Hi,

I am a rookie frequent flyer based in Oslo, Norway. Just got a job including a whole lot of flying, so I decided to sign up for a few programs. No one says you cant do so, but you can only earn points on one program for each trip.

Here is my strategy for Star Alliance-trips:

Since my trips always go roundtrip from Oslo and are mostly with SAS, the best thing for me in a short term was to go for the SAS Eurobonus Gold card asap. 45k points are easily earned if you fly at least economy extra/full-flex on a regular basis. I got Eurobonus mid-Oct and I now have 25k points (Silver) after one roundtrip to Cairo and one to Singapore. I am hoping to get to Gold by the end of november, and 60k (roundtrip OSL-NYC) before christmas.

Now, once I have gotten Eurobonus Gold and a free trip to NYC, I will begin working on my Miles&More account. As far as I've understood, the two programs calculate miles quite differently so 100k requested for M&M Gold doesn't necessarily have to be harder to earn than EB 45k. M&M Gold requests 100k within a CALENDAR YEAR, which means earning miles these last two months of 2010 would be rather useless for me.

Miles & More seems to me as a better program with more benefits in the long run. Once I get the EB Gold, I will stick to M&M and push for the Senator (=Gold) in the year of 2011. God knows how far I can push it after that, but having both EB Gold and M&M Senator at the age of 23 isn't that bad of a start!

So, wrapping up, what do you think of my strategy? Would you do anything differently?

Good plan except for that huge EGO.
But hey, we are all like that, aren't we?

I'm not

Hi rookiefrequentflyer,
Welcome to FlyerTalk.

You asked your question in Mileage Run Deals, which is solely for sharing of fare 'deals' which earn a lot of miles toward status (or otherwise lots of FF miles) on major airline FFPs.

Info here in the Mileage Run information sticky thread:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milea...rums-work.html

Since your question is about your FFP strategy, I've moved this to MilesBuzz, the forum for discussing miles and FFPs generally.

Good luck with your strategy and check into Mileage Run Deals to share or find 'Deals'!

Cheers,
BiziBB, Moderator Mileage Run forums

In general FT isn't a big fan of cross-posting (posting the same thing on multiple post. You may want to edit/remove your original post )

Regarding your post: There are many FT'ers that have status on multiple airlines for multiple reasons, although typically status would be in different alliances.

If you chose to earn EuroBonus Gold (= Star Alliance Gold) then why start over from scratch to earn miles with LU that's in the same alliance?

I can see the logic in this. If you know you're going to be flying *A, and are aiming for *G in a hard-to-qualify program (e.g. LH), but want to enjoy *G benefits while you're doing the BIS miles to qualify, then it makes sense to grab an "easy" *G first. You then use the *G card for benefits like lounge access, while you accrue miles to LH (or whatever).

Exactly. Lounge access, fast-track security and premium check-in are the three main benefits I was thinking about. LH has a lot better rewards than SAS in the long term, and that's why I want to earn their Gold and that will of course be my primary FFP in the future.

Thanks for the feedback to all of you. Sorry about the double-posting! I'm new to this, but I'll delete it right away.

Though for really quick *G, you could have gone for Aegean (*G at 19,000 miles, though earning depends on the fare bases).

It is a very good strategy to have both M&M and another "easier" *G card. The M&M SEN card is valid for two years, not one. SAS has cheaper awards (no taxes on awards).

So first get gold on SK if you can make it this year. 2011 you try for SEN-hood in M&M while using your SK gold to get in the lounges. 2012 you credit all miles to SAS, 2013 you requalify on LH and so on.

But dont waste your miles on an economy roundtrip!

Either save and travel on your vacation as a redemption in business class, or use the miles for upgrades from economy/economy extra to business class on your daily work-trips!

Since you mostly fly SAS as you write, it makes perfect sence to credit the miles to SAS and grab a cheap check-in upgrade at the airport.

http://www.sas.se/sv/EuroBonus/Utnyt...dering-ombord/

Frankly if you're usually flying SAS and you can make gold with SAS you're probably better off continuing to collect on SAS. Sure, LH's benefits are better but only when you're actually flying with them. When you're not you're just fragmenting your points which makes it harder to cash them in later. The points on SAS will come in handy upgrading or buying other benefits on SAS.

I thought you needed more than 45k for gold with SAS though. I have a friend who's *G with them and he's generally happy, especially with the points upgrades. But he's jealous of my low qualification threshold.

Exactly

You shouldn't be surprised if your SAS status is only applicable if that's the FF # on your boarding pass.

If you have non-status LH on your boarding pass don't be surprised if you're instructed to change your boarding pass FF # to SAS if you want to utilize the SAS benefits rather than non-status LH benefits. (YMMV)

I've never tried this with SAS and LH, but I've never run into this problem on other *A airlines.

I have transitioned from one *A program to another a few times now, and when doing so I show my existing *G card at check-in and for lounge access, while my boarding pass shows the non-status FFP.

This works for in-airport benefits (*G check-in, priority baggage tags (FWIW!), lounge access) but obviously not for benefits that are directly linked to the FF#/PNR (e.g. waitlist priority). Though I think I recall some threads discussing how some airlines allow you to enter two FF#s - one for miles earning and one for status. (I've never bothered with this.)