Or stories from relative new-timers about how you got into the game 15-20 minutes too late - and benefits today are nothing like they were last week!

All the FFers seem a bit skittish these days - and today's benefits may be sand tomorrow.

In a calm, ordered world I would surely tout my own NW WorldPerks - awesome number of domestic upgrades for elites. But with impending merger on the horizon - everything is up for grabs.

It would be good to pick a program and try to concentrate the bulk of your flying there - even if you pay a bit more. Once you get elite status in a program, you will be glad you have it!

Good luck - and keep hanging out here!

To clarify, Star Alliance is itself a marketing alliance/agency, as are all the airline alliances. They were created by marketing departments and are administered by marketing experts. So maybe we should say that "Star Alliance acts like an alliance only in the minds of the people who work at Star Alliance, but for the customer it's another matter entirely." :)

I agree 100% with the comment about the difficulty, especially concerning UA, which is why I'm looking to move my travel elsewhere.

Will

When you say "credit flights", I presume you are talking about getting credit for flights on other alliance partners.

In general, I have not had any issues at all on ST (crediting AF, CO, DL, KL and NW miles to NW) and relatively few on *A (crediting AC, LH, LX, NZ, SK, SQ, UA, US miles to AC), both with 95% automatic recording of miles. The biggest hassles have actually been some AC flights, where it seemd that since I didn't get the automatic credit, the system couldn't figure out giving me retroactive credit. :rolleyes:

I have little experience on OW in recent years; after AA expired my miles, I decided to stick with *A and ST.

If you're going to be on the West Coast a lot, another program to look into, that hasn't been mentioned, is Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan. They have agreements with DL, KL, AF, NW, Lan (not sure of the 2 letter abbreviation for them) and AA for EQM's, plus others for just miles...

http://www.alaskaair.com/as/mileagep...rs_Airline.asp

...and I agree with those who say have one in each alliance. I'm in the programs for UA, DL, CO and AS. I'm slowly working on status in each one...I figure if I can get status on AS this year (AS is my primary, since I live 30 min. from their PDX hub), I can work on status for another next year.

Hello sarbanes and welcome to FlyerTalk. I hope that you find this community informative and fun! I do, however, find poor and jet-setter in the same sentence to be somewhat of an oxymoron!:D

Stick with the advice to have one primary airline in each alliance and then let your travel patterns direct where you choose to bank your miles. Pick the partner that will get you to elite status the quickest with the best results. For me, that means Northwest for SkyTeam with (soon to disappear) automatic reciprocity for upgrades on Continental. Get elite wherever so you can bypass the stampede at security and then if you are on an alliance partner you also get priority seating and boarding.

And when you find you are getting close to an elite level you may even consider a mileage run or, better yet, joining your new FT friends at one of the many Dos, get-togethers that are held all over the globe.^

We're glad you're here!

I like the idea of having an airline in at least a couple of alliances, though I haven't gotten too deeply into finding a second airline myself (been trying to build status on AA). I fly AA for convenience; most of the hubs and focus cities are places I would fly to anyway (LAX, ORD, JFK, STL, MIA), and other destinations of mine are reachable in one stop and have generally decent schedules and frequencies (DCA, CAE, MAD, SJO, EZE).

As I'll attain EXP on AA this year, I was thinking of checking out CO in two years, and maybe going for Silver status... especially since CO is moving to *A.

And though I'm not poor from a federal poverty line standpoint, I took a shine to the 'poor int'l jetsetter' term. I'll make EXP status this year, all on personal flying on my own dime... take the mileage requirement for that, divide it by the number of Chipmunks (the animated singing ones on TV in the 80's, that is)... and that's still more money than I make in a year.

Hey folks -

Thanks for all the feedback. Wanted to update y'all. I took the general advice given and joined Aeroplan for my upcoming flight to London, routing through YHZ. I've been through Halifax before - it's a beautiful airport, no worries there. Cheap fare too.

Also, I cringed a little bit that I didn't get a signup bonus for getting that Amex, so I called them on the phone and was just friendly to the rep, and he post-whatever introduced 25k points for the first $500 spent. Coolness. I'll probably switch over to Starwood at some point (or maybe Platinum for the companion tickets - or maybe both).

Thanks for all the advice and guidance. Everyone's really friendly and helpful here which is awesome. Also, if any of you veterans have other general advice that might not be obvious, would love to hear it (I already posted a query in Mileage Run board too wondering about the economics of it).

Cheers and best wishes,

Sarbanes

Edit: Also, was asked if I fly on my own dime or the client's. Sadly, 95% of the time that comes out of my pocket. Net profit still is respectable, but that's why I keep it really light and cheap - it means more in the bank for doing of other stuffs :)