DCA-John

Somehow I'm already halfway to platinum and it's barely February. Blame the BUH fare mistake, plus a trip to Africa and Latin America for work.

I'm probably on track to do about 160-180k miles of travel this year, and I'm wondering if I should stick with NW once I requalify for plat (march, by my reckoning) to go for the new SWUs (which are sweet, I have to say. Thanks, NW!)

But, an extra 45k of flying gets me 2 SWUs. An extra 40k of flying on top of that gets me 2 more. If I switched to AA or UA once I requalify, I would get 8 (or 6 on UA) SWUs for not much more flying.

The difference, as far as I can tell, though is that the NW SWUs are less restrictive, and can be used from any fare bucket. Is that true? How much more should someone value that accessibility vs. a bigger quantity of vouchers?

The second concern is where I'm flying to - predominantly Colombia, Kenya and Rwanda. UA (and star alliance) have minimal coverage to Latin America, and only Swiss flies from Washington to NBO, and it's expensive.

Going with AA would mean better connections to Latin America, but would also mean dealing with BA and their cheapness with miles on discount economy and transatlantic flights.

So, far Skyteam, has the best flights to both continents - continental via IAH or EWR to BOG - I've gotten the upgrade every time so far, and KLM or air france or Kenya airways (whenever they actually join Skyteam) to NBO

Should I:

1 – stick with Skyteam and try for 160k to get the 4 SWUs
2 – try to get to top tier on either UA or AA after qualifying for plat on NW


Thanks for the advice,

DCA-John

fti

I am not sure about your question but I have done a search for SWU, looked through the last 5 pages of posts and checked nwa.com and have not seen anything about SWU's for PE's. Am I missing something here?

Thanks for filling me in.

John

mba0005

The SWUs are a part of NW's new "Elite Extra" program. For details see here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=652000

Alpha Golf

You the man!!!

degendanny

I vote C. Stay the hell out of Kenya and Rwanda

DanTravels

I think we can safely rule out UA. You can't get decent coverage from the US to South America on StarAlliance unless you want to fly through Canada, which is patently absurd. And I don't know how they manage to have only Swiss flying to Nairobi from the north. Sure, JFK-ZUR-NBO works well for the folks from 1st Avenue, Geneva and Gigiri (and is cheap) but what about people like me who want to go to EBB too? Fly through Jo'burg? I don't think so!

So then it comes down to whether Oneworld's coverage in South America (between American and LAN) is superior to that of SkyTeam (between Continental, Delta, AeroMexico and COPA) to a great enough extent that it justifies putting up with British Airways' mileage Scrooges, and its (dis)agreement with American regarding TATL flights.

I go to Africa a lot more (both Kenya and Uganda, November of each of the last two years) than I go to South America (haven't at all, so far) so for me, the choice was an obvious one, and frankly, Oneworld lost 70% of my travel to SkyTeam because of BA. (StarAlliance lost 5% because of United, too, but that was domestic.

For me, the question would be whether AA and NW SWUs are usable on long-haul partner flights to South America or Africa. That's where it's going to matter, and honestly, I don't know the answer. But if two airlines were offering me SWUs and only one of them let me use them to upgrade from the cheapest fare on a routing along the lines of US-Europe-East Africa, I know which one I'd pick.

humanoid94

AA's EXP is a great status level, perhaps the best in the country since UA severly devauled 1K with GS. I think you need to do an assessment of your flying patterns and determine if you have a legitimate shot of hitting 100K EQM miles on Oneworld including the mileage penalities with BA. If so, I would probably head over there and become a dual AA EXP and NW PE, if not I would stick with NW and get your four SWUs.

Whatever airline you go with, make sure to get a status match (or a challenge in the case of AA). There is no reason to start over from scratch.

DCA-John

That's definitely the question of the hour.

I know that UA vouchers can be used on Lufthansa, but it's kind of a pain.

I don't know if AA vouchers can be used on BA or not

I don't think anyone knows if the NW vouchers can be used on KLM. Honestly, if they are only for NW metal, I probably wouldn't waste them on a TATL flight - it's only 8 hours. I would probably save them for a vacation to SIN or HKG to maximize cheek time on the WBC seats

SchmutzigMSP

It sounds to me like you've basically answered your own question by eliminating OW and *A in your first post, but are reluctant to fly the extra miles on NW for comparatively fewer SWUs.

I think you really have to decide how the overall scheme is going to work for you. If your connections via Swiss and BA are too much for you and KLM works the best, then I think you have your answer, regardless of SWUs. I would just consider them icing. I would assume the NW SWUs are only good on NW metal.

SkyTeam (+standalone NW partners) seems to have a pretty good coverage of most of the world with a few glaring exceptions (but none of which you mentioned in your travel patterns, so they don't really apply). I think I'd stick with SkyTeam for now.

DanTravels

Agreed. I'd probably use any SWUs I ever got TPAC as well... unless I could do something with them like AMS-SEA-HNL-NRT-(PEK/CAN/SIN/MNL) all on NW metal...

DCA-John

Agreed, unless circumstances change I think I'll probably stick w/ Skyteam for the time being. Sweet, sweet icing....

dvs7310

You mentioned that you don't like the mileage penalty on BA, but Skyteam is notorious for mileage penalties on discount fares. Its too bad that *A doesn't cover your needs better, from an EQM standpoint they seem to take care of business a lot better than the other two alliances.

SchmutzigMSP

Oh, really? Show me.

The only big thing I can think of is the spat between NW/CO on a few of the discounted fares. Nearly everything else is full mileage on discounted fares. There are a few fare classes that are the exception on KE, but by and large, it's not nearly as much of a penalty as OW and *A.

humanoid94

The only mileage penalties I am aware of are on AF, CO, and to some extent on KE. All these carriers are fairly easy to avoid, heck I avoid AF on principal because I hate CDG and CO because of the dismal upgrade percentage. Now, with BA, however, you are almost force to use them if you are connecting from AA to within Europe and sure to be hit with those mileage penalties.

Radiocycle

The NW SWU's are by far easier to use than other legacy carrier SWU's because there are no fare class restrictions (on the paid coach fare) and the "C" bucket is available on almost every route if you plan your trip in advance.

Good Luck!

RC