Hi all!

New here, and generally new to travel. I had done very little travel in my life before starting a new job two years ago. Prior to this job, I had only taken five round trip flights. While I enjoy, and am very good at maximizing returns in other areas of my life, I have very little experience on the flight and hotel side of things and I've missed a lot of opportunities. I would really love some general advice to get pointed in the right direction so that moving forward I make better decisions.

I've had very little travel so far this calendar year, and I don't currently have status with any FFP. With the amount of travel I have right now it would be very difficult to get status with anyone. I am looking to increase my travel both for business and leisure, but I'll list current numbers below.


(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Ease of achieving status, value of reward miles/$

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
20-25k business ~5k leisure. ~25 sectors

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Economy or Premium Economy

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Airline most flown? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
My choice of airline, premium economy for class. Mostly business.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
United, but open to any. SFO -> SLC, LAX, SAN, PHX, SUN

(6) What is your home airport?
SFO, SJC SFO is most common as there are more airlines and routes, and better lounges. SJC is more convenient getting in and through, however.

(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 status. ~500pqp so far with United this year, ~70,000 miles. I have the United Explorer card.

(8) Preferred Airlines
No attachments. I have small perks with United from the Explorer card, but I also have Amex Biz Plat which is decent for any other program.

Hi guys, appreciate the help. Hope I've given enough info.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: Upgrades on travel, free lounge access, service.

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: Not sure about miles, certainly <25 flights, mainly domestic but at least 1 return flight to Europe (UK) each year, usually premium or economy, occasionally business. At least 1 trans tasman flight to Oz each year.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Reply: Economy, premium 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, can choose. Mostly fly Air New Zealand or Star Alliance but can choose any really. Travel for work with pleasure attached.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often
Reply: Domestic, transpacific, transatlantic

(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: IVC, CHC

(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: AirNZ Gold Elite (don't think I'll retain this year), Star Alliance Gold, Qatar Privilege Club Burgundy, BA Exec Club Blue, Qantas Bronze, Virgin Australia Velocity Red

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: Trying to figure this out. AirNZ not thrilling.

Upgrades (free?) are an unrealistic hope for most frequent flyers. And less for infrequent flyers. Upgrades policies on USA and non USA airlines are vastly different. With non USA airlines expect to travel in the seat you purchase. Cross airline upgrades a magnitude harder. Star has cross airline upgrade scheme that requires a high priced base fare. So useless for most people. Oneworld have a trial going AA upgrade with AA ff miles on QF flights.

You have a multitude of ffp's. Looks like when you flew a new airline you joined the ffp. Airlines have frequent flyer partners. Be careful about expiry
Oneworld

• QR
• BA
• QF

QR & BA both use avios and are very close commercially. Can move avios between QR BA IB EI AY.
From a QR ff account can see/use BA avios (and the other way)
Better to concentrate on one Oneworld ffp and let the others die. However QF< --- > QR ff earning can low or even nil. So may be QF and QR. If could get status a little harder to pick a ffp, depending on airlines flown.

VA is partner of Qatar QR, UA and others. Are VA codeshares on some trans Tasman AirNZ flights (none from ZQN)

Lounge access come with mid-top level status or business class. But nowadays some low cost business fares do not get lounge access. Qatar QR are a leader in this depreciation of benefits.

I think you mean "EI."

(IE is the country code for Ireland; EI is the IATA code for Aer Lingus.)

Mwenenzi thank you very much.

Regarding upgrades, I'm after recognition upgrades and discounted upgrades.

Yeah, FFPs piled up from past life. thinking of sticking to Qatar for avios. If I fly BA again would mvoe as they are freely transferable. Are you suggesting ditching AirNZ airpoints and stick to Oneworld (flying Qatar/Qantas/Cathay) for this neck of the woods?

Lounge access is also important to me. Star alliance Gold gives lounge access and seems easy to attain, is Oneworld difficult to get lounge access? Which FFP in the oneworld family is best to go with?

Quick look suggests I need at least Oneworld Sapphire to get lounge access like star alliance gold...

So far, for travel to Europe I have preferred routing via singapore as it breaks the long flight with stopover in Singapore.

weegie88 , if you were to fly from N.Z. to the U K. roundtrip in Business Class via Australia and DOH (two stops in each direction), you would attain oneworld Sapphire if you credited your flights to Iberia. If you did a one-stop in each direction via HKG on CX, you'd still have a ways to go to earn OWS status.

Edited to add: See chacor 's and my corrections below.

Wow! Really?

That's insane.

So fly Qantas and Qatar?

Under the new earnings scheme for partner airlines with Iberia, a CHC-MEL-DOH-LHR round-trip in business on QF & QR nets (350+1750+1250)*2 elite points, or 6700 elite points – which is short of oneworld Sapphire (7500 needed).

If you book and fly before 1 April, when the scheme changes, then you'd earn (115+600+500)*2, or 2430 elite points – and yes, this would be enough for oneworld Sapphire (2250 needed).

The Great Circle Mapper indicates that MEL-CHC is 1,503 statute miles. If that's the distance which IB uses in its Elite Points calculation, that segment in Business Class would yield 600 points, not 350.



But you're right about even that coming up short. I mistakenly thought that the new Elite Points requirement for Iberia Oro (OWS) was 7,000 points; in fact, it is, as you say 7,500 points. So CHC-MEL-DOH-LON roundtrip in Business should yield 7,200 Iberia Elite Points; I would expect that the OP could make up the 300-point shortfall with a couple of trans-Tasman roundtrips in Economy. If the OP only makes one trans-Tasman roundtri per year, and that flight is in Discounted Economy, then he would come up short.

Edited to add: CHC-BNE-DOH-LON roundtrip in Business should also yield 7,200 Iberia Elite Points under the new scheme which begins April 1.

Thanks guys.
My head hurts, lol!

I think that you also need to consider how much use you would get from oneworld status. If you fly to and from the U.K. in Business Class, status won't do much for you. And if your only other annual oneworld travel would be a single trans-Tasman roundtrip, I'm not sure that it's worth chasing oneworld status.

Hmm..

Hopefully, will add annual US or Asia travel soon.

That's the thing about NZ: isolated and small, minimal competition. I'd still need AirNZ status for the domestic lounges but their international offerings are expensive and have dropped standards IMHO.

Ah, OK. That would make a difference, both in terms of the usefulness of status, and the ease of attaining it.

Note that Fiji Airways -- which can get you to TYO, HKG, and several North American destinations via NAN -- is now transitioning to become a full oneworld member.

Hello FlyerTalk Community! It's been a while, but this is still my #1 resource for all my points & miles questions!

My family is taking a Norweigan Fjord cruise RT out of Southampton (London) next June (2026), and this would be our "big trip" in several years. I want to use my points to redeem business class (or first if I can swing it) for the trip. Since I'm still 15+ months out, I would like to use the next few months to accumulate miles in an FFP that would give me good BC/FC redemption. We don't go to Europe often we're so less familiar with European airlines. Here is the basic info about my current FFP situation:

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
>>> Reply: 1) Good award redemption rates 2) Good redemption availability

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
>>> Reply: Less than 25,000 miles (4-6 segments). Usually 1-2 domestic RT and/or 1 international (primarily to Asia) each year. We don't fly enough to make a difference toward elite status.

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
>>> Reply: Economy

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
>>> Reply: Travel for leisure only so can choose any airlines that make the most sense

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
>>> Reply: Domestic or trans-Pacific. So looking for help with trans-Atlantic since we're unfamiliar with these routes

6. What is your home airport?
>>> Reply: SFO for international flights, although SJC is closer. LAX is doable

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in each FFP, if any?
>>> Reply: No status with any FFP. I have minimum or no miles with these FFPs: American, United, Alaska, Hawaiian, Southwest, EVA Air, British Airway, Air Canada, and Virgin Atlantic (I started signing for a few airlines in preparation for this trip)

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
>>> Reply: No preferred airlines, but would like to try European airlines as we have not been impressed with US-based airlines.

I'm hoping to find a FFP (or two) that has:
1) Good BC or FC products (newer planes, good food, Airbus fleet preferred)
2) Routes to/from London and Paris (planning to visit Paris either before or after the cruise)
3) Good redemption availability (we need 4 seats)
4) Easy ways to accumulate miles through credit cards or multiple transfer partners

I know credit card recommendations are not part of this thread, but if anyone knows any obvious choice for CC to go with your recommended FFP, I'd love to know! It would save me a lot of research to find CC that will help me accrue the point. FWIW, we have about 400K Chase UR points that can be used toward any redemption.

Thank you so much!

This is a bit theoretical, but suppose you were in the US and already could magically get top-tier status in one of the alliances (ow, *a, skyteam) from another alliance member. Which US-based frequent flyer program would you sign up for?

1) I'd care about upgrades (not available to alliance elites), better award mileage generation rates, priority (not available to alliance elites). lounges do not matter. baggage does not matter.
2) ~30 flights a year, maybe 40-50k miles (i end up doing lots of short haul). I would also get the airline's credit card and I would be able to put a decent amount of yearly spend on it (say 75k)
3) economy and occasionally business, more likely on international routes
4) I can choose class of service
5) domestic USA for 80% of the flights, 20% transpacific or transatlantic international travel
6) BUR, ONT, LAX, LGB, SNA (most preferred to least preferred). I feel like I rarely find myself attached to any carrier in this particular market, and it almost always depends on where I happen to need to fly.
7) Assume top-tier status in the corresponding alliance
8) Generally not the LCCs, as I prefer the ability to occasionally purchase business/first seats or hopefully receive occasional upgrades

I think one of the biggest parts of this question I'm kind of asking is this--which of the major airline programs (AA, UA, Delta, and maybe Alaska) is most likely to give upgrades to elites in their own mileage program (above and beyond alliance status)? I've been hearing that getting upgrades in many US frequent flyer programs, even at the uppermost tiers, is becoming increasingly rare.