What is the best airline FF program for someone who wants to fly FC or BE International only.

For example: I fly Delta now and I have found the best way is to get to PM level so that I get 6 1-way PMUs. This costs me approximately $8000 and 80000 miles (UGs) for the year - 5 R/T in M class.

What do you suggest?

An important question is.... which destinations do you frequent?

I fly to Rome, London, Manchester, Nice, Venice, Paris Santiago, Chile but would add Australia if Delta flew there.

OK, since you seem to always fly paid premium cabin fares, there are some great FFPs out there for you. Now... how do you feel about having to connect through hub cities to get to you final destinations?

Off hand, it seems like you could do very well with a BA account and/or a LH account. Can you give us an estimate of how many flight miles you usually log in during a normal calendar year?

Bottom line is... if you are a F fare purchasor, then you are well off just getting one ff account from one carrier of each of the major alliances and concentrating all your alliance flights on one single program. Then, you just elect your flight patterns according to your preference/convenience.

You seem to be fixated on Delta, and there you have SkyTeam. One down, two to go. I would get a StarAlliance account, there M&More from LH would be my choice. Finally, get a BA account to cover OneWorld. That should be about it...

I have concentrated on Delta b/c I lived in the South and it was easily the most convenient but the program is not what it once was. And I now live in LAS.

I fly about 7 times a year. say 5 paid, 2 award. this= 68k actual paid miles = 100k MQM = 136k Sky M
I do not buy F tickets but M ie lowest price upgradeable on Delta - I don't know what that is on other carriers or if you even need to be at a particular fare level to upgrade.

M fares cost me about $1600 per. F fares are much, much more.
I will happily fly thru hubs to save $.

Isn't there a problem with splitting the miles in that I wont get bonus miles u/l I'm in an Elite category.

Sorry I'm not familiar with StarAlliance, what is that?

Does this help?

Edit...

[This message has been edited by auh2o (edited Jan 24, 2004).]

Hey Gaucho, Why do you recommend joining the Star Alliance through Lufthanzsa rather than through United? I fly LH almost as much as United, but just assumed that since I am based in the USA, United would be a better choice. Please explain your preferrence for LH. And thanks for the idea...with your response, I';ll explore it!

forget my question about Star Alliance. I googled it.

It looks like you really want an airline/alliance that allows upgrades to Buisness/First Class from Economy class. Two good choices are:

1. American Airlines / Oneworld : Allows upgrades from any economy fare to Buisness class, and provides its top elites 8 free VIP's (one way internal upgrades)per year and you get 8 extra ones the first time you qualify. The downside is that you need 100,000 miles of travel in discount economy to qualify for top elite level and you don't get free lounge access unless traveling the same day on an international trip. Additional one way upgrades to Europe are 25,000 miles.

2. British Airways/ Oneworld: Allows upgrades from Economy+ only (which typically will cost you what M-fare costs on Delta, though on sale they go about $400 above discount economy), but you only need 25,000 miles to upgrade a roundtip to Europe to Buisness Class. Few free upgrades for elites, but you get free lounge access even if you are just silver elite traveling on a US domestic trip and their Buisness class has flat beds.

3. KLM : The only airline other than American that allows upgrades from discount economy fares, is KLM, but you need a non-US mailing address to join their FF program. If you become top elite (75K miles) you get free upgrades on Northwest US flights and free lounge access in Northwest and KLM lounges even if you are not traveling. No free international upgrades, but one way upgrades to Europe are just 20,000 miles.

[This message has been edited by ananthar (edited Jan 24, 2004).]

American Airlines allows mileage upgrades from any published coach fare to business class on international routes. This would save you some cash versus DL because you could buy the lower fares. The tradeoff is that AA requires more miles to upgrade (50,000 roundtrip), and its business class seats are not quite as comfortable as DL's. To my knowledge the only "free" international upgrades on AA require Executive Platinum status (100,000 miles or points per calendar year), and I believe this earns eight oneway upgrades.

dennis

Instead of buying M fares, buy I fares on DL or Z fares on Air France. These a discounted business class tickets, they cost a few hundred dollars more than M class, but you don't need to burn miles on upgrades (or have to worry about clearing upgrades), and you get double MQM's (so fewer trips are needed to reach platinum -- you can hit 100K MQMs in as few as 4 RT's to Europe from the west coast.).

You need to buy your tickets 50 days in advance and stay at least 7 days in order to get this fare.

Yes that's a good idea. However they are not always available. And they are not available on all routes. I have found a $700 difference from M class (Europe) and you must stay a week. I looked for them to Rome next month - no luck. They are available for France.

You can make PM on 4 r/ts but they will cost $3000 more than 5 'M' class. Approx

You also need to figure in the cost of the miles you use for upgrades, and the extra miles you receive for class-of-service bonuses. Depending on what value you give a mile, the costs could balance or shift.

Mileage Plus is not a bad program. In the end its all about your flying patterns and what fares you pay. If you pay business and first fares, then M&More is the better program because of the bonuses offered once you hit Senator status, not to mention that the premium product on LH is light years ahead of what UA will offer.

I know LH's FC is better but do you think LH's Business Class is better than UA's?