I'm thinking about doing IF->Starwood->Swiss but there seem to be horror stories in the Starwood forum and also in the Swiss forum about 1) extreme delays and 2) locked/lost miles in one instant 3) the stability of swiss qualifier as a FF program 4) availability on AA and US Air 5) accuracy of the online calculator. Anyone successfully transfer over to Swiss efficiently? Also did you get the 2:1 and did you get the 5k (10k) bonus? Thanks

How do you Fly on AA with Qualifier Points.

Also, what kind of "savings" are yielded on awards flying AA with Qualifyer Vs. Advatage?

You redeem AA on SWISS like any other award. 0.01 per mile Awards to think about:
econ US/Canada on AA= 25k SWISS miles=$250 (pretty good even from priceline standpoint for LAX->BOS)
1st class US/Canada on AA =40K=$400 (unbeatable!)
LAX->London on AA =150k miles better than 200k on QF
Swiss is useless for trips to Asia except japan on AA however

1) delays: don't know if you are referring to flight delays or the delay of *wood points posted into your Qualiflyer (QG) account. Swiss delays were terrible after the restructuring until around March. No delays at all on my nine LX flights in April. Don't know about the points transfer delay though.

2) never heard of that before. certainly hasn't happened to me in six years of QG membership.

3) QG does indeed look like it might come to an end in its present format. The qualiflyer group itself has ceased to exist. Probably the programme will turn into a single Swiss FFP, or Swiss might even drop it altogether and join another programme if and when it joins Oneworld.

BUT this can actually be good news for members. Examples:

1996, Sabena FFP (of which I was a member) merged with QG. Result: a 25% bonus on the miles transfer.

2000, OS defected QG for LH M&M. Result: I received an extra 30k status miles in my M&M account, Qualiflyer miles were untouched.

2000 also, TK defected QG for its own FFP, Miles & Miles. Result: TK matched my QG balance in its own programme (although this is the worst managed FFP in the world).

So whatever Swiss plans, it may well work in our favour.

4) US/AA was axplained before by others.

5) the calculator works fine for me.



------------------
Hajo's World