st/sa which silver elite is better?
 

hi all!
i am new to this!been searching for a while but couldnt figure out.so, thought will start a new thread.
i am close to silver on ST.but can manage to go into silver if i go on SA for the rest of the year.can someone suggest if its good to continue with ST and get their silver....or go ahead and get silver in SA.i have never been an elite, so dont really know the benefits of being in the elite program.i dont travel much domestically....
so suggestions are welcome.TIA.

i am in NW worldperks in ST and US airways in SA.my destinations are mostly served by Northwest/klm and Lufthansa.

To get meaningful answers, you need to be more specific, since not all carriers' benefits within a given alliance are identical. It would also be helpful to know where you typically fly, since benefits are non-existent if you have to go out of your alliance to get to your destination. Then, it might be useful to look at the information on those specific carriers' forums here. Once you've done a bit of initial research and clarification, you'll get far more meaningful answers here....

It sounds like you may be able to stretch things and hit gold on st.

i wont make it to gold on any even though i stretch.coz i am done with 20k in ST, and 10k in SA.i will be able to make it to silver in one of them based on my travel plans as of now.

I don't know enough about SkyTeam or WorldPerks to comment on them, but I can tell you that *A Silver is pretty much worthless. You're not even officially entitled to priority check-in though many agents will let you get away with it.

The only official, listed benefits of *A Silver are:

* Priority Reservations Waitlisting - when there aren't any seats left on your preferred flight, gives you priority should a seat become available.

* Priority Airport Standby - gives you top priority when standing by for a flight at the airport.

(from http://www.staralliance.com/en/trave...er_status.html)

I've heard that US Silvers get an upgrade on US once in a while, but you don't seem to fly with them very much anyway if you say you mostly get your miles from Lufthansa. To Lufthansa, you will be on the lowest rung of their status totem pole, which goes Miles&More HON Circle (basically *G on speed), Miles&More Senator (*G, with 100K status miles in a calendar year, at least every other year), Miles&More Frequent Traveller (*S, with 35K per year), other *Gold, other *S. There have even been reports of them preferring non-status members of Miles&More to non-LH Golds or Silvers.

Status is almost always worth most on the carrier who owns the programme. Since you actually do fly Northwest, I'd concentrate on that.

Here's one major factor in deciding between focusing on a *A vs a ST program.

If you're a 50,000 mile/year (EQM) flyer, and put that all into a *A program like US, you get TOP-level Alliance status - Star Alliance Gold. That gets you free lounge access on international itineraries and quite a few other benefits of varying worth. For example in US, you'd get US Gold Preferred, which is way done at elite level 3 of 4 within US - but it still makes you top-level Star Gold within the overall alliance.

If you put all 50,000 EQM/year into a ST program, you are LOW-level Alliance status: Skyteam Elite, not Skyteam Elite Plus. So you don't get lounge access, priority baggage handling, or some of the other top-level alliance benefits. ST Elite is somewhat better than Star Alliance Silver (as pointed out by alex0683de, *S doesn't give much at all), since at least it officially gets priority seating and boarding alliance-wide (in theory). But it's still the lower level of alliance status.

By that reasoning, I'd rather have US Gold and nothing else rather than NW Silver and US Silver - if traveling international a lot. However that might be out of reach for you this year. In which case US Silver and NW Silver combined might be your best strategy. If you're flying mostly domestic, then the top-level *A status becomes less important, while the mid-level own-airline status becomes more important (for "home" airline upgrades and other perks). Given that going from 25K to 50K on NW won't get you any better Skyteam status while going from 0K to 25K on US and *A will at least make you "better than dirt" on *A (and will waive 1st bag charges in North America on all 3 *A airlines with the charge: AC, UA, US) then you might as well pick up the *A status.

Example of Skyteam Elite Check-In Value
 

CZ (China Southern) is a Skyteam member. Last May, I arrive at CAN airport (their main hub) for a domestic flight with discounted coach seat. Couch check-in was LONG. I said "Forgot that!", and walked around the corner to first class check-in, which was all by itself with carpet, lounge chair and some very attractive staff standing around to help or at least look good. Flash Skyteam Elite card, check right in with no wait. Helpful agent typed in my Skyteam FF number.

(On the return flight, I did not bother to use elite check-in because the coach line was short. Of the two flights, guess which one actually got my miles posted? (30% of miles flown for fare class, big whoop, full sarcasm mode. I think CA gives 100% *A miles regardless of coach fare class. sarcasm off).

But I did like the Elite check-in back at CAN :)