solely from MBNA Mastercard spend, plus 500k+ US Airways miles, mostly bought or from the brilliant Grand Slam promo.

I have an Amex Platinum, so no concerns about lounge access and as I pay to fly infrequently, status is not important to me. I also have a SPG Amex and put everything I can on that as that is a route to more US DM, holding them until SPG have transfer bonuses.

My main priority is being able to fly in premium cabins between London and Sydney and, to a lesser extent, other longhaul flights. I'm content with using LCCs in Europe having tried BA Club Europe last year and found it a complete waste of money.

Availability of award flights to Australia on BA is negligible and there are of course fuel surcharges, so preference so far has been using US miles on *A partners; I was saving to do the same using DC miles eventually but there are no plans for a trip until 2013 now so too late for DC. But even that seems to be getting harder with LH now blocking its premium cabins until too close to departure for me.

Basically I accrue BA miles because it is so easy to do in the UK, although I don't actually have much use for them (and object to the fees). From what little I know about FF programmes, *A seems to be much more my natural home.

Really what I would like to know is if I should be doing anything different/looking at different FF schemes etc. I presume I will need to find another non-Amex card once the BMI one gets scrapped, but other than that do you have any suggestions being in mind my objectives?

Given I'm about to start flying a lot of C on SN, that would mean I should start looking at M&M. I was considering getting my BD *S back up to *G, but given I'll only have 2 flights by March (and only 20k miles sitting in the bank to redeem) I may be best to just cut my losses now and move onto M&M. I wonder if I could status match my MA Gold.

CO *Gs with a UK address get a free lounge membership card. At least they did up until 2011. The UA merger may kill that.

Also, you can hit *S with 5 TATL CO metal segments and *G with 10 r/t on CO metal. Again, the merger might end that.

redemption is pretty good (essentially guaranteed if you pay at the higher rate and IME pretty easy at the lower rates for leisure travel). Can redeem on VS too, which is useful.

TATL Y *G Y I'd say AC > CO/UA > US

I actually like the 757-200 on CO (faster loading, quicker service, flights from regional airports) but plenty don't.

I've just signed up to OZ Club as a replacement for BD DC. I like the two year qualification and terms as a frequent Y flyer, the possibility of lifetime status with a carrier that has a life, and the 10 year validity of miles, which for me was a big point over TK, SQ, and NZ. No own metal requirement for status unlike AC and UA/CO. Earn-burn is not great, but the stopover allowances are good if you earn enough to redeem.

I enrolled myself into US Airways FF scheme earlier today: no YQ on *A redemptions, quite low F-class redemption levels Europe-Australia, excellent 'Try Preferred Status' (http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...preferred.html) promo that should elevate my status to CP (the highest one) by late February...

That's the exact same route I'm going down only I won't be doing the Trial Preferred Status as I won't be able to get any US flights in during the period. All my flights up until I should hit *A Gold are in Business anyway, so I'm already getting the perks. The only thing I didn't like about US Airways is no soft landings (so if you don't requal *A Gold, you drop back to nothing ; or that's how I understood it anyway). If the amount you've had would pass for silver though, then you would drop back to silver.

Looks like UA have updated their status match/mileage challenge program for 2012 here: http://www.united.com/page/article/0,6867,53424,00.html, however, they have added this caveat which I'm pretty sure wasn't there last year:
So now I'll have to wait until DC is completely subsumed before finding a new *A home, maybe not a bad thing, wait and see what BA have to offer, or is it maybe worth a punt anyway?

In the meantime how best to score E+ on a couple of UA bookings I have coming up...

No Idea What To Do !!
 

The title says it all really. After 6 happy years as *G with BD it is clear that all must soon change. Whilst the miles are great (particularly with the DC earning rates) it is the staus benifits that have been most important to me, priority check in/fast track security/lounge access. Flying mainly LH within europe once per week (+ 3-4 LH long haul in C per year) these are a god send. I requalified for BD G in December, I now have 8,000 status miles towards requalification (clearly not going to happen).

Any status with BA is useless to me ever since they took the decison to effectively screw all of their English customers who do not use London airports!

My question is should I;

a) continue to accrue in DC in the hope that M&M offers a status match (before Nov 12). I think I would prefer to have Senator if I am honest.
b) put any new miles into M&M (I have an account that I have not used for 6 years). I would expect around 75,000 new status miles before Nov under M&M earning rates (I believe M&M use the calender year for status calulations?), Would this effect any possible status match?
c) Look to qualify for *G with another program

With hard facts in short supply right nowI understand that any answers would be based solely on members opinions at this stage but that is exactly what I am looking for please guys.

thanks.

I took this to mean that matching from a *A card wasn't possible. If you have status with another alliance as well, then you could take the challenge. Might not help netd personally, of course!

I'm probably heading towards A3 - a bunch of US Air flights (the things we do for status!) followed by a BD business class sale to RAK will get me and Mrs NWIFlyer back to *G by the middle of March - reasonably comfortably ahead of the end-March deadline for BD's departure.

A3. ;)

OK, I confess - the real reason I'm heading there is so I can continue to be a GoldCircle groupie. :eek::D

See, the sacrifices members of this forum are prepared to make to keep following you, GC!

Meh. I'm over-rated. ;)

After DC, stay with Star or move to OW?
 

I am Star Gold with three carriers (BD, LH, lifetime UA) and OW Emerald with two (CX, MA) so I think I can add my opinion here in terms of comparing the two alliances.
First of all no program out there will beat DC's earn/burn ratio. The program's generosity with M+C is fantastic as is the OW award for half the miles. And if you make it past the 55k threshold to the point you can earn 6x in F and 4x in business, nothing comes close to DC. So sad to see it go but we all knew it was coming sooner or later- I think most of us assumed it would be merged into M&M so the fact that it will probably merge into BAEC, came as a great surprise to me.

One person's ideal program wouldn't necessarily be the best for others depending on the fares paid. I can speak from the perspective of someone paying premium longhaul international fares.

If F and C are your principal fare basis, then M&M is the way to go in Star with 3x and 2x miles respectively. If those flights are on a LH family carrier (eg. Swiss) you earn another 25% executive bonus for a maximum of 3.25x which is the same as DC. However the burn rates in M&M are nowhere close to as low as DC, so make sure to try to take advantage of 50% mileage discounts on companion award tickets and 25% discounts on child tickets to compensate.

US has a decent Star program because the burn rates are quite low, but then again the earn rates are low too. However, US has buy one get one free mileage sales from time to time which make it ridiculously cheap to pick up 100,000 miles. So if you factor in those sales, the earn rates are pretty low overall.

In terms of a comparable program in OW to DC, only Malev would fit the bill since they offer about 3x and 2x for paid travel in F and C respectively. Emerald status (200,000 miles to earn Platinum in Malev's Duna Club) is easily attainable with a few first class long haul tickets and once platinum, you will earn a 25% base mile bonus on all OW flights similar to M&M (except the 25% is only good on LH family flights where as Malev gives the bonus to all OW flights). So a first class CDG-HKG flight nets me 29,500 miles each way.

CX is a terrible program in terms of Earn/Burn ratio. Why do I keep it? Because I mostly fly CX throughout the year and having Diamond status with Marco Polo gives me a lot of benefits in terms of excellent CX service on the ground, in the air, guaranteed seats with 24 hr notice on any CX flight and better award redemption availability. They really look after me as a Diamond member but as soon as I reach my Diamond status, all my remaining OW flights get credited to MA since I can mop up 3.25x miles in first, compared to 1.5x miles in first had I credited the flight to CX.

So for First and Business travelers, I would rate M&M the best after DC in Star and Malev the best in OW.

Second best in Star I would give to US where the earn rate is very good and they don't block star partner flights like UA does. UA's program is ridiculous when it comes to trying to booking premium award space on Star partners, so unless you fly primarily within the United States and you only want to fly UA on your hard earned free tickets, Mileage Plus is probably not for you.

I'm thinking A3 for just *G as well. Simple and effective. I won't be banking any more miles in there though once I reach the coveted *G status. They'll be going to US DM which for me is the next best program.

Which ff programme to switch to
 

Given the possible change from DC to Aveos in the future, I just wondered which Frequent Flyer programme Flyertalkers think would be best to join if you're from the UK and if like me, you actually never really fly bmi too much, but benefit from their *A partnerships and good redemption charts (also loving miles+cash).

My usual redemption is to head to Asia to see family on C in TG/TK - which generally is only 120k miles return or 60k + cash.

I have already requalified for next year Sept and I'm thinking that instead of collecting miles on DC, I may start up with a new FF programme and put all my remaining miles there. I'm not a big fan of BA and as I fly on business on el-cheapo W, Q and J fares, moving up the tiers on BA is a bit of an arduous task.

It would be great to link in a credit card programme too - I noted both Lufthansa and Swiss have UK based MBNA Amex programmes, but the collection (2 for £1) is nothing like bmi plus (4 for £1).

So, what's the next best programme, fellow collectors?

Please use 'Search this Forum'

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

I have addresses in both the UK and the Netherlands. I wonder if I tried to change my diamond club address from London to Amsterdam, it would automatically convert to a M&M account?

Or was the forced migration just a one-off?

It absolutely will not be converted.

+1 RTM
 

+1

FWIW, I managed to match across to LH SEN so will probably push all my *A miles across to there.

Having said the above, I have been eyeing both the UA and US FF programmes as possible alternatives, but I have a sneaking suspicion that as soon as AA manages to reorganise itself as it emerges from bankruptcy, US will almost certainly seek to take over AA which would probably lead to US's exit from *A. I cannot see US staying in *A too long, especially as it has elected not to include itself in the TATL *A ATI love-in which at least technically even our beloved BD is part of.

I am actually very tempted to also just shift as much of my overall business across to OW, especially if BA give us BD'ers a status match, although I do like playing mix and match. The fact is that I already have OW Emerald with QF, but that party will come to an end this year when I very shortly complete my goal of achieving Lifetime QF Gold / OW Sapphire.

The BA programme largely fits my needs although my employers recent policy change shifting us all down to Y could be an issue. Depending on what happens I might also look at AA. With an increasing amount of TATL flights and possible domestic US flying, emerald status is nicer to have over *G especially when things go wrong - there are less people at the higher tier to compete with which is a huge bonus OW has against both ST and *A.

Anyone looked at Ethiopian :D :p

I am actually half serious, BD has been a great earner for SQ long haul C (SIN-US) (@1.5xmiles which is rare, plus 0.25 status bonus, most star carriers have only 1.25xmiles) and Ethiopian offers 2xmiles for C with reasonable award redemptions for my needs (in fact for the routes I earn and routes I redeem on it has second best earn/burn ratio behind - of course - BD). But it feels like a tremendous leap of faith to go down this path.

For the record I'll probably be off to the BAEC as most of my flying is domestic and I'll have to keep that up, even if it means going on BA.

We were discussing about the ET's award chart and ambiguity it has. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/other...-partners.html

is there anywhere a ( updated ) chart on FT, where earning tables and burning tables are compared whith each other ?

Do you mean just within each programme?

Cross programme flying on carrier A to credit to carrier B in all the different classes would be a lot of information :eek:.

No I mean a overlook between all earningtables ( with abnormalitys ).
and a overlook between all spending tables.

for exc. BD earning 300% for F classes and 200 % for C classes
abnormal -- SQ only 200 and 150 %
abnormal ++ over +55k double destination miles.

best cash and miles specialy for Europe to Z10 which can in some cases be routed through Z7 without uppricing.

would be nice if such a chart would be existing to compare for each ones flying pattern, because not any program is the best in anything.
Someone who flys mostly economy not cares so much about which progr. gives the highest earnings in F/C and someone who nostly fly F/C not cares about the progr. which gives 0 miles in disc. economy.

BlondeBomber created one of these back in 2008 and updated in 2009 but is now rather out of date.
The information may make a useful starting point should one be prepared to update it.

Thread is naturally over in the StarAlliance forum, found via the sticky:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star-...nce-links.html

I have given this a lot of thought over the last few months. Thank you to all who have posted their advice here on FT. The most common recurring advice is that what is 'best' depends on your individual circumstances.

So here are my circumstances. I am London-based and a few years ago I was flying a lot - an average of one business class long haul per month. Flights either paid for by me or organisations I was working with / lecturing for. The budget never extended to a direct flight, so it was usually a choice of AF/KL or LH/LX.

A UK *A status match promotion was enough to tempt me away from BA, with whom I had a gold card for about 5 years but never seemed to get the recognition that other gold card members on the same flight seemed to be getting off the cabin crew. Not sure why this was, but I never felt all that welcome. I had always struggled to keep the BA Gold anyway and redemptions seemed tricky to come by, so I gradually used up the miles until I had a few hundred BA miles left.

I was already BD*S when the status match came along and was regularly traveling LHR-BHD, so being matched into BD*G seemed good. Thanks to the 55k double your miles bonus I racked up about 1 million DC miles pretty fast.

My wife's ability to channel almost all of our business expenditure through one of the MBNA Mastercards at 2 DC miles per £1 spent [plus quite a few trips of her own] allowed her to build up a similar stash.

In spite of some very indulgent redemptions, we still have about 1.8 million DC miles, which we are trying to use as fast as possible.

We have also accrued a lot of BA miles via BA-Amex, regular Amex and Tesco Mastercard points. It seemed to make sense to have a decent balance in more than one programme to maximise redemption availability. Fortunately I can pay a lot of my practice expenses by credit card so can earn a lot of miles with money I was having to spend anyway.

So, as someone said on another thread earlier today, no *A FFP will replace DC for me. At least not for now. I am flying a lot less these days, so a period of trying to use up miles on the trips I make rather than needing to use every trip to requalify will actually be quite welcome. I will miss BD*G by a mile this year!

My goal is not to secure lounge access - if I'm flying longhaul it will be in J, shorthaul will be in Y and I can live without it or use Priority Pass. I want to be able to earn miles for redemption tickets.

I am very tempted to channel some Tesco vouchers into Virgin Atlantic miles, to increase the number of airlines we can look at for redemptions and am looking at as many mileage bearing credit cards as I can find.

For me a DC 'exit' into M&M would have been acceptable. Joining to BA is less preferable, but beggars cannot be choosers. It will take us a long time to use up all the Avios it looks like we will be getting, which are not unwelcome, but when added to the lot we already have, will take a while to burn.

When the dust (of burning miles, not to mention merged airlines) has settled I will probably be traveling more and can see how things are. Most probably I will look closely at LH (and TK as we go to Turkey a lot).

It will be nice to try out a few different airlines for a change... as an occasional traveller flying is much more of a novelty than it was a few years back.

Thank you all for your advice and opinions. Like I said above, my decision is based on my own circumstances and what I believe to be best for me, but I hope it might be useful to some one else!

What to do?
 

Currently DC*G for a few years with 80K Status and 100K destination. (After my annual burns used up for this year)

My year start is Mar 1st which is fast approching.

I have 2 TATL's and a couple of hops which will earn me approx 100K with the double 55K+ points to take before my year ends in March.

Heres the issue do I bail out of DC now and start crediting to M+L or keep plowing points into DC hoping for some kind of conversion to M&L.

I have no intention of flying BA as I am Manchester based with most of my fliying with Swiss, LH and US Airways.

I expect to have a similar amount of flying this year so without the Jan and Feb usage will struggle to get HON this year.

Lounge access is important to me and also credit card spend points, so I'm thinking M&L makes most sense.

I am also assuming that when BMI get kicked out of star i'll lose lounge access streight away.

Any suggestions are welcome?

+1.
and with a heavy heart too!

VS Flying Club
 

Just had a look at the VS forum as I'm considering that as a replacement for DC. There seems to be no FAQ there outlinging the Pros and Cons though of VS Flying Club. Does anyone have any knowledge of the main benefits and drawbacks?

Thanks

1. VS is not in Star Alliance, so you only get benefits when flying VS, who don't go to many places and only go there from Heathrow (and Manchester?)
2. No need to go on ....

Thanks. Yes, I was aware of their limited routes but they do have partner airlines too on whom you can redeem miles? No? I am only really interested in C redemptions to Asia mostly Japan...The Tesco earning potential and also the credit card earning seemed to possibly make it worthwhile. Am I still missing something?

From that point of view, probably not. There is a Virgin board called v-flyer which you might want to seek out, v-flyer is the reason the FT VS board is so quiet! The issue for you is whether VS availability to the places in Asia you want to go is good enough to turn you away from BA. BA may have poor Asian availability on many routes, but if you are willing to ignore the Amex 241 voucher you can also redeem on JAL and Cathay. VS would need to be darn good in the availability stakes to beat the combined redemption might of JAL, Cathay and BA, plus the BA 241, plus the fact that (should you need a last minute European redemption) BA can also come through on short-haul redemptions.

Thanks. That's really useful info. I'll have a good look at v flyer. I take your point about BA and the choice of airlines. But I think I could also use my FC miles on NH, no? Also it seems that compared to AVIOS the burn rate is less i.e. 90000 FC miles on NH in C compared to 120000 Avios miles.

Do NOT just look at burn rates; and this applies to ALL FFP comparisons. You cannot compare FFP's unless you combine it with the earn rates.

In short, 120k on one airline FFP may be a lot easier to earn than 90k on another.

Ok, yes point taken. Sorry forgot to add. £2.50 in clubcard vouchers gets 625 FC miles but only 600 Avios miles

1000 Avios next month :cool:

Wow that does sound good. I might be opting for BAEC then! Just have to wait and see if they convert my BMI miles at 1:1 :)