Anybody tried booking partner awards online with Diamond Club? :D

I had a quick look at that blog and wondered if they had tried using BA Miles to book, er, BA flights instead of somewhat exotic flights with partners. I think not. There's a lot of bleating in the BA forum from people who are not BA frequent flyers trying to book non-BA flights from the US to the Far East via the Pacific using up their 'free' credit card miles. I guess this is more of the same.

I'd either just scrape Silver, or I'd end up paying extra on my work flights for upgrades to keep status, which is something I'd really not want to do (give up enough of my time flying round the world at the back of the plane - don't want to start paying for it too!)

With UA I'll at least get economy plus chucked in, and the chance to upgrade UA and *A flights with miles, neither I get currently...

Cheers

Jon

The only people who could possibly say that BAEC residents and even then cannot speak definitively for another 24 hours or so, when we see just how bad they have made the program. I cannot believe how positive some people are on this thread because some LHR based flights have been marginally reduced in value, and because tier points have been minimally increased on some flights.

yes, but the cost!!
 

Ummmmm... the only fly in the ointment is.... can you really bear to fly US Air? how much will you have to actually fly US Air, to make this work?

These kind of simple comparisons are somewhat misleading. It seems to rest on the assumption that miles are earned just as easily in each program - but for the same flying pattern and a similar spend, you could end up with totally different mileage earning rates in each of these programs (all the more so, depending on how much of your travel is in cheap economy classes)

I'm really in the blind whether I should stay with Star, or go to Oneworld or Scaryteam.

I was a loyal Scaryteam customer until Flying Blue April Fools Day, and I've been status matched back to silver, but I really don't know if I want to trust those guys with my miles.

BA or AA is another possibility, but most of my flying is on routes where Oneworld isn't a very good choice, and both BA and AA have crappy mileage for CX economy class.

I've also taken a look at eight different Star programs, and I've taken a hodgepodge of Star Alliance flights (on SK, LH, LX, TK, JK, CA, TG), plus some QR flights, that I may take next year, and those flights would give me the following mileage:

OZ: 36,533 miles
A3: 36,363
UA: 35,414
LH: 35,314
US: 31,701
TK: 29,624
TG: 27,220
AC: 23,798

It appears to me that my best choice would be to stick with A3 on all flights where they give mileage, which would give me 36,363 miles, and put the other flights (such as QR, which is not part of the A3-program), into UA (11,267 miles) or US (6991 miles).

1) I've had enough of KLM and will let my Gold lapse this year. Crap earn and burn rates. Crap priority boarding. Crap queues for security at the D Gates in AMS. And now no more free exit row seats for golds. Move to T3 in MAN with crap immigration. Don't go there! (Unless you fly Delta a lot)

2) Good working out of the earning rates - now how does it compare for burning. Say a J class rtn to HKG from LHR?

The thing is that I fly with US Airways (from time to time), anyway... My expectations are low and I am quite frequently nicely surprised...

You should also consider the burning rate and if they charge YQ or not.
There the best would be US Airways.

Family membership
 

... I'll be missing family membership. This is (was:() a very positive factor with DC. I am often traveling with family in Y in Europe and the only way to make the miles valuable and counting is to credit them to my family account with DC and top them up with purchased miles.

Apart from BAEC is there any *A-FFP with family membership?

I know, off topic:
Just had a look at the Award-Rates at BAEC. Of course it is not as flexible as BMI DC and the m&c is a little bit higher but it still seems reasonable to me esp. for DE-NYC.

Wouldn't it be a good strategy to top the account with purchased miles (0,0126 GBP / mile vs. 0,015 GBP / mile at BAEC) and be relaxed. If DC is still in place for redemption everything works fine, if not at least BAEC-Awards will be cheaper ...

TK have family membership for top tier members

This is your lucky day... sort of. I also checked the mileage needed with biz ARN-HKG on a Star Alliance award. I assume LHR-HKG is the same in most programs.

US: 80,000
TK: 100,000
AC: 105,000
A3: 110,000
OZ: 115,000
UA: 125,000
LH: 135,000
TG: 144,000

Assuming that I will earn the previously mentioned miles during 12 months, the following is the number of months it will take for me to get one ticket:

US: 30
A3: 36
OZ: 38
TK: 41
UA: 42
LH: 46
AC: 53
TG: 64

Note that some programs will have a lower redemption rate for their own airline. E.g. a TK "capacity controlled" ticket in biz Europe-Far East is 70,000 miles, while a TK "guaranteed award" ticket is 190,000 in low season and 270,000 in high season.

You're right, there are many other things to consider. Including silver and gold threshold, silver and gold bonus, possibility of buying points, hotel and car rental points, one-way awards, stopovers on awards, etc.

Another point in favor of A3 for me is low redemption rates on one of my most frequent routes (Europe-Israel), which is only 42,000 with A3, but up to 75,000 with AC and OZ. On that route, a redemption would take me 14 months on A3 but 38 months on AC.

When it comes to Star Alliance involvement, my transition is considering the following:

Aegean or Asiana for status/lounge access, whenever my Star Alliance flight activity seems to be on the horizon of dropping.

Continental/United for ordinary Star Alliance flight activity for as long as I'm easily crediting 75k-100k of Star Alliance flight activity; also for last minute and/or regional economy class redemption tickets.

US Airways for buying miles for premium cabin redemption purposes.

Let me remind those considering TK as their FF program that issuing a *A award ticket involves visiting your local TK office in person.