Please Help Me Pick A Program
 

I will be making roundtrips between BTR/MSY and RDU every month for the next year. I will also be making 2 trips per year to BNA and one trip to PHX and one trip to BWI. I am sure that there will be an obscure short trip thrown in there too. I am currently with AAdvantage, but am considering finding a loyalty program that will allow for maximum upgrades and cross alliance opportunities. I am not against making a MSY-MIA-ORD-RDU-DCA-MIA-MSY jaunt each trip if it means that I can reach elite status quickly. I have considered a challenge, but considering my travels are not condensed, I am not sure that I could reach my goal. Please help me find a program that will maximize my chances to get status.

how many flown mi on your expanded msy-rdu monthly trip on aa, us/ua, dl?

theres a lot of work to check it out....

Making a decision like this depends greatly on how you wish to use your miles. It's generally considered easier to use miles on UA and (to a lesser extent) AA than it is on DL.

Who's paying for the travel? Is it business or a long distance relationship? The reason I ask is because, as a MSY flyer, even though I get the miles to qualify, I have never gotten anywhere close to the "spend" required to get status under the new Delta rules.

So if you are paying for the travel, DL makes no sense because you'll save thousands shopping on price -- or at least I have, I'm an aggressive shopper. I can forgo a lot of upgrades for that kind of money. If your boss is paying for the travel, and you are price insensitive, I guess it's a different story.

DL is wonderful for domestic upgrades and since it sounds like you will be flying shorter domestic hops, it would otherwise be worth looking at. But who wants to hassle with wondering how much of your ticket price counts toward elite qualification (taxes don't count) and all the other nonsense that makes it clear DL doesn't respect your time.

Of course, AA doesn't respect your time either but they usually disrespect it by asking you to play some stupid game to get extra miles, something a busy person can just ignore. DL's new rules not only waste time and energy, they probably do need to be deeply understood if you want to get much benefit from the program

So this ex-MSY flyer can no longer recommend DL. :-(


It is also a huge, huge hassle to search for and spend DL miles. There are whole blogs devoting to explaining to people how they can possibly use their miles -- and almost everyone I know (other than myself) usually just gives up anyway.

[QUOTE] how many flown mi on your expanded msy-rdu monthly trip on aa, us/ua, dl? /QUOTE]

Generally speaking, on American, the trip would consist of 4 or 6 segments with 2886 or 3600 miles per trip.
On United, the segments would be the same and the mileage would likely be 2586 or 3750 per trip.

[QUOTE] Making a decision like this depends greatly on how you wish to use your miles. It's generally considered easier to use miles on UA and (to a lesser extent) AA than it is on DL. /QUOTE]

I would like to use my miles for vacation travel. I am also going to switch credit cards to a card like the Chase Ink to maximize my mileage account.

[QUOTE] Who's paying for the travel? Is it business or a long distance relationship? /QUOTE]

The travel is employer funded, but travel policies dictate that I must be reasonable, so no booking in F or Full-Y.

[QUOTE] It is also a huge, huge hassle to search for and spend DL miles. /QUOTE]

I agree. I am not a fan of the minimum revenue requirement of Delta. My father travels 75% for work and is a Diamond member, but I just don't see the value in it from an awards perspective. I did like the fact that he was upgraded nearly 95% of the time. I am not that familiar with United's upgrade policy, but how does the complementary upgrades work in practice? I would not likely be a 1K, but am thinking that I could easily get into the mid range of the status game.