Advice on FFPs for a new Abu Dhabi resident
 

Cross-posting from the general Which FFP to Join thread, since I figure the posters here will have much more experience in the Middle East and Abu Dhabi specifically...


I am moving from the U.S. to Abu Dhabi for work and will be traveling significantly more than I do now (for both work and leisure). I'd love to get advice from forum members on what plan(s) to join and how to make the most of my travel. I will fly mostly business on EY for work about 2-3x a year (AUH-JFK-AUH). The rest will be leisure travel all over the place, primarily in economy if/when I am paying for it myself. Here's my information:

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
Opportunities for complimentary or relatively low-cost upgrades to business (for sleeping) or economy-plus (for leg room); priority services (reduced waiting time in lines); award redemption; lounge access on long layovers.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
This is a guess, but I imagine about 50,000 to 80,000 miles/year on about 20 to 30 segments. Roughly half in business (EY), half in economy (any).

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
Economy for personal, business for work.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
For work, I will be on EY. For pleasure, I can choose.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
AUH-JFK for work, plus AUH-X-DTW for the holidays on my own dime. For pleasure, I plan to hit a variety of destinations all over Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and to a lesser extent Africa over the next few years.

6. What is your home airport?
AUH

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in a FFP, if any?
No current status. I have about 75,000 in AA and about 25,000 in DL and EY.

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
No strong preferred airline, but I highly value leg room, competitive prices, easy connections and boarding/security procedures, and, when possible, the ability to get into business class and lie down to sleep on long flights.

I have done some initial research, and the dilemma I seem to be facing is that while I will be earning lots of miles and status on EY for work, EY has a relatively small set of destinations in Europe and Asia, and its economy prices are generally not competitive outside of the Middle East. OneWorld/QR seems to be much better suited for long-distance destinations - except for Europe - though it would require often connecting in DOH, a short hop from AUH. For Europe from AUH, SkyTeam/KL seems the best. (Star Alliance/TK also has a lot of options, but the daily TK AUH-IST flight will soon depart at 3:40 a.m., which is the worst time I can think of.) So I feel like there's no obvious good choice here, but I hope the experts here can point me toward a strategy I am missing as a relative newbie...

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Re pt.1, with EY forget about Y+ (doesn't exist) as well as the low cost upgrades (they charge almost as much as full redemption). But if you're going to travel with them then for any chance of upgrades you'll have to be with EY guest.

If you're price sensitive then you'll need to look beyond EY and either take QR, BA, VS (from DXB) among others. Fares ex-AUH as you'd expect are quite dear on EY.

Here are a couple of points that you may want to considers:

1. If you'll live in AD for a while, and expect to have a local credit card, then get one that gives miles with EY, its a no-brainer. That helps add more miles to the account for sure.

2. EY's rewards are somewhat different from most airlines in that the miles required are distance based for each destination, as opposed to a standard block for, say Europe. So, an award to London costs a lot more than one to Rome. Due to this, the best value is usually for the shorter distances.

3. For leisure, the non-stop routes always have a substantial premium, be it EY from AUH or EK from DXB.

Hope that helps!

Thanks to both for your replies.

Yep, it looks like I won't be able to rely on EY for most of my leisure travel, though maybe the investment in AZ will generate more options on that front over time. It looks like QR will be a good go-to option for most destinations, or KL for Europe - wish they weren't split across two alliances!

I do expect to be in AD for a while, so I'll definitely look into a card or two that will help earn miles either on EY or others.

That's interesting about redemption based on distance rather than general areas - hadn't realized that. What's your opinion of the best use of EY miles and EY program membership generally?

It sounds like I should also look into taking leisure flights out of DXB (in addition to AUH) in order to increase my options and keep prices down. I understand that it's relatively easy to get from one to the other on dedicated buses?

I don't think emirates is cheaper than etihad for flights out of UAE, although obviously they have a bigger network.
Depending on where you are going to for holidays, I like to book a redemption flight to bkk or kul and after a few days there take a low cost carrier from that region to an onwards destination. Srilankan airlines, Flies out of AUH also with low j class fares to Asian destinations via Colombo which can include a layover in Sri Lanka, which is a must!

Both ADCB and ADIB offer credit cards with great earning rates, I find ADCB to be the more user friendly of the two.

Sri Lanka is definitely on my list! And it looks like EY just announced a big partnership with PR, as well.

Thanks for the advice on cards...I'll check those out.

Lived in AUH for a few years and did the trip back to Chicago about 3/4 times per year in addition to other countries. What worked best for me was to book my AUH-ORD legs via AA and get the credit to my AA status. I was then able to use BA and EY to fly to Europe, Italy, Etc either crediting thru my AA FF program or EY's. We really loved our time living in AUH and miss it often. Hope you have the same great experience!

Thanks!

EY with an ADCB Infinite Visa card.

- 3miles/US$1 on international (i.e. non-UAE) transactions as well at tickets bought on Etihad.com, and 2miles/US$1 for everything else.
- 5000 miles if you spend more than $5k in the month.
- 50% off upgrade voucher for every 5 legs you fly.
- Instant Gold status (though you'll get there pretty quickly anyway with your travel patterns I guess)

For example, I'm currently earning in excess of 20k miles a month on my card based on an international spend of $5k, and spending it on upgrades, which are 35k miles for a 14 hour flight (MEL, using the 50% off voucher).

There's also a 75k signup bonus.

Thanks - sounds like some great benefits. What's the annual fee on that card?

2,500 AED

http://www.adcb.com/riseabove/card-comparison.asp

Any joining bonus is (supposedly) a "one time" offer so you cannot churn/upgrade at a later date and expect another joining bonus (despite being charged the full annual fee). There may be ways around this anomaly but I have yet to put them into practice so I suggest opting for the card you intend to keep for a while/will get the most benefit from.

Work-Shy

With an Excellency account the card is for free.

Etihad Guest Infinite Credit card comes with an AED 1250 fee with the ADCB Excellency Account, so not free.

Will you be eligible for the KLM/AF petroleum card? It seems to automatically give some elite type benefits when flying KLM/AF, and KLM through AMS connecting to KLM or DL could work well for your holiday trips to DTW as well as general travel to Europe and elsewhere for leisure.

I'll echo the advice to consider flights from DXB as well as AUH, but how convenient this is will depend on where you live.

I don't see major advantages of Qatar/oneworld in your case, but I could be wrong. To me, it sounds like too many alliances/airline programs without any gain. With your travel patterns, you should pick one carrier/alliance in addition to Etihad and then decide whether you can get top tier status on both or will need to decide strategically whether to go for top tier on EY and whatever on the other program or something else.

I have it for free :-)