LAX: Recommended Airline
 

I used to travel a lot, but for the last 12 years, my kids were young, so I limited my work travel to mainly day trips within California on Southwest. They're a little older now and my wife and I work from home, so I'm starting to take longer trips for work outside of California. I live in Los Angeles, and although BUR is my preferred airport, I'm willing to sit in traffic and go to LAX to maximize my earnings and redemption options for family vacations outside the US.
It's nice to be back on flyertalk, and thanks in advance for your thoughts/advice.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: Good redemption rates, better award access

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: <25000 miles in Economy. About 25 flights

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Reply: Economy

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Airline most flown? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Yes I can choose airline and class of service. Southwest, but starting from scratch now. Work.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
Reply: US Domestic on Southwest, American, Delta

(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: BUR and LAX

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in an airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Reply: Lost all my statuses. 85k SWA, 50k AA, 8k Delta, 600k Amex, 200k Chase

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: AA, Delta, SWA

Hi everyone, thanks in advance for your help and view on my situation below. I'm moving from London to New York in January to start a new job. Thanks to the reduced TP thresholds on BA, I'll have BA gold / OWE Dec'22 til Feb '24. However, as I'll fly 3-4 times a month in the US to destinations not served by AA (usually served by DL) I'm wondering what to do with the VS/DL side of things, specifically whether to credit a couple of upcoming VS flights to VS or to DL, and when I move to the US, whether to credit DL flights to VS, or to DL. As I'll be OWE next year, but almost certainly won't re-qualify in 2024, I'd want to maximise Oneworld use in 2023, and only use DL when absolutely necessary.

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
Ability to upgrade (whether free or for a reasonable amount of miles), and ability to book reward seats.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
30-40 sectors short haul US next year (work) plus 5-6 round trip transatlantic flights (leisure).

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
Economy for work, sometimes premium economy for pleasure.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Ability to choose airline within reason (cost).

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
Domestic US east/central (work) and transatlantic (leisure)

6. What is your home airport?
Soon to be NYC area (EWR/JFK/LGA)

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
BA gold / OWE from Dec '22. ~400K avios with BA. ~140k VS flying club points, VS silver. Delta account with 5K miles.

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
BA, VS, AA, DL.

Delta SkyMiles get a bad reputation because their premium cabin long haul redemption options can be genuinely crazy. But their domestic and transatlantic economy redemptions are often pretty solid, especially going back toward LHR, and often come with lower fees than you have with VS.

3-4 times a month on DL is enough to get you some sort of status with Delta, and Medallion members get priority on the upgrade list ahead of partner elites so there’s a certain incentive to keep it native, especially if you’re looking at Platinum Medallion, where main cabin tickets get automatically upgraded to Comfort + seats unless it’s a last minute ticket purchase into a full or almost full cabin.

If you make it to Gold Medallion, Sky Team Elite+ status gets you free lounge access on flights back to the UK and other long haul international stuff.

If you have a current American Express, AmEx also has a ‘transfer my credit history’ option that makes it significantly easier to get a US AmEx card, and the Delta-AmEx partnership is tight with a couple of cards offering MQM boosts to make it even easier to pick up Delta elite status.

Sounds like excellent advice all round, thank you beachmouse. I imagine Gold Medallion will be easier to achieve than VS Gold next year in my personal case, especially with the credit card options as you mention, so I think I'll go for that. Thanks again.

Hey all, wanted to get some direction on what my approach should be for the upcoming year. I'll be travelling more for work, though how much is still not clear, and will probably travel more with the Family as well now that my (16MO) daughter is more mobile. I want to maximize my earning from business flying while making that time as enjoyable as I can given the circumstances. This past year I've been flying AA whenever possible, and routing myself through CLT or DFW to get access to Centurion Lounges with the Amex Plat, I should hit AA Gold by January 2023, mostly using the Shopping Portal to buy things I was already going to buy. I'm open to changing up my approach if there's a big upside in doing so, and am open to playing the CC game to accelerate things.

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?

Upgrades and lounge access would be a big plus on Business Travel. On Family Vacation travel Lounge Access, Baggage allowances, and good domestic awards access would take precedence.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?

Still figuring out what the upcoming year looks like, but I expect to fly about twice a month for work and around 5 times for personal trips. All flights domestic.

3. What fare class do you usually buy?

Economy for business travel, Economy/Premium Economy for personal trips.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?

Able to choose my airline for work without issue as long as the pricing is comparable to other options. Work travel will be ramping up for 2023, not sure how much yet.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?

All domestic. ORD > STL, ORD > SAT, and ORD > CHA/BNA are common routes for work. ORD > PHL/EWR is possible for a vacation as well.

6. What is your home airport?

Live in Chicago South Suburbs and ORD and MDW are the same drive time. Prefer ORD, especially during the winter.

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?

Tentative AA Gold, Hilton Diamond, AAdvantage ~32k, Rapid Rewards ~30k, Amex MR ~230k

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?

Have had good luck in the past with AA and SWA, not married to either if there's a better carrier.

Based in TLV, was UA 1K till 2022, now reconsidering
 

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
Lounge access and priority services on trips to Europe (from TLV) - this is because I fly business long haul (over 10 hours).
Also better award access (this was the main disadvantage of UA 1K for me), which was otherwise great.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
Was enough to get me to UA 1K (pre Covid) and I expect it to get back to that level (wasn't unfortunately the case in 2022).

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
Business over 10 hours, economy otherwise.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Within limits. Mostly travel for work.

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
US, Europe, Asia (China, Korea, Japan)

6. What is your home airport?
TLV

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
Was UA 1K till 2022, lost it since I didn't fly as much in 2022, but its going to be more or less like what is was before this year.

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
UA was pretty good, actually. The only downside was award travel redemption, which I normally use to fly to Europe (from TLV). Another slight disadvantage was the fact that for flights to Asia I pretty much had only one airline to chose from - TK. But overall UA was great and I will probably stick to it - but would be happy to hear about potentially better alternatives.

Airlines have generally become stingy with releasing award availability to partners, reserving the best award availability to members of their own frequent flyer program. Would you consider yourself biased towards *A?

I may be biased, but then again - UA gives me good access to North America, LH to Europe and TK to Asia...so *A seems good...but maybe I'm missing something. I'm also thinking whether to move from UA to LH...

If thinking about moving to LH, are you aware of the changes coming to status qualification?

What are your intended redemptions? Specific routes and class of service? I see that you mentioned TLV-Europe, but Europe is a big place. Would you be OK connecting somewhere, or are you only interested in nonstop flights for your redemptions?

Questionairs
 

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades, priority services, baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, lounge access, etc.
>>> Reply: lounge access and upgrades

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
less than 25000 miles, 50000+ miles and 20-25 flights, etc.
>>> Reply: 10000+ miles & 2 flights. But I have set goals to travel 4-5 times more next year.

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
first, business, premium economy, economy
>>> Reply: both economy and first class ( when possible)

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply: I am limited to the airlines available at my home airport in Honolulu

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
transatlantic, domestic USA, intra-Asia, etc.
>>> Reply:Domestic USA

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: Honolulu

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply:I don't know what FFP means.

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply: Hawaiian Airlines, Japan airline, ANA, Eva, Singapore, Emirates, Swiss.

F3l5y9e3 Welcome to FT
FFP = Frequent Flyer Program
Upgrades are very hard unless you have high status. With status hard and far from certain.

Only the US airlines for complimentary upgrades for high status members.

2 flights is not enough for status with anyone.

Hawaiian obviously has the most non-stop domestic US destinations, but I believe that UA actually has the most capacity between Hawaii and the continental US.

Quote:

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6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: Honolulu

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply:I don't know what FFP means.

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FFP = frequent flyer program

Quote:

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8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply: Hawaiian Airlines, Japan airline, ANA, Eva, Singapore, Emirates, Swiss.

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Of the airlines you listed, 4 are star alliance members - ANA, EVA, Singapore, and Swiss. United is probably a fine FFP for you then.

Lost both Gold/Emerald Status - Figuring out how to regain
 

Lost both Gold (UA) and Emerald (BA) status due to Covid restrictions. Would like to regain at least one this year.

Don't really mind which airport or routes. Happy to do a status run wherever it works best.

Any advice on quickest/cheapest way to do?

Where are you based?

Do you only want to obtain status with BA/UA, or are you content to regain Star Alliance Gold/oneworld Emerald via any FFP? Would oneworld Sapphire suffice for your needs?