chgoeditor

Welcome to Flyertalk! I've merged your post into our dedicated thread helping people determine what frequent flyer program to join. You'll see a questionnaire in the Wiki -- if you could paste your answers into a new post in this thread, it will help other users make recommendations for you.

chgoeditor
co-mod, Info Desk

blue bear

Moving to Lisbon late Fall this year. Main TATL will be return to Seattle to visit fam.

Racked up some points with Alaska, but wondering if TAP/United is a better deal.

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

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
40k, 40

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
Economy domestic, premium TATL

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

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
Currently ABQ-SEA, ABQ-LIS

6. What is your home airport?
Currently ABQm soon LIS

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
200k with AS, MVP Gold

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
Alaska

guv1976

FWIW, oneworld one-stop options for LIS-SEA are:

AA: LIS-PHL-SEA
AY: LIS-HEL-SEA
BA: LIS-LHR-SEA
QR(!): LIS-DOH-SEA (QR LIS service begins June, 2024)

For TATL, do you mean Premium Economy or Business?

blue bear

Premium economy - business is not really worth it to me.

guv1976

It's not clear from your initial post how much flying you intend to do annually after you relocate to LIS. Can you tell us that, including estimated spend on airfare, total number of miles and segments?

If you expect to fly just one TATL a year in Premium Economy, and a few Economy Class intra-European and/or intra-U.S. flights per year, you might be hard-pressed to attain even low-level status in any FFP.

Mwenenzi

How long will you be living in Lisbon for? A few years / decades?

Upgrades on EU airlines are nothing like on USA based airlines. Always expect to fly in the seats you pay for.
Are you familiar with what short haul UK EU business class is? [economy seats with middle seat unoccupied for most airlines]
OW (AA~QF) are trialing an alliance wide upgrade scheme--> Oneworld alliance-wide upgrades

Will you/can you fly enough on AS to maintain status?
Oneworld partners BA & IB are in that part of the world.
BA fly LHR SEA non stop.
Have you priced out LIS-XXX-SEA fares?
Wikipedia SEA -->https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattl...tional_Airport
Wikipedia LIS--> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Airport

Staying with OW/AS a practical solution. Would get status benefits with Oneworld. Mainly lounge access . Starting from the bottom in another (Star A?) ffp a harder path.

http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=c%3Ablu...=bm&PW=3&DU=mi

blue bear

United/TAP seems cheaper initially - do not know if better long run. Flying F ABQ-SFO mid April - no breakfast. Not impressed.

AA while uninspired seems competent at least.

s3m

I am finding it hard to earn status with any specific program because my travel is not focused on one geographical area: I live in hotels and travel between countries.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Most value from my points, spend points instead of cash
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
About once a month, about 25k miles per year, always business, always one way
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Business but due to my flexibility I typically buy low cost last minute business tickets rather than pay full price. I'll know roughly when I want to fly (e.g: early May) and I'll look for the lowest cost ticket (with a good seat), averaging $2500 USD for a long haul ticket
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Airline most flown? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Flexible, no constraints, all out of pocket personal expenditure
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
No regular routes or airlines
(6) What is your home airport?
No home airport
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in an airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
No meaningful status. I earn around 100k avios per year from my credit card spend, I have 100k avios in my British Airways account, and earn around 1 million Marriott points per year (which can be converted to most airline programs at a 3:1 ratio (so if I spot a great deal with a specific program I can convert the points as I need them))
(8) Preferred Airlines
I like Qatar for flying between Europe and Asia which I do a couple of times a year. If I could get status that made it more cost effective / easier to use avios to pay for those flights, that would be valuable, as sometimes it seems the cost is reasonable (e.g: 70k) and other times the only option is to pay part avios part cash which has a very low redemption rate (I'm assuming/hoping status would make it easier to reliably get the 35k/leg tickets but maybe it's not relevant). If I can fly business from Manila to Frankfurt for 100k avios (or equivalent) and then business from London to Japan for 100k avios (or equivalent) I'd be very happy.

My current thinking is that oneworld is the right program for me because it has members globally, but I am not sure if it's possible to earn status given the geographical distribution of my flights. I've tried to focus on oneworld by booking partner flights through British Airways to earn oneworld status, but partner flights don't seem to be available much, so I end up going with the partner carriers directly and I'm now half way to entry level status with a few different oneworld members.

Thank you.

guv1976

You can book directly with partner airlines, but still credit your flights to a different FFP. For example, you could book directly with QR, but enter your BA, AA, or IB frequent-flyer number for credit.

How much would you estimate that you spend annually on air travel? Some programs, like AA's AAdvantage, now credit redeemable mileage and Loyalty Points based on pre-tax airfare -- not distance flown -- for some partners, like BA and IB. For other partners, like QR, CX, and JL, AAdvantage still credits based on miles flown and booking code. In addition, hotel stays credited to AAdvantage also count towards achieving elite status, so you might be able to use your Marriott stays to help get elite status in the AAdvantage program. More details here:

https://www.aa.com/web/i18n/aadvanta...tel-stays.html

("Earn miles and Loyalty Points at hotels")

If you're more interested in collecting Avios than AAdvantage miles, then I would look into crediting your flights to Iberia Plus. See this "Inside Flyer" article for more information about that:

https://insideflyer.co.uk/2019/03/qa...f-iberia-plus/

("WHY QATAR AIRWAYS BUSINESS CLASS REGULARS MIGHT BE BETTER OFF WITH IBERIA PLUS")

I don't know whether attaining status in QR's frequent-flyer program would result in cheaper redemption rates for you on QR flights. I do know that achieving status in the AAdvantage program would not: redemption rates on partner carriers like QR are fixed price, and availability depends on what award seats QR chooses to make available to AA. It's possible that QR has dynamic award pricing for members of its own program, but I'm not certain about that.

As you may know, Avios earned in one FFP can be transferred to another Avios FFP, in case it is advantageous to redeem from a different FFP for a particular redemption.

Edited to add: And welcome to FlyerTalk!

Mwenenzi

You do not need to be in one geographical area to get status. Depending on the detailed rules, as above, you can earn status on partner airlines.

Avios is used as the frequent flyer currency by QR, BA, IB, IE and from a few weeks ago AY. Subject to rules avios, but not status, can be moved at nil cost between QR, BA, IB & IE. Have you done that?

Some airlines have "own flights" rules for status. With BA (and QR?) that is 2/4 flights. Check BA web site/BA forum for the detailed rules.

Your statement "focus on oneworld by booking partner flights through British Airways to earn oneworld status. You do not need to "book through" [what ever that means] any 1 airline. Just enter your ffn in any reservation that is a partner. You do not earn "OW staus". You earn status with 1 ffp, and that is recognised by other OW airlines.

You seem to have a low understanding of how alliances ~ ff partners work. What ffp's are you a member of now?

s3m

I think this might be the root of my confusion / issue. I have entered my British Airways membership number when booking with other oneworld airlines (like Malaysia Airlines) and I have earned the Avios from those bookings (as reflected in my Avios balance with British Airways) but I have seen no change in my status, nor any indication that my miles are being registered by British Airways -- i.e: my tier points are unchanged. If I look in my Malaysia Airlines account, I can see the miles did register there, as I am making progress towards with their status. I (incorrectly?) concluded that entering my British Airways membership number was just for earning Avios, not for getting credit for the flights against my British Airways account.

So, if I understand correctly: when I fly with a oneworld airline and enter my British Airways membership number, I should earn the points as Avios and the flights should count towards my British Airways status but I'll also need to fly at least 2 flights per year booked with British Airways for those flights to start counting? Does this mean that the flights I've already taken (with Malaysia Airlines and others) are a wash, or will the tier points for those flights show up after I book + fly twice with British Airways this year?

That sounds very interesting, thank you. I'll check this out. I spend around $20k/year on air travel and $80k/year at Marriott properties.

Thank you very much for your helpful post and the welcome.

I know very little. Off the top of my head, I'm a member of Singapore's KrisFlyer, United MileagePlus, Qatar, Qantas, British Airways, Emirates, Lufthansa, Malaysia, SAS but all have a couple of flights at most and are at the entry level status except for United MileagePlus which is Silver (via the Marriott partnership).

Mwenenzi

With MH flights if the BA avios are increasing then "miles are being registered by British Airways" (redeemable avios = miles = points in common jargon).
If for the same flight you are also getting MH miles and status earning and BA avios some thing is amiss. If you booked the flight while logged into your MH ffp account and then tried to change to BA ffp, anything could have happened.
Is some cases is possible to credit status raning to one ffp and redeemable miles/avios/points to another ffp. But requires a skilled airline or travel agent to do. Is not common.

Depending on the detailed rules with OW if you earn redeemable avios/miles/points you also earning status. Code share flights can be problematic.
Some low cost fares can earn nothing to some ffp's. Look at your ffo web site. A very broad guide (not 100% correct in all cases)--> https://www.wheretocredit.com/

Not 110% sure but think flights prior and after you do the 2/4 required BA-IB flights will count when the BA status kicks in.

Many are in the same alliance~ff partners. So, depending on fare booking class, you may have been able to credit 1 ffp in each alliance. Having small balances~little status earning in many ffp's can mean never getting status or enough redeemable ff miles/avios/points for an award. Depending on the ffp the miles/avios.points can/could expire before being able to use.
Oneworld

• QR
• BA
• MH
• QF

Star

• UA (miles never expire)
• SQ (miles have 3 year hard expiry. Use them or lose them)
• LH
• SAS (but leaving)

EK and QF are ff partners
EK and UA are ff partners (check the t&c's)

guv1976

As alluded to by Mwenenzi , if you book a flight with airline X on airline X's website, but want to credit that flight to airline Y's FFP, you should not log in to your account at airline X when making the booking. Rather, make the booking as a "guest." This will be a little more time consuming, as some fields in your reservation will not pre-populate, but will reduce the risk that your flights get credited to the wrong program. If you want to collect Avios, but are unsure if you can get the requisite "qualifying" flights with BAEC, the Iberia Plus program might be a better choice for attaining status. But yes, I would also investigate attaining status in the AAdvantage program. Your Marriott spend could go a long way there.

BAEC requires two "qualifying" flights (plus the requisite number of Tier Points) in order to attain low-level status (BAEC Bronze/oneworld Ruby). For any higher BAEC status, four qualifying flights are required.