bartlett6724 Welcome to FT

As an infrequent flyer you are best to chose flights on price and schedule and treat any ff miles, if any, as a bonus.
You could join the SW ffp.
The Alaska ffp has both Delta & AA are partners, so you can get AS ff miles on eligiable fares. You do not need to fly AS. http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...-overview.aspx

Be careful about ff miles expiry. Expiry after 18 months of no activity is common

Switch or not to switch?
 

Hi everyone,

I'm a Turkish Airlines Gold member with 96K miles and will be 1K with them by the end of the month. I used to fly with them a lot but lately not so much. I'm now travelling with United for work to China about every other month and travel a couple of times domestically within US. To be honest, I see no value of staying with TK anymore. Yes, I get access to United lounges, priority boarding and luggage handling but that's it! No other perks like complimentary upgrades as all my other co-workers who have United MileagePlus elite statuses get. Don't get me wrong, TK is a great airline and I absolutely love their service/food/new planes and their FANTASTIC lounge at IST and I will for sure use them for flying to Middle East but everything else about them is useless! Their website is terrible, you can't do ANYTHING on their website. Heck you can't even change your seats on their website and I've never been able to use any of my TK miles for UA or LH upgrades via their customer service. Granted, I don't exactly know the booking fares and rules for upgrading between classes but every time I've called them about an upgrade it seemed to me like they don't even know what I'm talking about. I'm debating whether or not to switch to UA MP and start earning miles with them. Yes, I know with United's new policies I won't probably get to Gold status easy and fast, but I figure with my ~90K miles/year travel I can keep using my TK Gold status benefits for 2 years and will probably be able to get to United Gold by the time my TK expires. The only thing preventing me from switching is loosing the ~100K miles I've flown with TK so far but to me getting upgrades on UA/LH is the most important thing and if I'm not gonna get any of that with TK elite status, I'd rather start from scratch. I don't even know if I'll get any special perks for becoming 1K with TK.

Sorry for the long post and all the nagging, my question is: what do I get by staying with TK? and whether I should switch to UA MP or not.


1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program (FFP)?
upgrades mostly (when I fly with my wife, don't care about business travels)

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year? How many flights/sectors?
~90K actual fly miles. ~8 international, ~3 domestic

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
economy mostly and sometimes pre. eco.

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Both work and pleasure. United is my company's preferred airline (economy) and usually choose UA/LH/TK for our (me+wife) personal travels

5. Which routes do you fly most often
LAX->China (different cities): ~8/year
U.S. domestic: ~3/year
LAX->Middle East: ~1/every 2 years

6. What is your home airport?
LAX (but can also make a connection at SFO)

7. Do you have status in any FFP? What is it? How miles do you have banked in a FFP, if any?
Turkish Airlines Gold with 96K miles. Will get to 1K this month and will get to Elite Plus (Turkish's top tier status) by the end of the year if I continue earning miles with them

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
Because of my TK Gold status, prefer to stay with *A

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program?
Ability to fly first class.

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year?
25,000-50,000; 8-10 trips/year domestic

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
First or premium economy

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

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
Sacramento to Nashville
Sacramento to Idaho Falls

6. What is your home airport?
Sacramento.

7. Do you have status in any FFP?
Unfortunately no.
How many miles do you have banked in a FFP, if any?
I have miles in Delta, American, United, & Alaska; however, it is minimal amounts in all.

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
None-I typically fly Delta, but that has been more for convenience.

Help on earning miles and flight program
 

Okay guys I'm really new to this earning miles thing and I need
some advice. I am planning a trip to South Korea and I set up my Marriott rewards account to give me miles for American Airlines, but I am beginning to wonder if I should have chosen United instead. I also just got approved for my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, could someone please tell me what my best option is to build up flyer miles towards my trip?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Welcome to FT!

When do you hope to travel to/from South Korea, from where, and in what class of service?

UA's FFP has many more options for getting to South Korea than AAdvantage does, but AAdvantage has an off-peak Coach redemption rate to Korea that is lower than what UA charges.

Rholmes27 Welcome to the forum

If flying a few flights for pleasure, using your own money, selecting fares based on schedule & price is the best way. Treat any ff miles as a bonus

Multiple ffp's with low balances will mean you are unlikely to get enough miles for a first class award. Be careful about expiry of miles.

Alaska has both AA & Delta as partners. So you can earn AS miles on AA & Delta flights. http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...ePlan-partners

I was hoping to travel summer of 2016 to South Korea from Dallas and i'd probably go business class.

Sacramento is a tough market to be an AA flyer in. Their only flights go to DFW or LAX so you're going to spend extra time in the air to go east. Even with the US flights to PHX and CLT, you still have to go out of the way. The upside is 100% flight miles plus 100% bonus miles if you fly at least 50K.

If you're buying paid first class fares, though, you may end up better with the new revenue based programs at UA and DL. At the 50K level at UA, you would bring in 8 miles per dollar spent, less taxes. Both UA and DL have the eastbound flights that would work best for you from SMF. You pretty much need to look at what you spend for your tickets and then decide where the best return in miles is.

Dallas is AA territory, and AA doesn't charge ridiculously high amounts of miles to fly international business class on non-AA metal (at least not yet), as UA does. So I at least don't think collecting AA miles is a mistake.

Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer directly to Korean Air's ff program as well as UA. One option might be to book two one-way tickets, one using AA miles and one using Chase points transferred over to either Korean Air or UA. Right now I'd just concentrate on making sure you get the sign-up bonus for the Sapphire Preferred card; you can figure out what to do with the points later.

So book the trip there with the AA miles and the trip back to Dallas using chase points transferred to Korean Air? And thank you so much for the help!! :)

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

While we don't yet know what award availability will be like in Summer, 2016, I would look at aa.com and united.com now to see what availability is like for this summer. (Keep in mind that aa.com cannot display award seats on partner JL; you would need to call AA or use a third-party site to check JL availability.)

1. What is most important to you in a frequent flyer program?
Status (e.g. Tier in BA)

2. How many miles do you usually fly each year?
25000 miles/year; 30 trips/year domestic

3. What fare class do you usually buy?
Economy

4. Are you able to choose your airlines and/or class of service?
Yes.

Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
95% work

5. Which routes do you fly most often?
London LHR to Frankfurt FRA

6. What is your home airport?
London LHR

7. Do you have status in any FFP?
Unfortunately no.

How many miles do you have banked in a FFP, if any?
British Airways - 28000 Avios, 0 Tier Points

8. What are your preferred airlines, if any?
British Airways

Or visa-versa. It's one reason why one-way awards are so handy. Just check first on the Korean Air segment how may points it would cost to book it via United Mileage Plus versus how many points + fuel surcharge fees it will cost to book it via Korean Air's ff program. Then transfer the Chase points to whichever ff program is offering the better deal. Chase points transfer almost instantly. Do make sure you open a Korean Air ff program membership well before you might need it, just to be safe. (In fact, I'd do that now, so you don't forget.)

You're welcome!

Just to be clear, Korean Air is not a United MP partner, so a Korean Air segment cannot be booked via United Mileage Plus.

Whichever UR partner you transfer to, check to make sure there is adequate availability before you make the transfer (and be prepared to redeem as soon as the points transfer). There is no ability to move points back into UR so if you transfer and there isn't availability, you're out of luck.

Korean Air award charts are on their website, with differing amounts for "peak" (which typically includes parts of Jul and Aug) and "off peak" travel on Korean Air and a different chart for redemptions on their partners.

Good point - I should have just said "US - Korea segment."

Another excellent point. MOVE FAST when you find an award that will work for you! Good awards don't stay available for long.