Washington DC Flyers - Need to Choose a FF Program
 

Hi all! For all those frequent fliers coming out of DC, I would like your assistance please.

I just moved to DC area and I'll be flying a lot out of DC to other domestic cities often during the week for work....most often to SNA (Orange County, CA) and LAX. I will be flying round trip three times per month.

I am looking to stick to one or two airlines as a FF and would like to rack up points for free upgrades, lounge access, etc.

I'll be living in Arlington, VA. What I am wondering is, between the two DC airports, and the airlines flying out of DC, which is a good airline to be a member of that I can take part of those benefits?

Thanks for your help!

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Welcome to FT!

What do you hope to redeem your accumulated miles for? Long-haul trips in premium cabins? Short-haul trips in Coach?

Deciding which airline you are going to fly in one decision; deciding which FFP to credit those flights to is a different decision. ;)

Living in Arlington, DCA is much, much more convenient, and is Metro accessible. IAD is pretty much only good for international flights and the odd transcon.

Personally, I credit everything to AS, as they allow me to credit flights from AA (Non US AA flights currently) and DL domestically, plus EK and BA internationally.

I spent the past couple of years commuting to the SNA area, and alternated between AA DCA-DFW-SNA, DL DCA-ATL-SNA, and AS DCA-LAX (1x daily, although the return is an afternoon flight), depending on my schedule needs. There are, unfortunately, no nonstops from WAS-SNA.

The airline you fly and the airline ffp you credit those flights to does not need to be the same.

Have a look here:- http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...help-here.html

My main goal is that after I get enough flights under my belt is to be upgraded to better cabins as often as possible.

AS = Alaska?

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Yes.

Yes. They fly from DCA to LAX, though I believe that there is only one flight a day.

As others have mentioned, there are many factors to consider when choosing a primary FF program. I live in DC (in the city) myself, and find UA the best for my purposes, with AA second. But my flying patterns differ from yours, and I use my miles for award travel to Europe.

As far as the Washington airports are concerned, DCA is the easiest to reach and use, but has few nonstops to the West Coast. Dulles is inconvenient for me because of where I live (BWI is much better for me, though not for you), but you could get there more easily than I since you live in Arlington. Last year Metro opened the first stage of its new Silver Line; it's still necessary to take a bus ($5) from the last station to the airport, but the service is reasonably frequent and the trip is quick. UA is by far the main carrier at Dulles, with lots of nonstops to the West Coast, so United might be worth considering, especially if the Alaska schedule from/to DCA doesn't meet your needs.

Given the Arlington and LAX bits of this, I would suggest you look closely at AA/US, now in the process of merging.

While DCA has a 1250-mile perimeter rule, exceptions include nonstop service to LAX on AA and AS (which is an earn/burn/dayoftravel partner to AAdvantage) and PHX on US (whence it is easy to connect all over the west coast).

With three transcons a month, you'll easily make Executive Platinum by year's end (and you can do a challenge to get to Platinum much faster). At that level, upgrade rates are very, very good.

The best part is convenient nonstop service to most major markets out of DCA.

The competing program in NOVA is UA's MileagePlus; the recent changes to mileage earning (which hurt most flyers not buying last-minute tickets, especially on transcons) and lower upgrade rates for 1K's - to say nothing of the PQD requirements for status earning - make it less attractive.

The worst part in your case, though, would be having to schlep to Dulles for most trips, or connect via ORD/IAH/DEN/SFO/EWR if flying from National. Here's where AA/US shines: DCA is a short drive/cab ride/Metro ride from Arlington, and the terminal is very compact once you get there. Take it from one who lives in the District and recently switched from UA to AA/US... you won't miss driving to Dulles and walking more than a mile to many of the gates.

You can put all the miles you want into the AS program, but they don't get you to SNA without the unpleasant ride from LAX and they won't get you an upgrade on AA or DL. If I were you, I would do the AA Platinum challenge and stick with AA. You could even take the US flights through PHX and get AA miles, and US will soon be merged into AA.

I am reading up on this "AA Challenge" program and it sounds awesome. I did some math for my travel the next 2.5 months and it looks like I can qualify for the AA Platinum Elite status by flying 10,000 miles during that time.

Go for AA program. AA has 2x flights a day to LAX - although upgrades are getting hard to get on those flights as EXP. With the merger AA has 60% of the flights.

UA has continued to scale back and DL swapped gates with US a few years back to get more gates at LGA. DL does fly more 757s out of DCA (only airline that does) to retain some of their original capacity.

But for now AA has the best FF program and the most flights and the best flights to LAX and most connections in DFW to SNA.

this is some REALLY REALLY great insight and info...i really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Is the AA Challenge still valid in 2015? What is the cutoff?

Or of you want to go to LAX, you could even take the AS flights to LAX and get AA miles.

How exactly do you get AA miles from flying AS?