Hello all

Happy to see there is an LY forum now! Well done!!!

I will be returning to Israel in August after three years in France and am considering my flying options.

I will be travelling all over the world from Israel including at least once a month to France (not Paris though so will need a connection if I arrive in CDG). I will likely combine my France journey with another European city each time. I will be in the US once every couple of months and probably in the far east 3 times a year.

At the moment my favorite airline is BA of which I am a gold member. I am also Star Alliance Gold (through BMI) but will not be able to maintain that from Israel. Traditionally I haven't flown that much with Air France but that has changed recently and with my AF AMEX I should be able to hit Silver.

Generally my travel will be mid-week meaning in most cases I will travel from Sunday until Friday so not sure I will be able to do deeply discounted economy. I don't fly business, but do premium economy.

Looking for the most cost efficient / practical solution that will allow me to maintain status with FF programmes. Flying economy or premium economy means the check-in and lounge benefits make a big difference. This is where BAEC is the best with Silver membership already giving lounge access and business class check in. With my BAEC Gold membership I can use lounge access anytime (which I did last week at LIN en-route to CDG on AF).

So from those of you with a lot of experience of world-wide travel from Israel, I am hoping to receive some good advice.

Thank you

economyman

While LY might be a great option for you, this is not the forum to discuss this. The middle east or even one of the general "buzz" forums will be better place.

I disagree! That is unless you are setting the rules, in which case I still disagree but will have to accept!

I "live" usually in the BAEC forum where things off-topic are not only accepted but are part of the daily discussion. How am I to know on this new forum what is ok and what not. Such a question on BAEC however would not even be considered off-topic which is what I was thinking when I posted here. My question is not very different from how does LY compare to other programmes and how can that be considered off-topic, any more than Dovster's post on why LY is not the best programme!

Frankly I'm very doubtful the forums you suggested would generate an interesting discussion on the topic.

I totally disagree with you.
What forum could possibly be more Suitable for the OP's thread then ELAL's?
Why would a Middle East forum be more suited??? Most of the other airlines there do not even fly in or out of Israel.

Economyman -
Why cant you continue with Star Alliance?
I think you get status miles with each airline within the alliance. Star Alliance is great with Israel, because you have LH, LX, OS all in one program Miles and More - which is great for within Europe. If you fly to the far east you can fly on Thai's codeshare flights with LY and get Miles and more or other Star alliance FF program miles on those flights.
Next I would consider Skyteam - Since they have Af and you can use them to the Far East and obviously for your flights in France. To the US you have flights with DL and CO though you wont get status miles.
... and of course EL AL but try to compare how long it will take you to aquire Gold status on LY and how long it will take with Star Alliance.

Unfortunately, you only get miles on TG codeshare if you are a member of TG Royal Orchid. If you look closely at M&M rules, it requires TG OPERATED flights. Being a TG member is the only way to get miles on TLV-BKK on TG code.

Could one sign up for TG and then fly LY on the code-share and put the miles say into UA? or must the miles from the LY code-share go straight into TG Only?

The LY flights to BKK may not be credited to UA, only to TG even when booked with a TG code, that's what cohenyf tried to explain: With :-: Alliance flights always the metal counts.

As all El Al flights can be credited to SAA Voyager, this may be the preferred option to combine EL Al flights and star alliance flights.

To combine El Al and oneworld, Qantas or AAdvantage may be the choice.
To combine El Al and Skyteam, there's Delta Skymiles or Aeromexico.
But of course, in neither of these combinations El Al miles will count towards status.

I don't know what the 'rules' are, but given what I've read in many other places on FT, my assumption was that this board would ultimately be the best destination for just about ANY travel in/out of Israel.

For those of you who would rather see it tightly constrained to EL AL, I respect your opinion, but I think it would be a shame. Anyone the least bit interested in Israel is going to find their way to this forum.

Take a look at this thread. For the reasons specified there, I think that you would be best off joining AZ's program -- and getting points every time you hop on an AF flight to Paris.

The middle east forum discusses travel in and out of the middle east. This forum discusses El Al Matmid program. IMHO, as awkward as it may sound, general discussions about travel in and out of Israel are off-topic here, but I don't make the rules.

Actually the discussion about whether to make a seperate forum for LY Matmid took this into account and I think the general consensus was that it is expected that this forum will include some discussions which will not be pure LY Matmid related. For instance perhaps take a look at post #16 by Dovster.

I have read your post. Looks like I'll need to do some serious reading of all FF programmes and changes over the last few years. When I used to fly with ELAL regularly, I used to make an economy bonus ticket to Europe in just 4.5 r/ts (each leg being 100 points and a Western European bonus ticket costing 900 points) - this must have all changed now.

I will look into AZ. Question is whether I am better off joining AZ then continuing my AF membership - from your post I see the mileage is better. My concern is with AZ's financial stability!

BTW - your point on most airlines giving the same miles for deeply discounted fares - not sure how long that can hold considering the bad financial position of most airlines doing that.

Anyone know if ELAL would comp me to Gold based on my BAEC and Star Alliance golds? Otherwise, I could just fork out $150 for Kind David membership which from a pratical perspective will give me what I'm looking for.

A business gold Israeli credit card would grant you free access to the Dan lounge at TLV for no cost.

Most airlines do it nowadays and it's not going to get any better. They are trying to drive in more revenue before they grant you "free" awards (used to be free - now they cost many $$$ in taxes) and elite perks. Generally, FF programs are slowly being devaluated throughout the industry.