High, I am a newbie in this forum and since I could not find my topic in other threads may I ask for your advice: Living in Germany I will travel between Germany and Australia once a year from 2007 onwards . Plus, my three kids staying in Germany will hop between DE and AU once or twice a year to see me in AU. Considering that I will likely do about 2 or 3 inland flights in AU as well, which frequent flyer programme would you prefer in my place ?
I guess I need to put each single kid on a programme individually as miles usually can only be credited to the person who flew not to the ticket buyer (yes, that's me ) ?
At present I am in the Star Alliance miles-and-more programme of Lufthansa and wonder whether to stay or to change - or join an additional programme.
Thanks for any tip !

Welcome to FlyerTalk, Cosmpolit!

First of all, in case you're not aware, three-letter codes are airports. Countries are two-letter codes. So people seeing your message tiltle (without reading through) are going to think you mean you're interested in travel to AUStin, Texas! The country code for Germany is DE, and the country code for Australia is AU.

Second, it matters a lot what your goal is (awards? upgrades? lounge access? exit row seating?) plus what kind of fares you'll be booking (advance economy, last-minute economy, business, etc). The reasons this info is vital is because, for example, some airline programs don't give you miles (or don't give you many miles) on cheap economy seats (for example, BA only gives 25% miles on discount economy, and SN Brussels doesn't give any miles for its web special fares).

Also, you have to decide if a better FF program or a better in-flight experience is worth changing planes somewhere in Europe (you didn't mention where you are in Germany, so I don't know if you have to change planes no matter which carrier).

I would suggest your first step should be to figure out whether you can use Star Alliance within Australia, and if not, will you have enough flights there to make it worth signing up for another program just for that. Then, if you need another program for Australia (presumably Qantas in OneWorld), research that airline and how it earns with partners and how it treats it members carefully. (Qantas uses an unusual points system, rather than miles.)

Lastly, figure out how wide a European net you're willing to consider. For example, if you think you want to earn miles within Australia and that requires Qantas, you could use Finnair (nicer than average in economy IMHO) through HEL, or BA through LHR, and choose any of those programs (or even theoretically yet another OneWorld member's program) for earning. (But if you want upgrades, you have to choose to earn in the program you'll actually be flying the most. At least in OneWorld, you can't do upgrades across alliance partners.)

Sorry that I used the wrong terms-will do better next time ! - And thank you so much for drawing my attention to these mistakes. And what is more, I sure will now check out the options you pointed out for me ! When finished I may post the result in case other talkers might be interested as well.

Welcome to FT, Cosmopolit -- and don't worry too much about making mistakes in abbreviations. I've been around here for some time and I still make those same mistakes on a regular basis!

I don't believe there is really any way to accumulate Star Alliance points within Australia. In particular, I don't know of any carrier flying domestically within Australia that is a member of Star Alliance -- with the exception of a very few continuation flights on UA and TG between Sydney and Melbourne which cannot be bought as solely domestic sectors (although they can sometimes be tacked on to an international arrival or departure from Sydney).

I would say you should fly LH to/from Australia, keep your LH Miles and More membership (which will also be of value when you fly within Europe on LH), and do any domestic Australian flights separately.

You could additionally join either the Virgin Blue or the Qantas program to get points in Australia, but neither program is very generous when compared to Miles and More, if you judge by the complaints of their members here on Flyertalk!

If the OPs goal is to take the direct QF service from FRA through to SYD or MEL and use miles to upgrade, whilst the QF programme is one of the least generous out of the major global carriers, it is the only programme that allows you to use miles to upgrade on QF flights, therefore it might be the best way to go especially if the OP is also going to then take domestic flights within Australia.

Personally, I would stay with M&M for your international flights and signup for Qantas for your domestic flights and credit card spend contributions. However, it may be advantageous for your children to fly with a One World carrier (i.e. Qantas) [See below]

Because you're not flying very frequently, Qantas's frequent flyer program would be of little use to you. Their redemption upgrade policy is to allocate upgrades based on membership level (all upgrade requests are waitlisted, and only allocated a few hours prior to travel). Because you'll only be Bronze, the likelihood of an upgade is slim.

The only advantage to you of Qantas's FF program is that you can transfer points between family members - so if you created an account for each of your children you could transfer their points into your account.

Whichever you choose, ensure that you signup for Qantas PRIOR to residency in Australia in order to bypass the signup fee.