Where to park Star Alliance miles now?
 

I was previously BD*G and have now moved over to the dark side of BA and OneWorld, complete with credit card / hotel loyalty / flight bookings etc etc. We have our final Star redemption coming up in the next few weeks, and while we are away we have a couple of Star Alliance short hop revenue flights (that didn't fit in with the redemption itinerary when originally booked). I wondered if there were any opinions about where best to credit these miles? I'm not planning on accumulating a lot of Star miles now I'm with OneWorld, but it seems a shame to waste them!

Scott

Aegean is a reasonable bet: low status treshholds you you can get to Silver/Gold pretty quickly. Many ex-bmi'ers (myself included) have moved there. It's my new *A mile park.

Aegean (A3), which offers low *G threshold, unlimited miles validity if you credit every year or two, one-way awards, and award bookings changeable up to the day of flight for a small fee.

Asiana (OZ), which will take miles transfer from SPG and has a 500K mile lifetime *G - sadly they don't seem to do status matching at all, also their miles expire after a fixed period.

OZ is famous for not Status Matching, however I moved to OZ due to the fact that status period is for 2 years and 500k lifetime *G. I frequently go home to Seoul and Los Angeles (UA or OZ) which will give me 100% miles makes sense, however if you are based in Europe A3 makes more sense since most low flex economy flights wil give you upto 70-80% (sometimes 0%) on European A* flights.

A3 awards aren't so freely and easily changeable, even for A3 *Golds. Check the Aegean forum for details of their FF program.

Aegean for easy *G status that enables US lounge access on domestic trips too; Avianca or USAir for buying miles to redeem; and United and/or other *-operating carrier's partner program to credit flights or to get status with some non-alliance status benefits.

A3 award tickets on both A3 and *A flights are changeable for a €20 fee by calling the call centre (and have been for about 3 months - the FAQ in the A3 forum that says no changes and half the miles are forfeit in the event of cancellation is out of date).

True, it's not the online FOC changes that you get as a BA gold, but, you can change or cancel up to half an hour before flight departure time, IMO that's pretty good and a lot better than a load of other airline programmes.

This makes A3 very attractive- I was looking for a program to park my surplus *A miles after LH requal now that BD is gone, A3 award chart is somewhat better than LH.

Watch out for the lumpy earning rates - surprising stuff all over the place. Take a look at TK also, it may be a better option, on balance. Depends on your travel pattern.

Bear in mind that 'flight changes' are only changes to the time and date of the flight, not the route/segment.

What kind of miles? Any miles (e.g. transfer from SPG) or only flying miles?

Are you asking about the kinda of miles needed for the lifetime status on Asiana, called Asiana Club Platinum?

You need 1,000,000 'on-board' miles on *A or 1000 flights on Asiana.

I have a feeling that it wasn't long ago (maybe one year, maybe two) that Club Platinum came after only 500,000 miles, but they increased the requirement when they introduced one more level (Diamond Plus) between Diamond and Platinum. I could be wrong though; someone please correct me if I am!

Platinum has always been a million miles that I'm aware of. The 500K level was an added level that previously didn't exist.

But cancel, or cancel and rebook, is also allowed.

Sadly only *A flying miles - 500K for Diamond Plus (lifetime *G) and 1M for Platinum (also lifetime *G, better benefits on OZ).

TK as been described as having very poor customer service.

Mind you right now OZ are being poor about a miles credit where one sector posted and one did not, same airline, number on BP for both sectors.

A3 have always been brilliant when I have needed to contact them, though I have not flown them yet.

Indeed, but as you indicate, that's not quite the same thing.