enesem

Hi everyone, I'm a new member here and I thought I would jump in with the burning question they brought me here.

I am UK based, and just taken a position with a company that will have me travelling worldwide, up to 50% of the year. At interview the travel policy was business class, but that's now been cut to economy, though I have got them to settle on Premium Economy. I am expected to travel worldwide, though primarily EMEA and Asia (Japan in October). My home airport is Glasgow.

I currently have 140,000 avios in my BA Executive Club account, and when I go WT+ to Singapore (1st Aug 2014) I will qualify for a silver card.

My question is, whether it's worth continuing with BA or look to switch loyalty programs. My reasoning for this are simple:

1) There is NEVER any opportunity to use Avios for upgrading, so as far as I am concerned I am building them up but to absolutely NO advantage. I have complained twice to BA about the uselessness of Avios to get flights or upgrades, to no avail.

2) MY sole aim to collect points would be to be able to get flights and upgrades.

I have read through the Stickies on flyer programs, however they are gloriously detailed and a little too much info to easily work out the best thing to do.

I would like to ask if anyone would be able to give me a simple suggestion for a couple of alternative programmes to look at where there is a decent Premium Economy option and points that you can actually use.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Kind Regards,

neil m

EDIT: Adding this line - I also pay for my hotels and reclaim them so have the opportunity to build points by use of a credit card etc.

LondonElite

Welcome to Flyertalk Neil

Your question is not easily answered, in part because the grass always seems greener just over the horizon. When you get there you realise that, well, it's just the same grass.

Example 1 of many ideas: Since you're based in Glasgow, many of your flights are going to involve a stop somewhere. Now that may speak for BA, but of course you could fly LH and connect through FRA or MUC internationally. LH is slowly introducing a premium economy product, but I can't tell you that much about it yet. But have a look at the LH forum and you'll see plenty of people complaining about the Miles and More programme. Another consideration is that LH flights that do not go into either of the hubs are actually operated by Germanwings.

And so it goes on....what would be your usual routes, and which carriers would you most likely fly (considering who offers Y+)? Skyteam is pretty rubbish overall, and I think your choice may come down to the best, suboptimal, solution (ie sticking it out with BA).

Moderators may wish to consider moving this to the BA forum, where you'll get more contextualised input.

enesem

Thank you for the thoughts.

With BA I transit via LHR, which is enough of a reason to want to change in itself ! I am otherwise generally happy with BA, the main issue is just that there is NEVER an opportunity to upgrade with Avios, though I can easily upgrade with money. I just don't see any value in the loyalty program. 140,000 Avios I just can't spend.

Emirates fly from Glasgow, but don't have a WT+ equivalent as far as I know.

I am looking forward to hearing any other thoughts. Thanks in advance.

NM

LondonElite

Whilst Emirates does fly from GLA, it's not going to help your European travel very much. And the don't have Y+. My understanding is the rewards programme is also not the easiest to redeem, but I really don't know.

The short answer is that you'll want to stick with one alliance. Star and OW are really your better options, since SkyTeam (as I said above) is pretty rubbish. Within these alliances, you need to think about what airlines you're going to be using the most, and then go for that programme. This is probably why you may find yourself with BA again.

But let's say you fly to Tokyo a lot (say 6-7 times a year). I would argue that NH (ANA) has the best Y+ seat on that route, and that programme gets you *A privileges that you can use across the board for your European travels with, say, LH. Here too there is a problem since UA flights to the US don't have Y+, and, whilst you may be tempted to fly AC via YYZ, you'll quickly find, as I did, that the extra immigration stop in Toronto becomes a hassle.

Your starting point, as I noted above, is really to map out specifically where you'll be flying and how often.

enesem

Where and how often is not going to be easy to answer. My region is specifically EMEA, though Asia and PAC (Australia/New Zealand) may also be on the list. There isn't a regular route, I work for a global company and my job is to visit corporate locations, though there is no specific plan as to which locations and when.

So I could be going anywhere, USA included. It's unlikely that I'd visit the same destination more than once or twice in a year.

I could stick with BA, however the same problem exists in that the Avios are useless for flights.

Just out of interest, why is it that I can happily pay for an upgrade, but never use Avios ?

NM

Edit: Grammar + update

LondonElite

Given that it can be all over the place, it probably does sound like you want to stick with BA, where the WT+ seats are actually pretty decent. You may consider getting your status and miles with AA rather than BA, though that doesn't improve your chances of an upgrade opportunity on BA. The main problem with BA is that so few award seats are released. We are repeatedly told that this is being worked on, but there are hundreds of us in the BA forum who wonder the same thing you are. What you occasionally find (but admittedly not often enough) are last minute upgrades within a few days of travel.

Back to AA, redeeming miles there is a bit easier, but being based in GLA it's tough to see that this would have a huge advantage for you over BA. You get used to it after a while.

As an anecdote, I have four children, and we - somehow - always manage to find award availability on our long haul flights.

enesem

OK, many thanks again.

On balance, I'll stick with BA then.

guv1976

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

Even if you are going to continue to fly BA, you should still consider whether to credit your BA flights to BAEC, or to a partner program, like AAdvantage.

It's true that upgrades will still be no easier to obtain, but there are some advantages (no pun intended) to AA's program. The biggest are: no carrier-imposed surcharges when flying on award tickets, except when flying on BA or IB metal; more favorable redemption rates to certain destinations -- especially in premium classes; additional partner carriers not available with BAEC (including EY, GF, LY, TN, and 9W); no extra mileage charge for connecting flights on redemptions; and no charge to change dates or times on already-ticketed awards. (There are some disadvantages, too; AAdvantage is not better in all respects.) And to achieve elite status with AA, you must also fly at least four AA- or US-marketed flights per year. Codeshares operated by other carriers -- like BA -- count, as long as you buy the flights with an AA or US flight number.

Even if you decide to go with AAdvantage, you would still want to keep some Avios, as RFS redemptions provide excellent value, and can be used to position yourself outside the UK for longer-haul award travel, thereby avoiding the UK APD and LHR/LGW PSC.

What are your mileage redemptions likely to be? The answer to that could go a long way in helping to decide which FFP would be most beneficial for you.

UA Fan

Another plus for AA is that one can mix carriers (subject to a published fare) on one award at the same rates. With BA the rates shoot up astronomically.

LondonElite

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. You can have a mix of AA and BA flights on a reward itinerary and it is the same points cost as if they were only BA or only AA.

guv1976

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

That's true, but if you were to mix, say, CX and QF on a single award, BAEC's multi-partner redemption rate would come into play.

UA Fan

Which is significantly higher than its one partner award. I recently used Avios to book TXL-FRA (AB) - PHL (US). Putting all these on one ticket would cost 60K in Y, but ticketing these separately would cost 24.5K. I went with the later. Hopefully all flights will be on time. Luckily at that time BA was not collecting YQ on US, but I can't understand why someone would pay 60K and a massive amount of YQ for such a flight, when on AA it would have been 30K with no YQ.

zkzkz

Upgrades are also my priority when picking a FF. I also have been able to book premium economy but not business and am happy to spend miles upgrading.

I switched to BA not long ago because of their premium economy andthe ability to upgrade for a reasonable number of miles. The availability is an issue but it's worse on some routes and than others. You may find that choosing different connection points might change the picture substantially. The situation may also change as currently upgrades come out of business award buckets and when a flight is full they may want people to upgrade but not want to allow additional people to book -- and there are rumours BA is working to change this and separate the two buckets.

UA and AA offer upgrades based on miles but they include a co-pay except for the highest fares. Depending on what status level you reach you can get upgrade instruments on AA or UA or AC (though AC's now come with a copay now destroying most of their value). If your flying pattern happens to fit the fares these things are valid on and you earn high enough status then they can work out well. If you miss out on the status level needed then you'll be much worse off.

In short, if you travel 100k miles a year then you have many options. If you travel less than 50k miles a year then you have very few options. In between, especially if you're booking premium economy, I think BA is the best choice. Even that is kind of fuzzy now that UA and DL have gone to revenue based qualifications.

LondonElite

Yes, that's true, and a shortcoming of the system.

LondonElite

I have a strong suspicion that we're going to be seeing more of this, maybe even on BA (and in my opinion about time!)