Which program to join?
 

Folks,
I am newbie based in Taiwan, and most of my travel will be between Taiwan and USA, and some between Taiwan and Japan, and then occasionally between Taiwan and China. Which frequent flyer program within oneworld would be most suitable for me in terms of mileage reward ticket? Thanks in advance.

Welcome to FT, herculesc! Without knowing enough detail of how often you fly, which class of service and what you really want to get from the program it is difficult to give detailed advice.
But in general, the AA program is considered to be among the best for the Y flyer who mainly is after award tickets and not so much after status.

Thanks for the feedback.
In 2012, I'll likely to fly to US for 4 times (2 to the east coast, 1 to Chicago, 1 to San Diego), Japan for 3-5 times (mostly to Tokyo, one to Osaka), China for 2 times (Shanghai and Nanjing).

I think CX MPO should be the best programme if you fly primarily in Y. You can make Gold easily with this pattern, and once you have Gold you can use the seat guarantee feature CX gives to Gold members, which gives you the ability to guarantee a seat in the lowest mileage earning class 72 hours before departure. The Gold card also gives a better chance on CX and KA award waitlist. If you are a CX member, you can earn miles in most fare classes whether flying on CX or AA to the States, whereas if you are an AA member you can only earn miles on the more expansive fare classes on CX. However, if you fly J or F, AA could be a better option.

Thanks, neighbor.
For USA bound flights, I'd prefer making connection in NRT in stead of HKG. Does that make JL mileage bank more suitable?

If you made 5 trips to the US instead of 4 and booked almost everything with AA flight numbers, you could qualify for AA EXP. EXP status gives you SWUs you can use to upgrade AA operated flights from NRT, HND, PEK or PVG to the US with no fees or copays. AA miles are also quite useful for booking flights on CX and JL with almost no taxes or fees.

You may also want to look at MH and their flight from TPE-LAX, since they will join oneworld in 2012.

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Since I posted this, AA has announced a system wide double elite qualifying miles promotion through the end of January. If one of your roundtrip flights to the USA is AA operated and in January you should make EXP with the travel you originally listed.

We still need more informantion. What class are traveling in--first/business/full fare economy/discount economy? What do you want--lounge access? free flights? upgrades?

Given your opposition to HKG, you probably want to fly AA flights (assuming J, my preference would be AA-coded JL flights). You will easily make Executive Platinum, which is probably the best published oneworld status. If you sign up for a platinum challenge before your first flight, you would start out with platinum as soon as you landed.

But if flying in discount economy, you may want to consider JL, as AA only earns 50-70% of the mileage for JL discount economy flights which you would be flying to Japan.

Although this is OW board, but sounds to me *A makes more sense to OP, right?

Thanks for all the feedback.
Yesterday I posted this question on the sticky thread "Deciding on a Oneworld Frequent Flyer Program? Help is here". So people in similar situations can have a reference.

Thanks for doing this. I'll let this thread stay open for a few more days, then I'll close it. These questions come up quite often, which is why the sticky thread will persist.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

AA and JL's trans-Pacific JV is starting, so I guess if you fly primarily on J and F AAdvantage would probably suit you better in this case. However, if you fly mostly in Y, I would still suggest MPO, as you will have a chance to use seat guarantee on CX when flights on AA & JL are sold out. If you book on AA's code, all fares except O (which I don't think is sold in Taiwan) earns 100% miles on MPO anyway. I guess it depends on your preferred class of travel and whether you think seat guarantee is valuable (if your plan changes often). I'm not too familiar about JMB, but it seems that they only give 100%miles on full-fare Y, so if you fly in Y I guess JMB is not for you.