Hello all,

I have been lucking on these boards for a while now, just trying to soak up all the info that is on here and learn stuff. Think this is the right place for this questions, but also not sure. I am still confused about some things, but I am learning a lot of stuff. Just some quick stuff about me. I live in Las Vegas and work at Nellis AFB and am 24 years old (which means I only have 1 airport to fly in and out of within 150-200 miles), in addition, I travel a decent amount with work. For instance I have already gotten 8 credits on SWA RR in just 5 months, 8K miles on AA and I am getting ready to go to Guam in a week on Contential. I would say I go TDY at least once a month. As most of you know, I'm sure, the major airline out of here is SWA, however their program of 1 credit per one way doesn't make sense for a longer trip to the east coast.

I am a member of many FF groups and am looking for advise on what to do. I have been a NWA member for the longest, probably 15 years. I have by far the most miles on them and have even used a few free tickets with them. I also have DL, AA and SWA rewards programs. DL and NWA are codeshares so I don't need both of them correct? I guess my question is: I know CO, DL and NWA are codeshares so that means that anything I earn on any of the flights I can put only my world perks card right? Or should I ditch the WP card and go with the DL card. Here is the miles I have on each:
- DL: 20251
- NWA: 22415
- AA: 8640
- SWA: 8 Credits

As I said my flight to Guam is on CO (out of LAX, I'm hoping on Ted from here to LA) and is in class H with a RT of 12180 miles. Which it looks like on NWA website I get that I earn Banked Miles at 100% and Elite Qualifying miles for this class at 150%, which means ~18K miles. This will give me ~20K EQM on the year. Another question I have is, is Silver status that good? I'm just need 5K more miles and plan on going to Columbus at least twice in the fall for football games (I have OSU alum) and that would get me there easily. Is there much of a difference b/w my Delta and NWA card? Of course, I have 4334 miles traveled on Medallion qualification status this year and I could send thoes 18K elite miles to Delta. Any suggestions? Which elite program is better or is silver pretty much useless?

Sorry this email is all over the place. In addition, I travel SWA a lot, what does everyone think about their RR program?

In addition, that LAS-LAX flight is on Ted, should I sign up for their FF program? I don't think they are partnered with AA or NWA/DL?

Lastly, I have a marriott and priority club card for hotels. I am staying at the Guam Marriott Hotel and Spa for the 8 days I am there at $130 a night. Any suggestions for keeping the marriott rewards cards on hotel points or switching to airline miles to help me get to this elite status (if it is possible).

Thanks a bunch - again sorry for the convoluted email.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to reply, but if not, the mod will move it to another board.

IMO, airlines are devaluing the miles themselves more and more. It's almost impossible to get a Delta award for less then 50,000 miles. So unless you are at least a gold elite, meaning you are travelling 50K miles a year and getting a 100% bonus, you are going to get only modest actual flight rewards.

As you observed, SWA's program is best if you are making short hops. SWA I think also does not have blackouts. So if you go to LA often, it can be worthwhile to fly SWA. 8 round-trips to LA earn you a ticket that you can use to go to Columbus. By comparison, you'd have to make that trip 50 times on Delta (if they fly that route).

The main thing is to make sure you make elite. A lot of members of this board manage their miles carefully to make sure they go over 25K, 50K, etc. on a given airline. This year I had about 7K elite qualifying miles on Northwest before I changed jobs. NW does not go to where I mostly go on business now, but I am posting all my Delta and Continental miles to NW, to make silver elite. I'd suggest you use the trip to Guam to make sure you at least make silver on one carrier.

I also think it's helpful to have miles on multiple carriers, if possible. When you go to redeem, sometimes you might find better availabilty on one carrier than another.

Ultimately the system works most to the benefit of the most frequent fliers. Someone flying 100K miles a year is going to get much more than 4 times the benefits of someone flying 25K. I'm not saying that's unfair or a bad thing. I feel kind of bad for flyers who fly 100K+ miles a year. For every time I'm delayed or spend the night in a city I didn't plan on, it happens to them four times. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to maximize your benefits from the travel you do. I remember a few years ago checking in for a red-eye home from Vegas. I nestled into my luxurious center coach seat and started to wonder if I could even use my laptop. Then I heard my name called and was asked to come to the front of the cabin. This could only mean one of three things: A close relative had died, they had found contraband in my luggage, or a first-class passenger hadn't checked in and I was next on the free upgrade list. Since Mom was carrying my drugs on a different flight, I correctly guessed that it was the third! Nice little surprises like that make a difference.

Welcome to FT!
Are those mileage totals EQM or RDM?
The first thing to realize is that miles are like free money that airlines give you in return for your business. Treat them as such. Then, define what you want to do with the miles you earn. Do you want to upgrade your paid flights, or take trips to Oz or Europe for free? Make a plan for your miles.
Most people think that trying to concentrate your flying on one carrier as much as possible is the way to go. However, if you are at the mercy of the government travel ofiice, that's hard to do. I would pick one of your SkyTeam programs to stay with (which one will depend on who you fly the most, I guess,) and keep AA as well. Many people think that flying on US Air while crediting the miles to UA is a good way to go - but it's up to you. As far as Southwest: (WN) I guess it's inevitable that you will fly on WN a lot from LAS, much in the same way that you will fly US/HP. I personally don't think the WN program is worth much, since all that domestic flying in coach will eventually get you...another free domestic flight in coach. At least the big airlines go overseas, and your miles can get you into the premiuim cabins.

Just pick a program from all three of the major alliances (Star, oneWorld and SkyTeam) so you always have somewhere to credit a flight. I would try to avoid WN, jetBlue (B6), Frontier (F9), ATA, etc, as their programs are not affiliated with the bigger airlines. But it's up to you. Have fun, keep asking questions when you need to!

What is the difference b/w EQM and RDM?

The miles I listed were the total miles I have. I have about 2K Elite qualifying miles this year on NWA and 4K on Delta.

It also seems that the delta program is trash and I should just stick with NWA?

EQM = Elite Qualifying Miles (Medallion QM on DL) that show how many miles you've flown on a carrier since Jan 1 of each year. They reset next Jan 1 and are used to determine your elite status for the next 12 months. Almost every US carrier has something like this:
<25k=General Member
25-49999=Silver
50-74999=Gold
>75k=Platinum
with the exception of UA, where the "Platinum" is at 100K (hence the term 1K)

RDM are redeemable miles that you can spend on upgrades, award tickets, etc. These don't reset at the end of the year, but they might expire after a certain time. Most airlines give you an RDM bonus ion flights f you are elite. You can also earn RDM with credit cards, hotel stays, car rentals, blah blah blah, depending on the program. The FT forums for each program will give you more details.

So, you can see why it's a good idea to stick with one airline whenever possible - you earn more EQM toward your elite status, and get the RDM bonus as well. Having about 10k EQM on 3 different carriers is not really a good thing, but having 30+k EQM on one carrier is better.

trekwars: it might also help you to look in the FAQ section of one of the airline forums for answers to a lot of these "beginner" questions. ^

That's up to you. Like I said, figure out what you want to do with your miles and then roll with it. I know a lot of people who have NW and DL and are happy with them. If you want to fly to Europe for free, maybe DL or CO will work for you. If you want to go to Asia, NW might be the better Skyteam pick.

I'd much rather fly DL than NW, but like has been said, it depends on where you want to go.

I agree that staying with one is better, at least up to 2nd tier. You can get status easier, bonus miles easier, etc. Now if you could get 50k EQM on each, that might be better than 100k on one. But, 50k on one is DEFINITELY better than 25k on each.

Now that America West flights can earn UA miles, get a UA number and start using them instead of Southwest.

Here's my $.02

IMHO the best way to determine what program to use is to look at a few basic needs:

-What airlines provide good service (frequency, destination, etc.) from your airport.
-What destinations do you typically fly to for your revenue flights.
-What destinations do you want to redeem your miles to get to.

My experience is that you will find 1, possibly 2, airlines that will meet all 3 needs reasonably well. Understanding that there are probably multiple airlines that meet 1 or 2 needs perfectly but not totally miss the mark for the 3rd need.

With respect to DL being trash, I think that you will find advocates and detractors for each airline. Just remember that these are individual opinions based up individual experiences and variations of the 3 basic needs.

IMHO it is best to achieve status (the higher the better) on the airline you fly most. This includes your revenue and award flights. This ensures that you receive the most perks that are available with your status.

Most of the very frequent fliers, those able to acheive high status on multiple airlines, usually max out their status miles on their preferred airline before flying others.

If you already have EQMs with an airline but you aren't able to fly them for the majority of your trips then the benefits of crediting partner flights to that program to earn status on that airline are almost unusable.

Welcome to FT!

This would be more appropriate for the MilesBuzz forum - so I'm going to move it there.

Thanks!

bhatnasx
Mileage Run Moderator

Oh yeah...Welcome to FT!!

Welcome to FT!

I would definently join the UA Mileage Plus FFP, since your LAS-LAX flight is on Ted. With US/HP also a major presence in LAS, when you fly them you can credit those miles to your UA account. And with partner purchases (for grocery shopping) at Von's/Safeway, you can earn more miles to your UA account!

When I lived in the LAS area (actually IFP but flew mostly from LAS), I earned many FF miles with UA just doing my normal shopping! Now living on the east cost, I earn many FF miles with CO doing my normal grocery shopping at Shop Rite!

When you fly, join the FFP of whoever you fly. On my many flights out of LAS, I flew (and joined the FFPs of) UA, US, DL, NW and CO. When redeeming awards, UA may not have one, but DL might. Or CO may not have one, but US might.

WN's program is good for those who make a lot of short flights and/or one day car rentals. A short round trip is 12.5% of the way to a domestic award on WN, but only 4% or 5% (assuming 1000 miles) on some other airline. Similarly, a one day car rental gets you 3.125% of the way to a free domestic award on WN, but only 0.2% or 0.25% of the way there (50 miles) on some other airline. Of course, making occasional medium to long domestic flights would allow you to make the best use of a WN award.

Of course, if you'd rather have upgrades or elite status perks than domestic coach tickets, then WN awards are less desirable.

What you probably want to do is pick one airline within each alliance or partnership and concentrate your mileage on that designated airline. For example, NW, DL, and CO are SkyTeam partners, so you can pick one of them to concentrate miles on (although since you have a significant number of miles on both NW and DL, you may want to accumulate just enough on the "other" one to reach an award and then stop using that one to collect miles). Concentrating miles within an alliance or partnership on one airline makes it easier to get awards or elite status than having them scattered among several airlines (e.g. if you had concentrated your NW and DL mileage, you'd have 42666 miles, enough for some types of awards and closer to elite status, while your current accumulations are just short of awards on both).

AA is part of the OneWorld alliance.

Interestingly, AS (Alaska Airlines) is a mileage partner with AA, NW, DL, and CO.

Ted is United, which is part of the Star Alliance, along with US Airways / America West.

Note, however, that different airlines in an alliance may have different non-alliance partners. For example, the only SkyTeam member with a mileage partnership with Eva Air is CO (indeed, CO is the only airline based in the US that has a mileage partnership with Eva Air), though that is only really relevant if you want to fly to or through Taipei (Taiwan). Of course, Alaska Airlines is an airline with partnerships with some, but not all SkyTeam and OneWorld airlines.

Of course, if you fly the mileage isolates like Southwest or Jet Blue, you might as well collect the points on those programs. (Strictly speaking, Southwest is no longer an isolate, but its only partner is America Trans Air).