Stuck In the Middle
 

Hello,

I am not sure where this post belongs. Move it if you need to :)

I am trying to take advantage of reward programs. I travel at least 10 times per year. The regular part of my travel is from Atlantic Canada to Los Angeles - about 6 per year. I could be traveling anyway in the world. I expect this to continue for at least 5 years.

I have an Areo Plan membership and a United membership.

I am trying to be loyal to the one I can benefit the most from. Hence my dilemma.

I find in order to benefit from upgrades – and that is what I am focusing on, I either fly United or purchase an up scaled ticket from Air Canada – Latitude I believe.

Now to upgrade on United I have to actually being getting on a United flight and not the partner, Air Canada. Well, on this end there is no chance to get on a United flight as they do not fly in Atlantic Canada and they use Air Canada out of Montreal and Toronto.

Even if I have my travel agent book me through United I still have to log into the Air Canada web site to print my boarding pass. As a result I do not have the option available to take advantage of up grade possibilities.

BTW, booking Latitude is not out of the question, especially if it gets me what I want – upgrades and lounge access.

Can anyone offer me some advice?

Thanks

BTW, my first post :)

Croco, Welcome to FT!

You have found the place with the greatest wealth of information! Just so I won't repost here I did answer your post over on my forum if you do happen to check here first.

Thanks
Superdawg

I think I would go with Air Canada, because a r/t from YHZ (just assuming an eastern Canada airport) to LAX is ~6K miles. Doing that 6 times would be 36K miles, which would qualify your for Air Canada Elite (35K miles) which would earn you Star Alliance Gold (which includes lounge access) as well as a number of upgrades on Air Canada flights.

Since you've asked the same question here I'll close this thread in MilesBuzz. That'll ensure that all of the answers are in the same place, and conversation is easier to follow.

Thanks,
Gary
aka gleff
MilesBuzz moderator