Looking For Assitance With Choosing The Right Airline Rewards Program
 

Hello All,

I am fairly new to the Airline world and was looking for some assistance on what Rewards Program I should get myself into. I am 20 years old, but I fly a fair amount for my age for business/pleasure so I thought I should take the next step in getting into the rewards part of the airline industry.

Things I am Looking For:
-A tierd elite program
-Hopefully the ability to transfer my rewards points from my BOFA card to an airline specific credit card mileage card
-A domestic and international airline (or should I even just stay with a domestic airline rewards program?)
-Trying to get some of the perks of flying with a single airline
-What credit card should I get for miles?
-Best ways to boost my mile earning? / Bonus miles?
-Best hotels to stay at?

About Me:
-20 years old
-Home airports are SFO and/or OAK
-I have a decent amount of flights with southwest already
-Flying United to Geneva in August
-I fly to the east coast three times per year (mostly red-eyes and coach – MIA, JFK, Newark, IAD)
-I fly to southern California around six times per year (LAX, San Diego, Burbank, Las Vegas)
-Fly to Europe around once a year
-Places I might go on vacation in the near future: Dubai, Australia, Hawaii, Cabo San Lucas, BVI’s

To sum it up I am trying to put my travel to good use so I can gain the perks and benefits of being a frequent flyer instead of spreading my money to multiple airlines and not earning anything for it.

Any information would help. If there is any other infor needed I have no problem giving it.

Thanks,
Will

I don't think your questions are focused enough to give you a good answer. You pretty much wrote "Need help, what should I do?!"

However, seeing that you live in SFO, UA is probably the natural airline for you. They pretty much go everywhere from SFO and you'll be able to earn miles on all *A carriers including AC (Air Canada), US, LH (Lufthansa) and SQ (Singapore Airlines). If you go to the NYC area often, UA flies their p.s. service between SFO and JFK which is arguably the best US domestic airline experience and has E+ throughout the entire Y cabin. Having a quick glance at your future travel, you could easily make 2P (Premier) if you indeed flew that much this year and probably 1P (Premier Executive) if you added in a holiday to Oz/Asia. 2P is pretty good as far as low-level elite status goes, but don't count on many upgrades out of a UA stronghold like SFO.

I think you should go take the time to research the FFP and network of all of the US carriers, especially UA, CO (soon to be UA) and AA. Look up the 3 airline alliances and determine what you want from your FFP. If you know what your priorities are, chances are there's a program and airline out there which will make you happy. There's ridiculous amounts of info on this board, you'll learn a lot even by just reading the "readme" threads.

Recognizing that you have a problem is the 1st step self-improvement program! ;)




A little more info would help. What is your goal?
Upgrades?
Free trips to exotic locations?
Lounges?

All of the above?


Also, with all this travel are you looking at a hotel program?

All of the Above.

Was looking to get my FFP setup first, but I was looking to move into the hotel program next. Not sure if I wanted to get an airlines credit card or a hotel CC.

Still few details... so I'll weigh in with a semi-educated guess...

Concentrate on UA. My rough approximations are:

Trip to Europe = 11000 miles
East coast = 5100 x 3 = 15300 miles

That mileage alone makes you Premier. You'll then have access to Economy Plus and occasional free domestic upgrades. Plus you'll have the best flight schedule options out of SFO and access to Star Alliance for awards.

The six flights a year to Southern California would be no more than 6000 miles. Doesn't really move the dial in this equation. So it would be fine to keep using Southwest for the schedule options (including OAK)... or fly on UA...

As far as credit card choices, consider:
UA Select Visa for the UA tickets (3 miles/$) and their 2 miles/$ spending categories
2% cashback card for everything else

You could also use the Southwest Visa for your hotel stays and rental cars. They pay 2 points/$ for their partner hotels and car agencies. Then you could use those points to pay for your SoCal trips.

It only makes sense to use a branded hotel credit card if you're going to stay with the same hotel chain all the time. Otherwise the Southwest card is a good option.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

If lounge access (even on domestic Coach flights) and/or free checked baggage is important to you, consider crediting your early flights to Aegean's FFP, where you can earn Star Alliance Silver and Gold status fairly quickly. (Be aware, though, that certain UA/CO fares only earn 50% of flown mileage in Aegean's program, albeit with a 500-mile minimum.)

The downside is that miles accumulated in Aegean's program will not be accumulated in UA's, delaying your achievement of UA status, and the UA-specific perks that come with that. You have to weigh the pros and cons to determine whether the Aegean option makes sense for you.

I was under the impression that the UA Select Visa, or at least its good 50k signup bonus, was strictly targeted at UA elites. (If it weren't, I know a whole boatload of non-elite, yet UA-loyal folks who'd sign up in a heartbeat for it.) Hopefully, UA Insider can report back to us in the MP Explorer thread whether they're going to kill off the card and give us the new card :(

+1 on using a 2% cashback card for when the mileage-earning card offers poor earning rates.

UA elites get free checked bags. The trade off I see is gaining lounge access for losing UDU, exit row seats, and economy plus. Plus, when things go wrong, I suspect that I'd fair better as a 1P/1K than a *G.

Yep, I am a big fan of Aegean for this reason- and also 3000 EQMs to Star Silver and free checked bags.

Some UA and CO flights only earn 50% mileage credit but all US fares earn 100% mileage

For me I find these questions to be somewhat ridiculous in the sense that...where you are willing to fly out of will determine what airline co's you will regularly fly with.

Your intuition then should be able to narrow it down from there, but lets say in the event that you live in hub with numerous choices.


This is a 3 part equation....

1) What airport(s) are you flying out of? Who flies in to these airports?

Once you have identified step 1.

2) Look at route maps all of carriers identified in (1) and see if their route map makes sense for you and your travels.

3) Look beyond the domestic route map and consider alliances, and finally pick an airline company that has the system you want.

You are basically asking yourself Delta, AA, or United.

And you will find people on this forum leaning AA/United as the # of CC deals out presently/recently retired have been targeting those brands. So many of us here have a good 200,000k in airline miles from just these 2 companies alone.


I would say have no loyalty. Apply / Milk every card for the miles right now, and once you have a dozen credit cards with all the various companies you should know who to and not to fly with.

- Southwest 50k
- Continental Onepass 50k
- United 50k
- AA 75k Visa
- AA 75k Amex
- AA 75k Business


Then get some hotel cards
- Priority Club Visa non-targeted 60k offer or targeted 80k offer.
- Hilton HHonors amex 62,500
- Hilton HHonors Visa 50,000
- Marriot 50k


Questionable programs that may or may not be useful for you;
- Alaska Air 40k
- US Airwars 40-55k card


I would get all of those cards if I were you because then no matter who is cheapest, or where I am. I would have miles to make it happen.