Hey Everyone,

First time poster here. I will be starting some heavy traveling starting in September. I wanted to try and concentrate my miles on one airline or one alliance. Was hoping for some advice on best airline and best alliance for my needs (as well as best credit card to get more miles on that airline). I will be flying a majority of time to the following cites/countries: Hong Kong, China, Bangkok, India, Turkey, Brazil, and some US States (Cali, Georgia, North Carolina). Most important for me is (preferably free) upgrading possibilities followed by on flight service/lounges.

Hope I posted in the right forum. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

Welcome to FT THE soni!

Where are you traveling FROM? That way, we can provide better answers. The "best" answer from IAH may not be the "best" as from ORD, and may be different than the "best" from ROC, BNA or IFP! So if you can provide more information, maybe we can help.

Good Point! Should have mentioned that.

New York area, so (in order of frequency)... JFK, EWR, and LGA

I myself like CO, since EWR is your 2nd preferred airport. Even with EWR's delays, since it is a major hub for CO, you'll have a choice of flights. And with the Chase CO MasterCard, you can earn many more miles. (That's how I earn many of mine! And if you're anywhere near a Shop Rite, you'll earn CO miles there too for grocery shopping!)

If you're stuck in Y, CO is one of the (very) few airlines that provide meals to Y domestically.

And since CO is part of SkyTeam, you can earn and redeem on many other airlines, including DL and NW!

You might look at the asiamiles program and oneworld. They have good coverage in most of the destinations you mentioned. I fly on CX to asia alot as well as other asiamiles partners to most of the destinations you mentioned occasionally. The upgrade possibilities on using asiamiles are going to be in more expensive fare buckets in October 2007 so that might be a consideration for you. I think asiamiles are actually harder to come by because if you are in the USA its hard to find credit cards ect that also award them. So for me at least I have to earn most my miles through actually sitting in a seat on an airplane.

Another consideration is that on CX you earn miles from asiamiles and status from the Marco Pola Club which takes awhile to figure out.

You will get different opinions so check them out and see what will work for your particular situation.

If you want to go with a us carrier I use worldperks a lot becasue of their exposure in the far east and europe and the relative ease and low number of miles required for redeeming awards in asia... I think all us carriers are substandard when compared to the legacy carriers in the far east so asiamiles is my first choice.

Pay attention; my advice is coming from someone who understands the 30 largest frequent flyer programs well and has personal experience with about 20 of them. I also fly a TON on a TON of airlines and hold top tier status on all three alliances. Broad experience is needed for sound advice here. It is frustrating to see people recommending their airline when that airline does a very poor job of what the OP said was most important to him.

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THE soni - Welcome to FT! ^ You did post in the right forum and gave almost enough information in your first post; far better than most!

You will want to choose one primary program from one of the three alliances (Oneworld, Skyteam, and Star) and bank everything with that program while flying the entire alliance.

You most important things are:
1) Free upgrades
2) Product quality

There will be a major trade off here.

Lets start with upgrades: It appears you will be flying enough to make top tier on the airline you settle on. You will want to choose a US based program because no international program top tier status will provide you with unlimited domestic and the ability to upgrade almost every international flight for free.

Top tier requires either 75,000 miles flown or 100,000 miles flown in a calendar year to qualify depending on the airline (US airlines considered here). All six US legacy carriers would essentially provide you with unlimited free upgrades on any fare when flying domestically.
What are your chances of clearing domestically as a top tier. Something like:
AA 90% US 90% NW 90% UA 70% DL 70% CO 60%
Aircraft type and route make a ton of difference but overall a domestic F class quality rating from best to worse would look something like:
CO AA UA DL NW US
(UA and AA have the best business class products JFK-LAX/SFO)
Internationally, only two of the legacy carrier give their top tier flyer free systemwide upgrades.
AA gives 8 per year
UA gives 6 per year
These are valid anywhere these airline fly (not on partners!) on most fares including cheap ones.
(DL and US give a few certs that are very hard to use. NW gives 2 certs to those who fly 150,000 miles in year.)
Internationally the other way to upgrade is miles.
NW has a good Asia network but only allows miles upgrades from very high fares.
CO allows upgrades from cheaper fares requiring a large co-pay (ie $450 each way plus lots of miles) and from very expensive fares without the co-pay.
DL doesn't have enough of an Asia network to be a good option.
US doesn't have enough of an Asia network to be a good option.
AA allows upgrades from most cheap fares with miles but requires a co-pay (ie $300 each way).
UA allows upgrades from medium fares and above with miles and does not require a co-pay.

Now for #2, product:
The best business class products transpacific are on Asian carriers including Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Japan Airlines, All Nippon, and others.
The best business class product transatlantic is arguably on British Airways with other European carriers such as SASE coming in next.
Each of these products can only be upgraded to from cheap fares with miles from that airline's own program. All these programs would award you 50% or less overall of what you would be earning from flying US carriers on discounted coach fares and many of the above either heavily restrict what fares can be upgraded or/and charge 150% to 200% of what their US counterparts do for upgrades. Essentially, you would earn enough upgrade certs and miles to upgrade every flight you take with the best of the US programs but would be looking at being able to upgrade 1/3 of the time at best using most of the above programs trying to upgrade cheap coach to business.

I suggest choosing carriers with decent but inferior business class products so that you can try and upgrade 100% of the time instead of maybe 35%.

The only carriers that will give you sufficient upgrade instruments to try and upgrade 100% of the time are AA and UA. Between the 8 VIP certs AA would give you and AA miles you could upgrade most flights, paying a $300 co-pay to upgrade with miles after you run out of VIPs. International clearance rate for EXPs is something like 90% off peak and 60% peak. UA has a similar international clearance rate for 1Ks. Between the 6 SWU certs UA would give you and UA miles you could upgrade most flights for free...using SWU certs for the cheapies and miles for medium fares.

For AA, with the exceptions of India and China, you would fly JFK-NRT upgrading on AA metal then connect using JAL or CX NRT-anywhere Asia in coach.

For UA you could connect to more places on UA metal (upgrading all the way through) but would usually have to through a USA United hub first.

Both AA and UA give you a 100% mileage bonus when flying them as top tiers. AA also gives this bonus when flying most Oneworld carriers and crediting to AA; UA gives no status bonus crediting Star flights to them. For example, if you fly CX (Cathay Pacific) JFK-HKG AA will give you your status bonus. If you fly NH (All Nippon) to NRT, UA will not give you a status bonus.

AA gives a couple more upgrades; AA allows more really cheap fares to be upgraded with miles than UA. AA charges a co-pay though; UA requires purchase of medium fares but doesn't have the co-pay. UA more Asia destinations themselves; AA more South American destinations themselves.

If free coach to business class upgrades are a priority then you really need to choose between AA and UA.

I would certinly defer to wanabeflyers excellent post with one small caveat. im a bit unclear on how much us/foriegn travel you do. If the majority is in the usa and upgrades are your primary goal then i agree that ua or aa are your best bet. If the majority of of your travel is to asia and other overseas destinations then you might want to consider the asiamiles/oneworld program, the partners include aa, cx, ba, jal and others because on the whole in my opinion they are just better than any american airline.

wanaflyforless sums it up really good. If one is interested in upgrading Y to C/J, then AA/UA is the way to go. In OP's case, I would go with AA as UA practically abandoned NYC area.

If, however, OP is looking to upgradw from C/J to F, there will be a whole different story. In that case, LH or BD will be the best programs.

Thanks for the help everybody (especially wanafly... that was more comprehensive than i could imagine!). To answer someone's question, the majority of my travel will probably be overseas, and a majority of that will likely be to Asia (HK, China, India, etc...). Also, most of the time I would buy a Y and hope for an upgrade to C/J (with the occasional C/J to F hopes). Seems to me that the way to go would be oneworld, with AA as my domestic program. Then I could fly BA to Europe and CX to Asia (I've flown CX many times, and love them, plus my mom is a MP Diamond, and the service she gets is incredible, and that FC HK lounge... I could live there!). I understand that I would get my status match when crediting to AA for these flight, but my question is can I still use my "AA miles" when trying to get a miles upgrade on CX or BA? Or do the OW partners not really use your "home" airline miles to upgrade on the flight you are taking?

Again, thanks for the help! I think I'm going to enjoy being an FT'er if everyone is this friendly!

Keep in mind that BA US-UK flight does not earn AA miles.

As I tried to explain, you have a trade off between product and upgrades.

A) AA and BA have a major exclusion: No miles can be earned on the other's planes between the US and London. AA maintains this to be because of anti-trust issues as AA and BA combined own the London-US market. With open skies I would hope for this to change but doubt it will as AA does not want to loose their FFs to BA.

B) As a rule, one can only upgrade on an airline's own metal using that airlines currency.
- Exceptions: UA participated in Star upgrades valid on a handful of Star carriers requiring more miles and only full (very expensive) fares. If you will usually be traveling on the cheapest fare on that airline available, this would not be an option. The cheapest qualifying would often be 4X the cheapest avail.
- CX miles can be used to upgrade on AA and BA from very expensive coach only. If you credit to CX, you earn about 50% the miles you would earn with your flying crediting to AA.

So what do you prefer:
Option 1) You get a better airline. In coach most of the time as you wont earn enough Asia Miles from flying to upgrade more than maybe 20% of the time.
For example, effective this Oct, it would take 80,000 Asia Miles to upgrade CX JFK-HKG-PEK round trip. You would earn 18,612 Asia miles flying it. So enough miles to upgrade every 4.5 trips...the rest of the time you are in coach.
Crediting the same CX flights to AA as an EXP, you would earn twice the miles but could not upgrade if flying CX...AA miles will only upgrade AA flights. AND they give you 8 systemwide certs every year good to upgrade any AA itinerary.
So you choose:
CX coach most of the time, 20% of the time in business class
VS
AA business most of the time, 20% of th time in coach when the upgrade doesn't clear.
I like CX business class better than AA but I find that AA business class blows away CX coach class!
If you have say $500K in credit card spend, you could bank with Asia Miles and earn enough credit card miles to upgrade most of your CX flights. Otherwise your choice is most of the time coach on CX or most of the time business on AA. I would obviously choose AA!

Note that lounge access is a Oneworld benefit so even though BA have a no AA miles earned US-London exclusion, you still would get BA F class access and CX F class access when flying Oneworld carriers. (Tip: CX has a nice F lounge at LHR in the same terminal AA flies from). Fly AA so you can upgrade, use CX's LHR lounge. And your AA status will get you into the CX's Wing or Pier at HKG...the nicest lounges in the world.

Right, cannot do. AA miles are good for AA upgrades only. And this is not just a Oneworld thing; it is an airline thing.

My advice to you is to choose AA. Here is what your travel will look like:
- Start out with a Platinum challenge, as StSebastian pointed out. This is a shortcut to AA mid-tier status. One international AA trip will get you Platinum status using this shortcut. Call to sign up. Normally you would need to fly 50,000 miles to get here.
- Your first trip will really stink. You will have no benefits with no status. Try to upgrade with miles if you can...try the waitlist if you can...they sometimes clear at the last minute. Transfer any Starwood points you have now to AA to give you some miles to upgrade with.
- Your second trip...you now have AA midtier status. This includes double miles earning and business class lounge access and a better chance of upgrading but no systemwide upgrade certificates yet...things won't get really good until you have flown 100K miles the first time. From then on...life is good. Check out AA.com and read and re-read the benefits of Platinum status to make sure you understand them. Readind the AA wiki would also help you a lot (in the AA section of Flyertalk).
- Once you reach EXP, between your VIP system wide upgrade and the number of miles you will be earning, you can now request an upgrade for every flight.

When going to Europe:
If you can score paid business class I suggest:
- Connect in HEL on Finnair for their superior business class product. Unlike BA there are no AA mile restrictions and you will earn your elite bonus when flying them.
When buying coach,
- You will want to fly on AA planes in order to upgrade. If not going to a destination AA flies to, you would fly AA JFK-LHR then continue on BA in coach LHR-anywhere Europe. You would upgrade the AA JFK-LHR with your miles or VIPS once you have them. Another option would be JFK-BRU and connect on SN from BRU-anywhere Europe. SN is not part of Oneworld but is an AA partner and does earn you AA miles.

When going to Asia:
If you can score paid business class, CX all the way! And earn 2X the miles CX would give you by crediting to AA.
If you paying for coach, you need to fly AA metal so you can upgrade. JFK-NRT on AA, then NRT-Asia on CX or JAL. You will always have F class lounge access even flying coach once you make EXP.

When going to South America:
Fly AA; they have the largest network of anybody and you can upgrade on them. If flying paid business, choose LAN for a superior product while earning lots of AA miles.

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For credit card:

The best long term credit card for earning AA miles is the Starwood Amex. You earn Starwood SPG points then transfer them to AA at 20K SPG : 25K AA. You earn 25% more miles this way than if you were to use the Citibank AA credit card.
I suggest you also sign up for one Citi AA Amex and one Citi AA Mastercard right now...just for the sign up bonuses. Use each card for a month then put them in your drawer. 20K miles + 20K miles = 40K free AA miles from Citibank for a little of your time. This will especially help you starting out to have some miles to upgrade with before you earn EXP and have the VIPs. Also remember that upgrading with miles will cost you a co-pay; upgrading with VIPs have no co-pay. Life will get better.

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I suggest you read and re-read my posts until you can remember everything; they are full of information to help you make the best decision and make your travel far more comfortable.

If I was starting from scratch and flying that routing, I'd probably go with AA and do a platinum challenge. Otherwise it's going to take a while to get to mid-tier and get lounge access.

Note that you don't currently get your status bonus miles on JAL, though that may change in the future.

Also, if your situation happens to have you buying more expensive/flexible international tickets, those would be easier to upgrade on just about any US-based airline.

I went thru this type of exercise about 4 years ago when I was told I would start to travel a ton... I think you have to download and read the various program details. You have to do a lot of work to make anything approaching an informed decision. And it sucks if you get one year in and you realize you didnt make the right choice. If you are going to fly 100-150k, you have lots of good options and you should study carefully.

I can tell you that I looked at all the majors in the US and my feeling was that I wanted something that could take me both east bound and west bound from my (then) base of Seattle. I also wanted to insure upgrades, although I wasnt really looking for free, I just wanted a good chance with miles. As others have pointed out, upgrades (realistic and cost effective ones at least) are best if you can fly on your elite carrier (or a partner who actually extends upgrade priviliges) the entire flight. For me NW did the job well. Although I've often bought Biz tix, I also needed to upgrade (me and/or my wife) from economy and I found that their scheme for upgrades (including the KLM network) on Y and B fares actually works out pretty well. It's not cheap, but then again paying for Biz isnt either. You probably wont be rolling in the miles for a year or so such that you think using miles to upgrade is anything close to free, but once you are, 30k or 60k for a roundtrip will seem close to free. I think UA was almost equal in my calculations, but I took NW because they were upgrading their fleets to a angle-flat seat which I prefer over the UA recliners. I never seriously considered AA, DL or CO because they just didnt go enough of the places I planned to fly. As for the euro and asia carriers, I didnt want to lose out on the miles from the cheap-o intra-US flights that I took (in discounted Economy as per our travel policy).

From a cost and a certainty standpoint I'm pretty happy with the years I've spent with NW- I've never, ever, ever, sat in the back on an international flight, and only have a few exceptions on domestic flights. There was a lot of planning and shuffling, but most of the folks on this board will do that, I think there are few here that just tell their corp travel agent "get me from A to B on this date." If you are thinking you are going to get the cheapest coach ticket and always get an upgrade with miles (or even more unlikely a "free" upgrade) on international flights and you find that, then let me know the program you find, I'll be right behind you. I also think NW has bumped up a notch this year, for high mileage fliers we'll be getting 4 SWU's when we cross 160k (2 at 120k and 2 more at 160k).

One final thing to consider if you are going to be a serious high mileage guy and you have some flexibility in how your tickets get purchased (i.e. you are not a slave to a US based corporate travel agent). There are some much better fares for various alliances that depart from some obscure places around the world. So if you can get yourself out there on a one way ticket and you dont need to account for both/all legs of a trip on one expense report, then you might find some creative ways so that you can fly in business class and only pay coach fares, this is the ultimate "free" upgrade. When I hear people telling me they paid $7kUS for a simple roundtrip US-asia, I laugh knowing that I'll get at least 4 trips in paid C back home to the US this year for the price of that single ticket.

Not sure I understand what you mean. Would you be kind enough to give a concrete example or two? Thanks.

I know exactly what fares you are talking about and I know most people dont' have that option.

Your always never sitting in the back statement above is misleading because you don't earn enough miles with NW to upgrade all your flights. In your case you choose ex CMB fares and book yourself on creative tickets. If the OP flies mostly International, as he says he will, NW will not grant him enough miles to submit for an upgrade on most flights. AA would between miles and VIPs. Also, as you do mention, you have to buy B or Y on NW in order to upgrade. Just so the OP understands, B or Y is often 4X or more the price of the cheapest coach cost. AA allows cheap fares to be upgraded.