DONE4?

Read this forum.. Specifically the explorer guide.

Greetings,
I would like to have a bit of advice. I am trying to assess if I should stay with BA or move to other FFP in the aliance. Most of my flights are with the first leg Cork - London with AerLingus/BA followed by a flight from London. Flights from Dublin are doable but tend to avoid (just efficiency of Cork airport is great).

At the moment with BA but woukd like to reassess if staying or moving to another FF such as Iberia makes more sense. The priority is really just to get the status faster for priority checkins and luggage, nothing else.

to answer tge questions:

Questions

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?

Reply: priority services and luggage.

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
(<25000, 25000-50000, >50000 miles - <25, 25-50, >50 flights?)
Reply:
always economy. about 2 trans-continetal flights a year plus flights around .eu. 50000 miles probably

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply:
cheapest

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply:
work/pleasure. can decide on airline but not class.


(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
(US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply:

EU, EU-asia, EU-US
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply:
ORK

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply:

Gold on TK, Gold on KLM

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply:
AerLingus/BA + .. whatever gets me to the destination.

When I started I was not based in Japan, but in Hong Kong. JAL had much tougher JL-flown mileage requirements, whereas BAEC I just needed to fly 4 times, which meant one round trip to Europe was enough, as long as that destination wasn't London.

And even with BAEC I usually just barely managed to get into Gold, so I thought I would've never gotten to OWE via JL.

Hi All,

I've been in BAEC for a little while and now considering whether it makes sense to switch. I've reached Gold about two years ago and was disappointed with the upgrade vouchers � could not fin availability for any suitable flights online and on the phone. That combined with the BAEC changes made me thinking of switching somewhere else.

I have one business class trip from Europe to USA booked with BA/AA flying in March with 6 segments total, which could probably get me qualified for Iberia's program's first tier... But not sure if it's worth it or I should credit it to my current BA account or anywhere else new?

I would be grateful if you guys could help me decide.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
probably upgrades, good award redemption rates

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Around 3-6 TATL flights a year + few short hauls. Most commonly BUD or VIE to USA

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Trying to get Business deals on TATL

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Can pick airlines, aim for affordable business. Work pays, but its my own business.

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
BA/AA are often having good deals from BUD
Star Alliance sometimes

(6) What is your home airport?
BUD, VIE

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Qatar Gold due to expire
BA Silver
Miles and More Silver
Have some Avios

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Whoever have business class for good price

Hi all,

Current *A gold and thinking whether to switch to a oneworld program, given their strength in HKG. I will do flights from HKG-SIN (4-6x a year) in Y, one HKG-JFK in flight in PE, and two HKG- Europe trips in Y/PE a year at minimum.
I was thinking whether to keep my KF Gold status in *A or start anew with Alaska/CX AsiaMiles. The main issue would be the ridiculous pricing of CX ex-HKG for personal trips.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Travel upgrades, Priority luggage handling/boarding

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
25000-50000+ miles

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Y/PEY

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
A mix of work and pleasure, in total around 10 short-haul economy trips (20 flights) and 5 long-haul PEY trips on average

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
HKG-SIN

(6) What is your home airport?
HKG

(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
KF Gold

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
A mix of CX, SQ and LX

Hi there sierralima . Welcome to FlyerTalk and thank you for the question. I think the best destination for your question is the BA Forum. As you can imagine, there has been considerable angst and discussion about the recent changes to the BAEC. I see that you do a fair bit of TATL, so being able to stick t One World is probably a good idea IHMO. Many people have become quite excited about the Iberia programme as an alternative. I am going to stick to BA a I have Gold For Life; my 'fun' has always been trying to keep GGL, but that is now out of the window. I suggest you read the various posts on the BA Forum, then, if you have not come to a conclusion, post some questions there. All I would say is that you should do some research there first, as the conversation has been going on a long time and people seem to expect newcomers to do some spade work first. Good luck and feel free to come back here with any follow up.

Looking for some advice on where to put (by my standards) a decent chunk of points on an upcoming trip

Due to sky-high economy prices for our school holiday dates, we've booked the following instead of our usual cheap fares. (Wasn't too much more expensive than the cheapest reasonable economy option)
AMS-LHR-DOH-CGK on QR/BA in business lite (P) returning CGK-DOH-AMS on QR in mid-price economy (L) with 3 people should earn a fair amount of mileage.
The question is where to put it. Current contenders are obviously QRPC and BAEC, but I read here that alaska is also good for earn/redemption rates? Does that hold if you never go near the US? What about jetblue?

1) 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:
Not status (never gonna happen). Good eu/sea redemption options, both intra (economy) and inter these regions. (Once-every-few-years business splurge hopefully).
Expiry and ability to pool points is important, given the low earn rate. (Either spending the kid's points on a mid-haul business class trip for 2, or pooling to redeem one business long-haul flight so we can afford cash for the other two) Being able to earn avios on booking.com via BAEC/QRPC is appealing and may end up being a fair chunk of the earnings (we tend to avoid big chains and often use booking.com for holiday lets). Any difference on that aspect between programs?
We're NL based, and not big spenders/consumers, so credit card point earning is not really a factor
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
family of 3 one trip AMS-CGK, plus potentially a few local/regional flights there. On average less than one intra-EU trip per year. Almist always economy. Although we may look for a (very) good sale on business in the future.
Reply:
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: cheapest with reasonable times/routes
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: yes, I can choose pleasure only
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
See 2. We tend to like ME/SEA carriers for the yearly long-haul/stopovers. LH/swiss often has good sales for the route too. Locally, we tend to go for whatever is cheap from AMS/CGK.
Reply:
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: AMS is 20 minutes by bus
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: hehe, no. Given the low earnings on sales fares and the variety in carriers we use, I never really bothered.
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: see 5

Any suggestions?

I'm the kind of traveler who tends to book whatever's on sale. As that doesn't get you a lot of miles, I tend not to bother with FFP's.
However, with one relatively high-earning trip coming up on BA/QR, and possibly slightly more flying in the future (kid's getting a bit older), I figured it may be time to start paying attention. Status still seems unlikely to ever happen, but the idea of some free/cheap holidays is enticing. The trip is an AMS-LHR-DOH-CGK outbound on BA/QR in business lite (P) and a return CGK-DOH-AMS in Economy (L). Not usually our price range, but economy trip prices were sky-high for our school-holiday dates, so the upgrade to business on the overnight outbound wasn't too much more expensive (still a lot of money...). That should earn a decent chunk of miles for three people.

Obvious choices would be QRPC and BAEC (as they're the ones we'd be most likely to actually fly in the future, have family pooling, are interchangeable and can earn points via booking.com), but are Alaska/Finnair much better for earning/redemption even if you never fly them? Any other considerations?

Questions
For members asking for information, to help people to assist you, can you please provide:
(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: Earn/redemption possibilities (based near AMS, and not big consumers, so not going to get much use out of credit card points, but we do have relatively frequent hotel/holiday let bookings on booking.com, which can apparently also earn avios? Any difference between BA/QR programs for that? We tend not to go for the big chains, so the separate Hotel loyalty schemes seem less appealing) For redemptions, we'd be looking at either short hops in europe or South-East Asia (economy?), or possibly 'pooling' points between me/partner/kid to get one/two mid or long-haul business class trips every few years and pay the rest in cash, so a good pooling/family scheme is a big plus.
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
(<25000, 25000-50000, >50000 miles - <25, 25-50, >50 flights?)
Reply: One long haul trip per year (AMS-CGK with possible stopovers and regional travel), possibly 1-2 short EU trips (UK less likely due to visa hassle). We tend to book whatever's cheapest with reasonable times form AMS.
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: cheapest (although we may look for a good deal on business class long-haul in the future)
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Pleasure only, so we can choose
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
(US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: see above. We often use LCC in asia and europe, but the 'normal' carriers do also come up
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: AMS is a 20-minute bus ride away
(7) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: Hehe, no.
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: For the long-haul trips, we've used LH/swiss occasionally, more for the good sale price than the experience. We do tend to like Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Garuda if they have a good price. Cathay is ok.

Alaska for sure
just no points pooling but that shouldn�t matter to to much anyway�

the last i checked, qrpc is better for family pooling. avios are not actually pooled in baec; a balance is maintained for each member in the household account. meanwhile, all avios earned by family members are credited to the main member's account. the implication is you can then transfer as a whole to other avios ffp such as finnair for redemption because there maybe some differences in tax or award availability across programs. the downside though is avios remain in the main member's qrpc account even if someone is removed form the household account

you would also want to check how many miles you get for the flight before crediting. for example, baec will become spend-based from 1 apr 25, hence it is possible that you receive less avios when crediting ba flights to baec than qrpc

Are the rates really that much better? I'm worried about having just enough miles to do X, (e.g. A business class redemption for 1 person) but having them spread out over 3 accounts

Any way to check that already? Wheretocredit seems to use the current structure.
Also.QRPC has a signup bonus. Could I get that for each family member even if they're in a family account? If not, would it work to have separate qprc accounts *and* baec accounts in a household, redeem in qrpc, move everything to baec to have it in 'one pool'?

on the whole, alaska is definitely more valuable, but it really depends on the specific flight that you wish to redeem. you dont fly alot, so it will take some time to accumulate the necessary miles in each account, especially if you are thinking about biz class intl flights. furthermore, only selected hotels chains are partners with alaska, so you have to check if they are the ones you usually book with. so while the miles dont expire, there is a risk that program would have devalued by the time you have sufficient points

sorry i correct myself, this is already in effect. you can see the structure here Collecting Avios on flights | Executive Club | British Airways

yes you can get the bonus for each account

Ok, so the qatar flights would still be distance/class based when credited to baec? And if I have a ticket booked via qatar, and credit to baec, the BA marketed and operated ams-lhr leg would count vased on spending? How would they calculate the fare, since it's only one leg? How about the qr/ba codeshare (we have a qr flight number, but a ba-operated flight lhr-doh). A quick look would indicate alaska would definitely give more miles on the distance basis (125% vs 75% for ba/qr)

And for the sign-up bonuses, me and my wife would both sign up with the promo code, and then I add her as a family member? I gather the kid cannot get his own account and has to be added directly to the family group, right? Sorry for all the questions, there's so many variables here...

you may get better answer asking on the baec forum. i maybe wrong, but if your flight number has a ba code, then it is marketed by ba, and avios will be based on the price (probably the price they sold to qr? im not sure). if your flight number ha a qr code, then it is not marketed by ba despite being operated by ba. in this case, it will still be distance based. this is only true for baec and not for qrpc, so i dont think alaska is 125% to qrpc 75%.

you can read the t&cs (i did quick search but couldnt find the t&cs). but logically, they are giving you 5000 miles for signing up and flying with them, so i dont see why they would limit the bonus to 1 per household. in any case, you can always add your wife into the household after the fact. your kid need to be 18 to have his own account