Advice on the best 2 FF programs to have and why?
 

I am looking to maxamize my FF useage....

I have CO, and DL cards now - with almost no DL miles and around 70k miles in CO ( my company killed flying after 9-11 )

I also have about 100k AMEX miles -

At any rate with the airlines limiting you to reward travel every 3rd Sunday and only when you are flying counterclockwise

I am looking to maxamize my flying - I would like two FF programs - that are the best twoards those who are loyal to that airline -

Sorry if this is a rant ( mile compared to some I see ) but seems to me that the airlines are totally blowing off their FF base to cut costs.... maybe someone needs to remind them WE are the hands that feed them....

I am in the same boat, use my AMEX Skymiles, and gold card to accumulate miles and points. With the new announced partnerships on Delta, plus United, I think Delta or United is the way to go.

Once I add on my phone bill to accumulate too, should be crankin..

Chris

There are a lot of things you have to consider when choosing FF programs such as:

1) what airline(s) serve your area(s) the best
2) where you think most of your miles will come from (affinity cards, bonuses, actual mileage flown, etc.)
3) do you want to use your miles on flights or upgrades, or what?

I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch of other factors as well, but I'm going to focus on where you want to go on your award flights. If you want to go to Hawaii (be REALLY flexible) then Delta is not a bad choice because they have award flights for only 30K miles. (Most programs set the award at 35K.) On the other hand, if you want to go to Australia, then DL is not so great cause they nor any of their partners have good, direct coverage of that area. If you are thinking about a trip to South America, then CO has a lot of coverage. Think about where you want to go when you start spending your miles and then start accumulating them in a program that can get you there for a reasonable amount and in a reasonable manner.

yorock

High speed connectivity allows me to "cover them all". Doing this will enable you to take part when good promo opportunities are present. I then concentrate my flying on one (1) or two (1) carriers for status purposes. This year I will gain entry level status with United. I intend to gain Silver status with NW during the first quarter of '03.

Cheers!

RGreen--

I agree with yorock that it depends on what your travel patterns are, how you want to use your miles, etc.

The strategy I adopted was to focus on 2 programs which offered the greatest "coverage", both in terms of accumulating miles and using them. I don't fly that much so achieving status is not an issue for me.

I went with United and Alaska. That combination allows me to accumulate on any major US airline: UA, DL and US on UA; CO, NW, and AA on AS. That allows me to shop for flights based upon price, not loyalty.

For example, neither UA nor DL allow you to accumulate miles with travel on AA, which has a big presence in MIA. Depending upon where you live in Florida, you may be missing out on some bargains.

The other advantage is that you can shop around for award travel, which your AMEX card does to some degree. CO tends to be stingy with awards, but my AS miles allow me shop around for NW and AA awards instead.

I would disagree with yorock about CO's coverage of South America. They don't include SCL - a great city south of the border - and for a Floridian, they force you to backtrack to EWR or IAH to reach Latin America.

Since you have no miles with DL, you have no cost in dropping them in favor of another FF program. It's a good time to consider your options.

Finally, I would reduce your affinity cards to a single one to minimize on annual fees, unless they offer a good bonus, like the $50 companion fare on AS. I hear some FTers have several AS Visa cards!

If you like to fly free domestically on short notice, consider making WN your secondary program. Their award tickets are not capacity controlled. Those 100k Amex points will almost get you a Companion Pass, if that is useful to you. It even works in conjunction with an award ticket.

Assuming Amex "miles" are Membership Rewards points, you can transfer all your miles and points to HHonors for a total of 270,000 HH points.

270K points is worth travel as follows, with generally more flexible rules than FF programs:

6 companion flights @ 40,000 points on HP or UA (30,000 points left over)

3 domestic US trips @ 85,000 pts without a companion on HP, AA, CO, NW, UA, AC, AK, YZ, US (15,000 points left over) (also only 75,000 points for each RT on WN)

And with just 10,000 more points & VIP status(see Hilton forum for many ways to get easy points and VIP status, like getting a credit card) you can use 280,000 points for a one week vacation in Hawaii including airfare for two from anywhere in the continental US.

I use HH as a transfer repository for all my miles, and redeem them for hotels and air trips. Generally, hotel redemptions are the best values, though the air rewards, especially companion tix, can be worthwhile, too.

You can explore all your options at the HHonors website, starting here if you like:

http://www.hilton.com/en/hhonors/rewards/index.jhtml

[This message has been edited by Rut Dog (edited 08-28-2002).]

If someone were starting afresh, I would probably recommend Starwood points. It seems to allow you to adapt your strategies to whichever program is currently the best rather than statically choose and be locked in one program. I am talking here about "non-butt" miles. I guess you still have to choose an airline for "butt" miles.