Help with which program to earn points with
 

Hi,

I am new to the points/miles game and I am currently in USA on holiday from Australia.

I am currently only a member of Virgin Australia's program, I flew MEL-LAX on VA and will be on the return so will get those points with Virgins program.

The problem is I am flying/ Have flown a few different airlines domestically, So I am unsure of which program I should be claiming them with, I hope someone here might be able to help me.

The flight are as follows:

United Airlines EWR-SJD - Flown
Alaska Airlines SJD-LAX - Flown
United Airlines LAS-IAH
United Airlines IAH-MCO
American Airlines MIA-DCA
United Airlines IAD-YYZ
Air Canada YYZ-LGA

All flights are in economy, I also rarely travel overseas so I would prefer if I can use the points in Australia.

Thanks for any advice offered.

Mileage from the UA and AC flights can be credited to the UA program. Mileage from AA can be credited to its program. The Alaska flight can be credited to its program or to AA. You may also have the option of crediting these flights to an Australian partner airline. I do not know if you can receive retroactive credit for flights already flown, but if you wish to try to claim credit you should act swiftly.

Welcome to the forum. The more Aussies the better

Important: Keep all your physical boarding pass's and ticket information/emails/e-tickets
Some low cost fares can earn nil miles/points in your FFP, especially if not flown on your own airline.

The point about freq flyer programs (ffp) is that you can earn & burn(use) miles on partner airlines

Look here
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...help-here.html
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/star...post-here.html

AA freq flyer program can be used for AA & AS
Alaska AS freq flyer program can be used for AA & AS
Qantas QF freq flyer program can be used for AA & AS
http://www.americanairlines.com.au/i...erAirlines.jsp
http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...ePlan-partners
http://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyn/partners/airline

Avianca Lifemiles & Aegean A3 are popular Star Alliance - Home - Star Alliance freq flyer program for some in Australia.

Be careful about expiry. For most ffp's you need activity to keep a ffp account alive. Eligible activity every 18 months is a common requirement. For an infrequent flyer this is an issue to be very aware of. Other than flying hotels, rental car, credit cards, shopping and other ways can keep accounts alive.
Living in Australia that makes keeping a QF account alive easy by spending $31 at Woolworths (www.everydayrewards.com.au) Also join QF ffp through that site. Otherwise it costs ~AUD$80. However AA & AS are better ffp's than QF due to QF high points needed & high cash surcharges on award flights.

The issue will be joining a ffp now and crediting past flights. That will take some research. Many ffp's allow for past flights if you were a member at the time of the flight. Not being a ffp member at the time is an issue.

From https://www.qantas.com.au/fflyer/dyns/joinff
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...-overview.aspx
https://www.alaskaair.com/MileagePlan/retrocredit

https://www.aa.com/AAdvantage/reques...obileUAFlag=AA
So for AA & AS looks like QF is the best option.
There may be other airlines on www.oneworld.com that have AS as a partner that accept retro join/crediting

Edit:
Now this is interesting. US Airways has merged/taken over American Airlines and will leave StarAlliance on 30 March 2014. On 31 March 2014 US Airways will be in the www.oneworld.com alliance, as is AA & QF. Some time in the future US miles will become AA miles

http://www.usairways.com/en-US/divid...mberguide.html

Quote:

---

Retroactive credit
- You can request credit for past flights on US Airways, Star Alliance member airlines partners and other eligible partner airlines.*
- You can only request credit for American Airlines flights flown on or after January 7, 2014.
- All requests must be made within 6 months of the date you completed travel.
- New members can get credit for transactions completed up to 6 months before they enroll in Dividend Mile

---

United, AC & AA can be credited to US Airways. This means you loose the AS flight miles, but you have 6 of your 7 flights in 1 ffp
Great Circle Mapper
If you also join AA that can be used to collect miles from eligible QF flights until the merger is 100% completed. But miles expiry will be an issue. AA miles can be used in Australia on Qantas.

Edit 2
US Airways no longer accept new signs up as 20 March 2015 (AA - US merge)

Edit 3
For AirBerlin topbonus (AB) "For new members, miles are credited for flights taken up to three months before registering for topbonus.." Linked post

Hi Mwenenzi,

Thanks for such an in-depth reply,
I think I will sign up for US Airways and wait till they become AA miles.

Is there any date this will happen? or just some time in the future?

Thanks Again,

No dates have published yet. Will take months or years. Keep looking here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...solidated-733/ for updates on the US AA merger. Anyway on March 31 US Airways joins OneWorld, so I expect you will be able to burn miles on QF, BA, etc. The US Airways earn/burn rate will be of interest. United & Continental had a similar merger some time ago. Took a long time to merge the ffp's.

As you rightly note, it took a while before UA and CO merged their FF programs. But they had a transitional period during which it was possible to transfer miles between the two programs. It's not yet clear if AA and US will have a similar transitional period at some point.

Hi,

I just have another question, I decided to sign up with QFF as well seeing as I shop at woolworths every now and then. I am trying to claim points for the AS flight with them but it doesn't have the Alaska airline code in the drop down, So what do I have to do to claim them?

Thanks

Try sending an email to "frequent_flyer at qantas.com.au" with a scan of the boarding pass & ticket number / PNR [remove spaces]

http://www.australianfrequentflyer.c...-ff-31600.html