oliver2002

US address you get a 20% off voucher for mileage awards for christmas.

peter42

Any US member or only SEN/HON?

Rambuster

Only SEN/HON.

Rambuster

Go for LH HON ! With 8-10 roundtrips in LH Business you will be there in no time. The Z fares from SFO to India are also very attractive.
Probably better to keep your account registered in the US. I haven't heard of any India based advantages.

ML237

Hi all,

First post here although I have been a faithful reader and lurker for the past 2years learning something along the way. ^ As I am traveling this Christmas season something has been bothering me since I have achieved the Frequent Traveler status in M&M program.

I am a M&M *S Frequent Traveler on LH and I am situated in Chicago. I will keep this status until February 2010. I logged about <100K award miles and close to 60K status miles. Although I could be doing more traveling next year on average I do a minimum of 3-4 transatlantic flights (including 3-4 intra-Europe connecting flights) a year plus 4 US flights usually flying on LH/UA Star alliance metal usually on Y class unless there are good deals/upgrades on C. I also have a United Mileage Plus card that I really don’t use on which I logged a miserable 5K+ miles.

Now my quandary is what would be an advantage to chase the elusive Senator Gold status on M&M when I could get United Premier for only 20K extra miles (need 25K EQM to qualify) and further to actually try to obtain Premier Executive for which I only need 50K EQM’s. In addition I would enjoy, Economy plus upgrades, 500-mile E-Upgrades and the Gold/Silver status on M&M.

I would love to hear your expert opinion should I just stick with M&M program or take advantage of my Chicago location to use UA with their program fully to easier build up the ladder of their loyalty program to Gold/Premier Executive in addition to one I have?

Thanks in advance

wideman

I might consider other programs, but I would surely counsel against United. United has instituted a particularly draconian award system, in which they use Starnet to block MP users from getting award seats on other airlines (in many, but certainly not all, instances). If you search the United forum for 'Starnet,' you'll find lots and lots of people who have been unable to obtain seats on LH when those seats were very clearly available to every other *A airline. I've also experienced the same trying to use MP miles for a TG award seat.

SmilingBoy

Welcome to FT! (at least welcome to being active!)

Generally, if you fly Y, MP is the better choice. You would probably easily get *G with your pattern.

However, FTL status is pretty valuable when you fly on M&M airlines.

So it depends what is important for you!

SmilingBoy.

andymell

If you fly in Y, MP has two big advantages:
-All Y fares get you 100% status mileage.
-E+

Also, *G is at 50k rather than 100k. So, if you're flying on cheap Y fares, you'll make *G with 50k actual flight miles rather than 200k.

Award availability on partner airlines is bad with MP. But (if flying cheap Y fares) you'll have twice as many miles to work with which will more than make up for it.

testero

Welcome to FT!

There should be quite a few threads around about M+ against MM. Nevertheless your pattern looks more like a UA M+ one. Benefits of the programmes:

Pro M+:
- Easier advance to *G
- E+ acess for Y flights
- 100% EQM even on cheap UA metal
- 100% RDM bonus as 1P
- Transcon upgrades for 30k miles from some discounted Eco fares
- 500 milers

Pro MM FTL:
- 2 years of status
- better benefits within LH area (Lounge acess to LH business lounges)
- Better award availability against reasonable mileage (e.g. 90k miles for a business round trip US-Europe)

As you already have the FTL go with MP for the next year and try to get 1P with UA. If this is not working out you can still switch back to MM and reobatin FTL or try to head for SEN. But in general you will be better off with a status at that airline you fly most.

One really huge advantage being *G on LH metal is that they block the seat next to you if possible - even as a UA 1P. This the FTL status does not do.

ML237

Thanks for the welcome. I agree with flying Y Economy + on my US flights I think racking miles on MP would be a good strategy for me to easier get the *G status. Besides the obvious (Executive bonus and *S priority) advantages what else do you find valuable when flying M&M airlines?

Great tip indeed. I read about that (Starnet) and besides the UA lackluster service this seems to be one of the biggest disadvantages for joining their program.

Great point about ALL Y fares earning full 100% status miles which is many times not the case with M&M partners. Being that in US I do end up using UA most of the time this together with 500 upgrades and E+ would benefit me in the long run.

Big thanks especially when overviewing most of pro/cons out there. I think you summed it up beautifully and makes most sense for me with 2+ years on my FTL to try and chase the UA1P next year.

Thanks everyone who contributed to this thread, and if there is more ideas please keep them coming.

Cheers ^

redwings

Interesting enough, when I tried to reedem on a specific week my United miles on a UA flight from DTW-FRA (with connection in IAD, ORD, or whatever), there was no award flight available at all. So I reedem my LH miles on LH flights with no problems.

However, I used some UA miles on LH-metal flight (GOT-FRA-GOT) with no problem. In addition, the taxes were only around $50 with UA, whereas if I have booked it with LH miles the taxes would be around $100.

So, I guess, it depends (as usual) on the date and flight route, to reedem miles. Sometimes it fits my schedule, sometimes not.....

DownUnderFlyer

The other thing to consider is lounge access. If you get *G through UA you will not have access to the RCC when flying domestically in the US. If you have *G with LH you will have access to every *G lounge including the RCC.

weero

The first one is a well established rumour - there is no hard proof that Starnet is anything but a badly written interface that is merely too dumb to find availability.
In not one instance was I able to use LH miles when I could not redeem MP for that route. This year alone I failed 8 attempts to get NZ awards on the dates I wanted and M&L had the same shortage on those seats.

In the TG case however I have to somewhat agree. TG withholds premium inventory to the UK from MP. The speculation range from MP being too 'low revenue' for TG through the lack of proper billing for the UK premium seats scam tax.

IsleSeat

That is truly the final word!

weero

Nah