Which Airline program would ya'll recomend?
 

Hey guys, been a long time stalker but I've never been in a position to contribute meaningful dialogue or in a position to fly frequently.

This all changed with my new job! I will be flying to Seattle and Taipei, Taiwan at least once a month. My company always books the cheapest tickets (which I was told usually ended up being United and Eva Air). If the prices are fairly similar, they would allow me to fly whatever airline I want.

My question is which FF program should I join to get elite status the quickest? I did the 100k mile thing with BA last year and just finished the 75k x 2 thing with AA this month. Should I try to fly primarily AA to get to 1M miles?

Since Eva isn't part of any alliance... how would that work?

Any feedback or advice would be greatly appreciated! :D Thanks a ton in advance.

Best,

PU2007

Hi PU2007 and welcome to FlyerTalk!

And congratulations on your new job!

Since your questions span a number of potential airline programs we're going to move it to our multi-purpose MilesBuzz! forum.

Once you settle on an airline or airline alliance, we have more specific forums for those.

Happy travels.

____________________

Cholula
CommunityBuzz! Co-Moderator

eva has codeshares for co & aa iirc.....perhaps, you could get the code share for the same price as eva fare....good luck..

Welcome OP!


There is a lot of discussion elsewhere on the below questions.

-There is a school of thought that the 1mm program with AA could change any day to to a BIS program. That rumor has been floating around for some time.

-If you want elite status quickly Aegean will grant *A Gold with 20K miles flown, with the right fare of course. That would get you the all important lounge access, which I find important whenever I fly longhaul.

-Of course AA has a challenge that will get you mid-tier status (PLT) with only 10K EQPs. (Not EQMs)

i would spend some time looking at the various flights to/from your 2 destinations & guessing what your travel people will book....it might have some effwect on your choice of programs......

in any case, i would join all programs that you fly on at the start....good luck...

Aegean looks like a good option since I may fly on United sometimes. If I fly EVA operated by Continental, would those miles still count for Aegean?

Once I get the 20k and *A gold status, is there any benefit to earning miles on the Aegean program or should I start using my Continental or United?

They, Agean, seem to have cheaper redemptions, but as with many European carriers mileage accrual may be minimal based on your fare. Also you would be missing out on upgrade certs that come with UA. Still, geting *A Gold in 20K miles is a good option and then flip to UA.


Whatever you do make sure you read status qualifying rules for programs and understand what is required of you. If Agean requires a slightly more expensive ticket than you company is willing to pay ask if your company will allow you buy the more expensive ticket and reimburse you for the cheaper. I believe it a worth some out of pocket cash to get to status quickly, especialy sincs you are doining TPACs.

I looked up the miles earnings table on Aegean and it looks like some of the economy and discounted economy will count albiet at a 50% rate. Most of the United flights they book are W or L

Economy Class - Y - 150%
Economy Discounted - B, M, E, U, H, Q, V - 100%
Economy Discounted - W, S, T, L, K - 50%

Am I reading that correctly? If so, just one trip would land me at Blue and three trips to reach gold.

Just a word of caution about Aegean. They will be merging with Olympic soon and this might change the game. There are a few threads about Aegeans strikingly low *G limits and "if it sounds too good to be true" it might be in the long term.
Another option could be AC Aeroplan. 100% earning for all UA classes and 35k to gold.

I am seeing some parallel discussion in the other thread. You may want to check it out:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/miles...ance-gold.html

You should start researching on airlines in 3 alliances (for example: Star Alliance for UA; One World for AA/Cathay Pacific...etc). A good strategy is to credit all your (BIS) mileage within the same alliance to one single FFP.

See Other Asian, Australian and South Pacific Frequent Flyer Programs Forum for discussion on EVA Airways (BR). Based on my experiences (flying economy between the States and TPE), BR tends to be more expensive than UA.

Factor in the easiness (or difficulty) in redeeming miles, even you are only eying for (quick) elite status. You don't want to end up with miles that are impossible to use. So Delta is out of the window :D. I don't know how favorable Aegean is with miles redemption though. You better look up these different airlines and see how FTers (dis)like them.

Judging on the (regular) routes (SEA-TPE) you are going to fly/travel and/or redeem miles, I think a U.S.-based FFP may serve you better in the long run. Are you based in Seattle? Some use Alaska Airlines as their main FFP for strategic reasons (codeshare agreements). Aeroplan can be another possibility.

Hmm thanks for all the feedback! From what I'm reading, I'll check out both Aegean and AC Aeroplan.

One thing I'm still confused about... does *A gold get complimentary upgrades? I'm based out of Raleigh (RDU) and while RDU-TPE and RDU-SEA will be the most frequent trips, I will often head to LA, Charlotte, Chicago and NYC. Would I have to joined a domestic FF and earn *A gold through them in order to ensure that I will get seat upgrades on these local shorter flights?

Maybe.

Usually all carriers will upgrade their own elites first, then others from their alliance.

Since you are flying out of RDU take a close look at the AA PLT Challenge. Once you hit 100K miles you will get 8 comp upgrades from RDU-TRANSPAC, up to 3 segs, on AA metal.

It sounds like you would quickly hit the upper levels on any of the major american carriers. As you will most likely fly United TPAC I would go with them. I believe that you can apply SWUs on W fares, so using United might give you much better rides. This really holds for all the major carriers. If you fly them TPAC once a month and have other travels as well then you will quickly hit the top level, and most carriers take better care of their own than the others.

JOIN them all, then figure out which one to use based on the flights available and the costs associated with it since you really don't have any control over what tickets get booked

Upgrades on partner flights are not a *A benefit. Elites of other members don't even get into United's Economy Plus section of the main cabin. (They did at one point, but that stopped as soon as UA figured out that no other partner has an E+ section that offers a comparable benefit to UA elites.)

I've occasionally gotten operational upgrades due to *G status, but that's a random event, not a right. When they have to move someone forward to make room in back, they often seem to take partner status into account in deciding who that should be. (I say "seem to" because I have no insight into their decision process, but I can't think of any other reason I'd be singled out. It's surely not for my good looks.) In my experience these upgrades are rare, though of course welcome when they happen.