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'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...

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.

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

Meh. I'm over-rated.

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.