Qantas Vs BA FF Program
 

Greetings,

I am a Qantas FF and have recently moved to London where I expect to do a lot of flying with British Airways through my work.

Given that both Qantas and BA are part of the oneworld alliance, is there any benefit to joining the BAEC seeing that I will be flying on mostly BA - or is it all much of a muchness....

TIA.

Montag

The biggest advantage BAEC offers over most other programs is the family membership option where you can pool miles from upto 4 'family' members into one account. Dont know if Qantas offers that...

Also once in a while BA has promotions with Diners Club and Starwood where you can get a huge bonus when you transfer... Sometimes double. They seem to be more consistent with these promotions than most others.

It's been a 50 percent bonus the past few summers - not something to sneeze at, but down from the earlier doubling.

Even within an alliance, each airline tends to treat its own elite flyers better than its partners'. For example, as top-tier (now mid-tier, but hopefully that exile ends in a few months) AA elite I never got a thing from BA beyond mandatory specifics such as club access and premium check-in. You may be QF super-titanium diamond, but as far as BA cares you're pond scum along with the rest of the unwashed masses (which includes myself).

If you might fly AA from the UK to the States, AA flights don't earn BA miles because of market share/antitrust issues, but they do earn QF miles.

Finally, there are differences in how the two programs reward different fare levels. Look at both carefully in terms of your purchase patterns.

Hi, Montag - welcome to FT!

Come over to the BA forum and ask the question again. There are quite a few of us BA/QF dual members. Plus much will depend on what sort of flying you're likely to do, and what you might want to redeem points for.

main benefit is that you miss out on the bonus offers of getting extra miles, like shopping at tesco, BA amex 2 4 1 voucher and any BA bonus offers they run.

i am about to move to BA myself from QF Plat, and i feel i am missing out when my partner gets the bonus offers.

main problem you will have is timing it right so you don't have a period of no status.