Hey all, it's my first post at FlyerTalk, having lurked in the background for some time! You guys are all very helpful, but the knowledge is a bit intimidating So, here goes - I hope I've posted in the right place!

I plan to fly to Australia in a few months, and I'm trying to pick the best airline/alliance to go with. I'm a poor student and will, as ever, be flying discount Y. I'm currently an AAdvantage & bmi DC member - both general (although I nearly made AA Gold last year!).

My two thoughts are:

- OW: I like BA service a lot (particularly world traveller), and they tend to be my airline of choice on LHR-EDI (where I go to uni). However, on the long flight to SYD I want to be sure to get the best mileage benefits. BA give 25% and QF 50% for discount Y - not great.

or *A: I can fly NZ/SQ (or even UA through LAX/SFO) and get 100% miles. Also, I can't really believe this is true, but my understanding is that with this one return trip I'll get DC Silver, and be well on my way to DC Gold for the year -- is that right? Are the miles too high a price to pay to miss out on BA Y service?

What do you folks think?

[This message has been edited by jamespvg (edited Jan 06, 2004).]

Firstly, and very importantly, the BA service you get for across Europe can be very different to that which you get for going to USA and very different again for Australia!! All different crews for different major regions. So don't rely on your BA knowledge if never flown to Australia before. And remember they code share with Qantas and, quite frankly, they're one of the last airlines I'd fly from UK to Australia on (even though I'm Aussie!).

My personal advice is think of the points and fly Singapore. It is much easier to gain points with Star Alliance than One World, they're prices are cheap, and their service (I've heard) is top class. Another option is to join United Mileage Plus and either fly home (via USA) or use their program instead of Singapore's. It never takes long to go Premier with them, and if you're tall (like me) you'll want the extra leg room that you get offered as a Premier member.

Hope this helps! And enjoy Australia...

True, albeit on some of teh cheaper booking codes on SQ you don't get any miles at all. I don't have the codes to hand, but so a quick search in the SQ forum.

Many a traveller has been stung by this when they check their accounts upon return.

If you join the QF scheme, you should get 100% of flown miles in discount economy if you fly on a QF code, even if the flight is operated by BA. Every BA flight to Australia carries a QF code (and vice versa), so that's easy to arrange.

As a QF scheme member you can earn 25% of flown miles on every BA flight in discount economy as well, which is the same as in the BA scheme.

But the best thing is that all this flying counts for status.

Looking at the QF website, I wouldn't even be half way to QF Silver/OW Ruby from my return flight to Australia... On the other hand, I think I could be well into bmi Diamond Club/*A Silver who only need 16,000 miles for status...

Given that I don't fly a lot (compared to many people on this board anyway!), I'd like to maximise the potential from a long flight like this, and if it can help me make status, then that's pretty cool!

I'm interested to hear the negative QF comments - are they not too good at the back of the bus?

Thanks for your ideas guys...

[This message has been edited by jamespvg (edited Jan 07, 2004).]

You might want to be careful about "status" - not all status is the same. For example, QF Silver/OW Ruby will get you priority check-in across all OW carriers - IMHO the best FF perk for a discount economy pax, especially on long-haul flights where check-in queues are often nightmares. You'd need to reach BD Gold/*A Gold to get that perk across *A, and BD Silver/*A Silver to get that on BD alone. Check carefully to see what you'd get and what you think would be useful to you. QF cabin crew can seem a bit laid-back, laconic, uninterested or downright rude - I think that an individual's description probably depends very much on how they react to Aussies. Personally I fit into QF's economy seat better than BA's, and I ignore most of the cabin service on both airlines, so I personally prefer QF over BA to Australia.

Yes, I know what you mean, but it kind of depends what you usually fly. I fly domestically in the UK a fair bit and lounge access/speedy check-in/priority baggage would be well worthwhile for me. As would a shot at BD Gold and the free upgrades to J-class! I wouldn't even be able to make OW Ruby on this trip with either AA or QF, and even then, I'm only looking at priority checkin (always use OLCI with BA anyway...).

Absolutely. That's why you need to see what works for you. And make sure you know whether (and if so which) booking classes are excluded from points earning before you book - the worst thing is to book and fly a trip and then find out afterwards that it's all been for naught, literally.

Welcome to Flyertalk, jamespvg.

Priority luggage is a bit of a joke on just about any airline. But if you do a fair bit of UK flying, then I'd agree that BD would be a good choice at least for lounge access.
If you want to maximise miles, it might be worth looking into RTW tickets too rather than a straightforward UK-SYD (Look in the *A and OW forums for tons of advice on planning a RTW)
BD's drawback would be, as you know, the low mileages on discounted economy BD flights, so it might also be worth looking as the other *A programmes (LH and UA being the most likely candidates).

- If you're a student, maybe an Air France membership'd be the go... they give students triple miles accrual... although, it'd mean flying with Skyteam and I think Korean are the only ones that fly to SYD so you'd be working hard for those miles

I would opt to fly UA if you could. 100% earned miles and 100% status miles, you'll get status off that flight. United miles can take you practically anywhere with the Star Alliance (not to say the other alliances can't, but you can't get 100% miles IIRC).

Assuming UA is reasonably competitive with their pricing (and I am sure they are), I would opt for that route.

Or, as an alternative, try Air Canada, lhr-yvr-syd. You'll get almost 25,000 status miles, which will get your prestige, and leave you only 10,000 miles short of mid-tier (Elite) status.

Just a thought.