samfaction

Hello All,

I was trying to get into collecting points over the last year but I think I have got a bit carried away and now into a mess! I am based in Manchester in the UK. I have to travel a lot for work, mainly to Ireland and Germany so last year signed up for Avois to cover the points for traveling to and from Ireland and Miles and More for trips to Germany. It worked quite well and quickly got up to silver membership with AerClub, also collected a bunch of Avios. However, since the merger of BA points to Avios I am a bit lost. Whilst I travel AerLingus for work they are not my primary airline for pleasure. That would be BA (after EasyJet etc.) and i just have points being amassed in Avios which, as I understand I can no longer use for BA?

I am also collecting points for Lufthanasa as our head office is in Hamburg. Those flights are usually accrued on Eurowings or if I travel within Europe. At the moment I am not even the lowest tier.

The next big project I will be working on will be in Sweden and I will be traveling a lot with SAS so want to try and maximize this.

I also have 155,000 points with Radisson rewards which to be honest seems a bit of a waste as I would never really stary with them outside of business. ARe these better being transferred elsewhere?

What should i do to try and harmonize all of this, particularly with regards to the Avios/BA/AerClub mess?

Thanks in advance,

Sam

NewbieRunner

Welcome to FlyerTalk, samfaction!

Did/do you have a British Airways Executive Club (BAEC) account? If you didn’t your avios should have been transferred to a newly created BAEC account unless you opted out. If you have a BAEC account but it wasn’t linked to your avios account a duplicate account may have been created. There is some discussion about duplicate BA accounts in the BA forum: Just as I predicted: I now have two Exec Club accounts

There is some general avios -> BA transfer information in this thread:
UK Avios Travel Rewards Programme Changes

Have you checked your avios account recently? My understanding is that your avios should have been transferred to an BA account unless you requested they should not be transferred. You can credit avios from future Aer Lingus flights to your BA account and use them on BA flights.

Lufthansa/Miles and More is not a good programme for collecting miles if you are based in the UK unless you fly longhaul in premium cabins. Unfortunately you can only credit miles from Eurowings flights to selected frequent flyer programmes. The good news is miles from SAS flights can be credited to Miles and More. The bad news is Miles and More miles expire 3 years after they are earned unless you hold status. The only way to protect them without holding status is to hold a Miles and More credit card and to use it regularly. Unfortunately free M&M credit cards in the UK were discontinued a few months ago. Its replacement costs £79 a year.

PAX_fips

NR: WRT EW: You can earn miles (and segments) on M&M with Eurowings .. plus "a lot" SAS segments might go for FTL - and that keeps the award miles w/o CC.

NewbieRunner

Yes, “selected frequent flyer programmes” including M&M. What I implied but did not spell out was there might be other Star Alliance programmes which are easier to gain status but it will not be possible to earn miles with them by flying Eurowings. SAS segments won’t count towards FTL qualification if you are referring to Silver Promotion since only flights on M&M family of airlines count unfortunately.

craigthemif

In terms of Avios, if you are actually a member of AerClub, nothing will have changed. For example, what I call my "Avios" account is actually an AerClub account. Nothing to worry about...

As far as M&M / Star Alliance is concerned, you quite frankly have never had any particularly appealing options for crediting Eurowings flights, especially the super cheap fare classes. Unfortunately a common feature of Star Alliance loyalty programmes is a hard expiry date, so you might want to consider getting the UK credit card so that your M&M miles never expire. Many M&M award options offer horrible value, but there are a few sweet spots. Perhaps the best is the monthly list of discounted rewards. 55,000 for Business Class to select US destinations for example.

As for the Radisson points, converting those into miles is just a horrible idea. Hang on to them, stay active, and eventually you'll have need for a free weekend in London or Scandinavia or somewhere with a nice Radisson Blu...

NewbieRunner

Ah, since the OP mentioned it would no longer be possible to use avios on BA flights I assumed his avios points were with avios.com. How confusing!

The OP doesn’t have many options for crediting miles from Eurowings flights but if he flies 30 segments in one calendar year he will qualify as FTL (Star Alliance Silver) for at least two years and his miles will not expire after 3 years. In addition to Mileage Bargains you mention premium award availability on LH and other LH group airlines is much better with M&M miles than with miles from other programmes. It would be difficult to collect enough miles for longhaul premium class awards if you only fly in (discounted) shorthaul Economy. However, there are occasional promos like the recent 2,500 miles per stay at Hilton hotels.

craigthemif

For sure... but the OP's M&M mileage balance may start increasing exponentially with the SAS flights and a credit card...

samfaction

Thanks for the kind welcome and the assistance.

Yes, I think the issue is at the moment that I am gaining status with Aer Club but they have no miles or points collection I can see. I then had an account with BA but since the switch, it has certainly not all combined so I think it needs to do a bit of work there to tidy everything up. I will read the information provided and see where that gets me.

Once I have that sorted I will try and move on the Start Alliance Stuff.

I may have more questions Thanks again,

Sam