Brand New...
 

I'm new to this forum and had a question about which would be the best airline to choose for frequent flyer miles. I'm starting a job soon and will be traveling alot and I have no idea anything about flying, only flown about 4 times my whole life. Thanks.

1. Where do you live?
2. Do you know where you will be travelling for work? Domestic or international? About how many trips per year?
3. Where might you want to go with the free trips that you earn?

Something else to try to answer if possible. Do you know if your employer has a contract with a specific airline? Larger companies often do, and you may be economically forced to use a certain carrier or alliance.

And, if that is the case, you might stand a chance of getting "comped" frequent flyer status through your employer on a specific carrier. Make sure you ask coworkers about that once you start.

Tom in Stockholm, Sweden tonight

i personally would suggest earning miles on American Airlines (AA AAdvantage) for travel on oneworld airlines, and All Nippon Airways (NH Mileage Club) for travel on star alliance airlines.

http://www.oneworld.com/
http://www.staralliance.com/
http://www.skyteam.com/

for each alliance pick 1 airline to credit the miles to.

That's the strategy I follow also. For Star Alliance I use United because being a United member I get the full domestic Star Alliance experience, but with US Air there are many aspects of United that US Air members can't use (economy plus seats).

I think the more important decision is which hotel chain to use. Airlines are still very regional, but hotels are ubiquitous so pick one program (Hilton, Marriot, Starwood) and stick with it.
Always sign up for a program because you never know how much you'll be staying with that chain in the future, but don't duplicate your programs (not really possible with hotels, but quite easy with airlines).

Nothing is worse than having orphan points.

home airport
 

Availability of service at your home airport and to likely destinations will matter most.

personally, even if it was very inconvenient to avoid skyteam, i would do it.

i even have lounge access through amex, but i just dont see any value in the miles or status. (thanks to FT)

id recommend starwood for hotels as their points are the most valuable.

unless youre traveling to places where there are no starwood, then you have to go with another chain, either by itself, or in addition to starwood.

Even if you stay at a hotel chain only infrequently (e.g. you usually stay at a different one, but for this trip, the one you usually stay at is full or inconvenient or whatever), sign up for the program. They may give you minor freebies (e.g. free breakfast), possibly reduce the chance of being walked to a different hotel in an overbooking situation, and can throw frequent flyer points to the airline program of your choice if you don't want to collect hotel points for a chain that you use too rarely for the hotel points to matter.

One special case is if you do a lot of US west coast flying. If so, Alaska Airlines may be useful as either a primary program, or a backup program if your primary is Star Alliance (United Airlines or US Airways). Alaska Airlines is a frequent flyer partner of both the US-based One World airline (American Airlines) and the three US-based Sky Team airlines (Delta Airlines, Continental Airlines, Northwest Airlines).

The so-called "low cost carriers" are generally frequent flyer program isolates, though you might as well join the programs if you fly them, just in case your travel on them is enough to get an award.

Wow, thanks for all the reponses! I'm from DC and I would imagine that I'll be traveling domestically primarily. Because I'll be using Dulles Airport, I thought about JetBlue might be the best choice. I'm not quite sure exactly how much I'll be traveling, depending on what my work decides to do with me, but it would be great if I can use my frequent mileage for intercontinential travels, which means JetBlue might be a bad idea. Does anybody know if Southwest and AA fly to other countries? (Asia and Europe)

For Asia and Europe, Southwest is useless. American flies worldwide, either itself or via its participation in the OneWorld Alliance. You can find out much more about each program from their websites, www.southwest.com and www.aa.com. Find out which fits you best and pick. You can join multiple programs, and between Southwest, JetBlue, and American, there is no overlap in mileage programs.

fuzz

Why the desire for low cost carriers? I avoid Southwest like the plague. I have flown southwest once in my life and that is enough for me. JetBlue is nice because they have live TV and are non-union.

If you're by Dulles it's going to be hard to avoid United.

American Airlines is a full fledged legacy and will get you pretty much everywhere you need to go or the other oneworld parters can.

for most purposes out of washington, it's american, united or usairways.

other carriers only enter as a choice if your business flights often take you to Atlanta or Cincinnati (Delta), Newark or Houston (continental), minneapolis and detroit (Northwest) or international destinations.

The quick expiration of Southwest points and the lack of international flights, makes them a poor choice unless you travel a lot in a year and want a domestic flight. Jet Blue has relatively limited service out of Washington and i dont believe it has much on an international connection.

I think you have a lot of research ahead of you. Time to visit some of the individual airline forums here on FT.

Tom in the Finnair Lounge at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport

Take a look at the United program.

They have a lot of flights out of IAD, and they fly to Europe, Asia, and South America. Additionally, they have an extensive partner network which will take you almost anywhere in the world that you would ever want to go. You don't have to fly much at all (only 25,000 miles) to get Premier status and that will get you Economy Plus and a little more leg room . If you fly more, you will figure out how to keep yourself in first class. ;)

If you have to travel to a lot of podunk towns, HHonors is probably the best program, because there is almost always a Hampton Inn in every town of any size in America. Hampton Inn stays are pretty predictable and count toward status just like a night at the Waldorf Astoria.

Good luck in your job!

If you want to fly to Asia and Europe using frequent flyer miles/credits, JetBlue and Southwest are worthless programs.

If you'll be on United's/USAirways's routes mostly, look into a Star Alliance program since that'll get you your award redemption options. (I use United, USAir, BMI, ANA and SAS's programs for my Star Alliance flights.)

If you'll be on American Airlines' and Alaska Airlines' routes, then AA's program is a great one.

For you to get the best advice, a lot more things would need to be known (e.g., anticipated flying patterns, anticipated lodging habits, purchase habits, redemption desires, etc.).

I think you've gotten some good suggestions from previous posters.

Welcome to FT. Enjoy. :)

The LCCs tend to have better economy class than the legacies do for non-premium economy for non-elites. I'd rather fly Southwest than standard economy as a non-elite on United for a short notice business trip, since a short notice booking on United usually means getting an undesirable seat if you are not elite. Plus, Southwest has a bit more legroom than United's standard economy.

Which brings up the question for the original poster: how much is "a lot" of flying? Specifically, compare the expected amount of flying to the elite qualification levels and elite perks of various airlines and take that into consideration (as well as which airlines fly where you want to go) when choosing FF programs. Elite perks (like using the empty first class checkin desk or United's Economy Plus seats with more legroom) can make a significant difference in how pleasant a legacy airline flight is.

If your flights are heavy with Alaska Airlines' routes, the Alaska Airlines program is probably better than the American Airlines program, since Alaska can also collect mileage from Delta, Continental, and Northwest flights (as well as American), and has a lower domestic economy award ticket threshhold.

Since you'll be flying from mostly Dulles, I agree with the previous posts that say UA is a good choice of FFP to follow.

United and US Air
 

Since you are obviously a newbie at this, it is worth mentioning to you that one of the principle advantages of these alliances is that you can fly on any airline in the alliance, and credit your FF miles to some other airline in the alliance.

So, in your case, if you concentrate on the United MileagePlus FF program, you can also take flights on US Air (another Star Alliance member), and use your United FF #, and credit that mileage to your United Account. That way, you get all the miles in one place, getting to elite status faster, and getting to award levels faster.

(This assumes, of course, that US Air continues to be part of the StarAlliance, if there is a Delta merger. Who knows.)

Then, for redemptions, you can look for award seats on United, US Air, and the other Star Alliance member airlines to Asia and Europe.

...and America West!

Also you get elite qualification miles to United when you fly USAir or America West (and other international carriers).

Try to focus your miles on United so you can get Premier status and Economy Plus access. Out of Dulles, United is the no-brainer choice.

I go to Baltimore from Seattle and drive to Dulles to get the best non-stop options to Seattle. With United you can get many non-stops to SEA, SFO, LAX, PDX on the west coast, and redeyes back if you need em.