Thanks for this, I registered for AAdvantage and had a look around, it did not convince me to leave BA for now. It looks to me that a BA revenue WT+ ticket with an avios upgrade to J for the transatlantic leg is the best value for travel to Athens, especially if you consider that you almost make back the upgrade miles after each roundtrip. The issue with BA is upgrade availability which is not that great, and I was hoping that though AA it might be better.

If you switch to AA then to upgrade on BA you need to be in a 'W' fare bucket for WT+ which is the most expensive.

BA rewards are good value for Euro flights (called Reward Flight Savers) as you pay a small fixed price plus Avios. And paying for WT+ and upgrading to CW is excellent value if you can find availability.

If you can make 50k per year, I would go for AA. You will get airport special lines, lounges and 100% bonus miles.

Mwenenzi has requested that I contribute some information on MH.

So here goes.

For Asia-Europe, MH redemptions are decently priced.
MH uses a unique reward system. There are 3 bands of redemption if I am not wrong. It's a little like a revenue ticket system. More miles = easier to redeem. I usually find the cheapest band available.

MH only gives 25-30% elite bonus, which is much less generous than other FFP.

Only MH Gold and Plat will get you lounge access when flying Y. MH silver is useless except for the 25% bonus.

Seat selection for elite members don't exist. Their IT system is a mess.

Don't expect too much recognition onboard unless you are Plat flying in J.

If anyone needs more information I will be happy to help.

Just curious what % are you flying MH and what FFP do you credit your miles to?

Perhaps around 30k miles is on MH per year. I credit MH and OW flights to MH FFP.

(1) What is your home airport?
MUC
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
20k-35k
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
cheapest economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Yes I can. Mostly for work.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
In europe, 1-2 US trips, 0-1 asia trip
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present
-
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
lounge access
(8) Preferred Airlines
US airways, Air Berlin

I am looking for a OW ffp since US is leaving *A, and AB is sometimes cheaper for europe than LH
Thank you!

Lounge access comes with status. That will be hard to get on low $ economy air fares. Some low fares earn nil miles or very few miles & minimal status earning

US Airways is to merge with American Airlines(AA) and will be a OW airline, just like AB ^
So consider AA or even AB (little advice on AB here)

Given the small number of long haul flights and in economy I would suggest AA or AB. And the hope of success there is probably remote. But all is not lost since even Gold with AA will let you avoid baggage charges and provide a small level of "privilege" in selecting seats and boarding.

You best bet on lounge access would be a (couple of) purchases each year of the (30 day?) AA lounge access package at $99.

Happy wandering.

Fred

Thanks for all the advice guys this is great!

Sorry to move a little off topic.
Regarding the merge of US and AA. Is it possible to earn OW miles on US already?

Ok, no...:

http://www.aa.com/arriving/socialfaq.html

Looking for a program to do very little with...
 

(1) What is your home airport?
Hilo (ITO)
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
50-100K, economy unless I get upgrades
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Discount Economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Mostly work, has to be cheapest fare or close to it.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
N/A, I fly all kinds of places.
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it?
Silver on UA and DL
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
In this particular case, being able to save up miles for redemption, and if possible pool them between family members.
(8) Preferred Airlines
UA, DL

Background: Joined AA way back in 2004, flew them a fair bit until 2005, but ran afoul of the trans-Atlantic "partnership" with BA at the time (no AA miles for BA LAX-LHR, which I did about 3x!) and bailed at the end of the year. Made plat on NW in 2006, held it 'til 2011 before dropping due to a baby. Still have a DL lounge membership until I'm 108. UA introduced mainline service to my town, and no other majors fly there at all, so I've been flying *A a lot.

Scenario: I've got a trip on FJ coming up, and they're partnered with AS (who won't give any miles for the fare class I'm likely to be in), AA (who give 75%) and QF (who give 100%). I'm basically just wondering whether to hold onto my AA account and use it as a dumping ground for the rare, rare OW flight, adding or using a few miles by other means if necessary often enough to keep things from expiring... or get a QF one that would allow once-a-year transfers between family members.

Either way, I have no plans to fly any OW airline enough to earn status - just want to keep the few miles I do earn from a flight or two every few years.

Yes. Keep putting these occasional flights into AA. The odd car rental or hotel stay can keep the account alive if you run into the no activity rule.

QF has very poor earn to burn, poor upgrade benefits and extraordinary high cash surcharge on awards. The transfer of points to family is NOT an eligible activity to stop points expiring in an account.
Alaska is also good as they have partners in OneWorld and many others.

Just stay with AA. 75 AA miles has much more value than 100 QF points

CX Silver Vs QF Gold
 

About time to reevaluate my O/W strategy.

Firstly about myself,

I am based in SIN and travel to LHR twice a year, I used to fly CX Y but now I fly MH J.

I also travel to HKG/HND once or twice annually with CX.

If I were to travel intra-Asean, I would take Jetstar and earn my points in QFF.

Now, here's the dilemma, CX Silver or QF Gold for me?

If I were to keep crediting my flights to CX, I would only be CX Silver but if I credit my MH J flights to QF, I can easily get QF Gold.

I have evaluated the two programs.

QFF
Easy to get Gold/OWS
High points and fees to redeem flights
Poor earn rate for CX Y
75% Extra points for JQ/3k/QF Flights
Slowly inching to Lifetime Status

CX
Silver gets me into the J lounge whenever I take CX but not OW flights
Damn a lot of miles to get CX Gold
No status tier bonus and only cabin bonus.
Stuck at CX Silver with my flying pattern

I have been thinking that my strategy should be this,
Dump my MH J to QFF and get my QF Gold with a few additional 3k flights
Credit my CX Y flights to the CX Program and drop to Green.

Do ya'll think I am doing it right or you guys have a better opinion?

Do the same analysis with AA and MH and even Alaska.
What benefit's do you expect / hope to get from QF gold ?
JQ/3k need to be the higher priced flights for QF points. But some are not QF earning: be careful
With QF you need 4 QF flights to get status. The "~" in your QF FFP web site. As QF has close to abandoned SIN this is hard

Based in SIN, what are my options if I decide to join OW?
 

Subj. Flight patterns - long distance flights only: SIN-SFO, SIN-ZRH, SIN-FRA, SIN-GRU - totally about 8 round trip flights a year, all company travel. I've already had 75K this year but my next flight will be coming no early than September.

Currently I have PP status with UA but do not know if it worth to stick with them. All flight is in Y, but personally for me UA E+ is value differentiator. I won't make change unless airliner has the similar product and this is the reason why I don't use SQ.

Any recommendations - welcome.

I'm going to move this to the existing sticky thread regarding how to choose a Oneworld FFP.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

LANPass vs AAdvantage
 

Hi, I'm new to this forum but from everything I've been reading is a lot of help!
I'm about to join a OneWorld program but can't decide which one. I am based on MEX (Mexico City) and travel roughly 6-7 times a year to LIM (Lima) and SCL (Santiago), and randomly to UIO (Quito) all of them are business related trips, so my company pays the fare but let me keep the miles.

I always travel in LAN so I'd like to earn status with them, but I'd also like to redeem the miles with tickets to the US. It's obviously more "expensive" to redeem with LAN than AA.

My main doubt is if I can accrue my miles with AA and earn status in LAN, even if none of my flights are with AA. LAN has a restriction of 4 segments with them at least to earn status, but I couldn't find anything related in the AAdvantage website.

Thanks a lot

Welcome to FT!

I'm going to move this to the existing "which Oneworld FFP?" thread.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

Cathay, Qantas or Asia Miles Frequent Flyer programs
 

Hi,

I will soon be frequently flying between Sydney and Hong Kong.

Can someone please recommend which frequent flyer program is best to join out of Cathay, Qantas and Asia Miles?

I plan to collect points to redeem flights.
Also, anyone have suggestions on the best credit card (issued out of Hong Kong) to earn miles.

All suggestions/comments would be much appreciated.

thanks

Will u fly QF or CX? In hk there r many credit cards that can credit to Asia miles but not QFfp

Cdubbyou Welcome to the forum

What class of travel [economy, business or first] ?
Cathay is Asia Mile's
Look here http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html
Many linked threads in post 2
Do not over look AA

Cathay, Qantas or Asia Miles Frequent Flyer programs
 

Asia miles is Cathy's program, Marco Polo is status only, you can't redeem miles from Marco Polo... It is extremely poor earning if you buy cheap economy tickets and crediting to the other airline... And if you are based in Sydney, many credit card goes to QF, in HK, many credit card credits to CX.... That's the two main factors I guess....

Welcome to FT and the friendly QF forum, Cdubbyou!

[mod hat] I will move this to the oneworld forum for better coverage [/mod hat]

thank you.

Thank you all for replying, and thanks for clarifying that Asia Miles is actually the same as Cathay's Asia Miles *embarrassed :p

@Mwenenzi: That looks like a really good link, Will do some night time reading. Most of the time, it will be Economy/Premium.

@correctioncx: QF and CX often have flights with similar prices. I will fly depending on which airline gives best bang for buck.

@123dd: I am relocating and will be based out of HK. WIll probably take up your suggestion and go with CX.

I am looking at the best value credit card to score asia miles. Any suggestions?

Agreed, unless most of your flights will be on CX in Economy in Y, B or H class (the most expensive ones). Any other CX Economy fare class is ineligible for crediting to AA.

Maybe start here - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...amiles-hk.html

I'm going to merge this thread with the existing "which FFP?" thread.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

You are welcome.. Hope these information helps..

Just came to mind that LAN is another option for you, if you are switching between CX and QF all the time.. LAN gives 100% to all QF CX miles earning fares, plus LAN uses kms, not miles, so 60% more... And their short haul redemption is really good too...

Do miles flown in LAN accrued in AAdvantage count toward status even though the flight is NOT operated by AA? How well recognized is the AA elite status in LAN flights? I do a lot of business flights through LAN but personal ones through AA, so I need to decide only for one.

Thanks!

Yes they do, except for flights to/from Cuba. Although you'll earn only 25% on the most discounted economy fare classes. Find all info here:
http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/ea...rlines/lan.jsp.

Hello, it has been a very long time since I have been on the OW forum.... an old haunt.

Quick question:

I am flying CX J metal this weekend and I should put my miles towards a OW program. I used to be AA Platinum and have 120k Million Miler miles on them. I have nothing else in terms of OW FFP enrollment. Given that would AA still be a good place for me to put miles into for the point of the MM program? Any regular miles I get from this trip I will probably move into Aeroplan through Points.com or some convoluted Starwood swap.

The flight on CX is such a good deal (J for NRT-HKG-YYZ retun) at less than USD $3k that I will probably fly this route again but have no expectation that I will hit Sapphire or Emerald, so it's a toss up for either going to a program with some decent redemption options for the miles I earn from this trip or either going back to trusty AA and their MM program.

In OW at the current moment would it be worth looking into any programs that offer a status comp from *G ? I am *G with Aegean this year as I could not keep up my Aeroplan status qualification miles any more.

Thanks in advance,
RDP

Since the one way is 9652 miles or thereabouts, a J round trip will give you 28956 EQP. Immediate Gold as long as AA continues to ignore the
4 AA flights rule. Two such flights in a calendar year would yield AA PLT. (Or CX Silver)

If I thought I were going to fly again this year, crediting to AA would be a good idea. If the calendar doesn't match your flights, consider CX. CX Silver has benefits in HKG worth considering.

Happy wandering

Fred

(1) What is your home airport?
Reply: LAX
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
Reply: <25k Economy
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Yes and Travel for pleasure
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Transpacific some US Domestic
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: None
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: good award redemption rates
(8) Preferred Airlines none

Thanks!

ppgugu
As you are in LAX American Airlines is by far the best choice on OneWorld.
Alaska is also worth looking at as they have many airline partners as here http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...-overview.aspx
Which airlines are will fly with ?

Mwenenzi
Thank you for the advice. I may fly with JAL or Cathy, would prefer EVA but they are not with OneWorld.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: RUH (DMM or JED also possible)
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: 30k to 40k (I could possibly get up to 50k)
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Mostly Y, only J on special occasions or special offers
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: I can choose my airline as I only travel for pleasure
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: RUH to Asia (mostly BKK), RUH to Europe (mostly MUC)
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: QR Burgundy (might come in handy later when they join OW)
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: Status, Lounge Access and extra baggage
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: CX, MH, BA


Currently working in Riyadh, therefore I decided to join OW, but I'm not sure which FFP is the right one for me. BA seems to be a good program, as I'm flying to Europe 1-2 a year (will be on BA metal) and the rest of the flights are to different destinations in Asia, mostly BKK or KUL.
I have a flight booked in J from JED to KUL to DPS return on MH in August and thought the best would be to credit the miles to BAEC. I also have a upcoming trip to MUC in November which would give me the 4 qualifying flights to archive Silver Status (flight will be in WTP).


What do you guys think, should I go with BAEC or try to get my miles on MH or CX?

Also since QR will join OW sooner or later, I might switch from BAEC to Qatar, as then I have 1 airline for all my travel, so I should get Gold pretty easy (even when flying MH in J instead of QR in Y).

Remember that if you have BAEC you should also have IB+ since avios as you can easily transfer between the two. IB tends to give status easier and BA seems to be better on the avios, so which one you use to fly with would depend on that. Granted, the differences are relatively minor.

I have no status (working on it) but I generally stick with IB since I'll be at MAD long term. My experience with their customer service has generally been good, but I definitely know English can be an issue if you don't Spanish.

Questions
For members asking for information please help people to assist you, can you provide:
(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: RDU
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k) <50K,
Reply: usually <25k, occasionally 25-50k
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Can choose airlines but usually not class of service. Travel for both work and pleasure.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: US Domestic, recent Transpacific travel and hoping for more.
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind of OW or other airline at present? What is it? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: None. Entirely new to the idea of using FF miles.
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? (upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, extra baggage allowance, good award redemption rates, better award access, free - discounted lounge access, etc.)
Reply: Good award redemption rates, maybe free/discounted lounge access.
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: