(1) What is your home airport?

SIN

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?

>50k, economy, business, rarely first

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

Economy if I pay, economy or business if someone else pays. Probably > half economy.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?

Can usually choose airlines, and can often choose the class of service, but there is normally a fixed budget, so choosing business burns through it much much faster. Travel for work and pleasure.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often

SIN to Asia (e.g., China), less often to Europe, still less often to US. Would like to eliminate US entirely, but can't.

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?

Both AA and BA, very low miles and no status. Million-miler and current 1K member on United, but I avoid UA whenever possible. However, remaining star alliance, and flying on partners, might be a viable option.

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

Upgrades, free baggage (but usually get that ex-Asia anyway), lounge access.

(8) Preferred Airlines

Haven't been flying OW much, so little experience to base this one. I am thinking about joining the plans of Cathay, Malaysia, or Qatar, but would consider others (or remaining in AA or BA).

My inclination is to join Cathay, but that is a rather uninformed opinion at this point.

(1) What is your home airport?
BRU
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
Last year, I've earned 10k in M&M
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Economy
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
I travel for pleasure for holiday so the price is the most important factor.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often?
Around Europe, Europe-Asia, Europe - South America
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
I don't have any FFP status. However, I have around 25k miles in M&M.
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Upgrate for travel and good awards ticket
(8) Preferred Airlines
LOT, Lufthansa, TAM, ETIHAD, British Airways

The most important for me is to have a possibility to gather miles without affraid of losing them if I am not travel using airline of one aliance for the long time. For example, I had around 8k miles in Flying Blue gathered during my trip to Japan but they all gone because I haven't flown using SkyTeam for a long time.
In addition, I fly rom time to time with One World. I've allready booked 4 ticket for Iberia. During las two months, I flew couple of times With Air Berlin or Malaysia Airlines.

A few posts upthread I have listed all OW programs' point expiration policies. With your flying patterns and given that the IAG airlines have the most generous expiration rules out there, I'd say it's a toss between BA and IB. Also, both allow using Avios plus money for tickets, which is a bonus for those who don't fly a lot but want to use their points.
You can have accounts in both programs and even transfer points back and forth between both, so that's what I recommend you do.

Also, check if there's an affiliated credit card will let you earn Avios on everyday purchases to help bolster your account and keep your points from expiring.

M&M has become practically worthless for low-spending leisure travelers. With BA/IB, your chances of sitting in a premium cabin courtesy of your points will be much higher.
The largest downsides: Ridiculously high 'fuel surcharges' (YQ) for award bookings on BA which run into hundreds of Euros for longer flights plus high taxes when flying BA via London, especially in premium cabins (IB has much lower surcharges) and no upgrades from discount economy fare classes.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: CPH, SFO, KRS
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: 25k-50k, mostly Y and discounted Y
(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: Mainly pleasure, most probably on QR, BA, AA or MH
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Europe - Asia (typically on QR), Transatlantic, US domestic, intra Europe (usually from scandinavia)
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: No status, 15k QR miles, 22k MH 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 earn and burn rates, easy OW silver
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: QR where convenient

(1) What is your home airport?
SIN

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?

>50k economy

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

Economy

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?

Pleasure

(5) Which routes do you fly most often

SIN to ICN and SIN to USA

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?

FFP with KE and SQ

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

Award flights, long duration before expiration since I dont fly much

(8) Preferred Airlines
MH or CX?

Thanks!

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: it changes annually as I'm an expat. I fly at least annually to DFW and DTW, but it's rarely more than twice per year


(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply:
~70k. Minimum 6 round trip flights, sometimes up to 15 round trip flights

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply:
Almost always business class


(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply:
Most of my flights are paid by company, except 1 trip to a vacation country (typically European) and 1 trip to the USA which are out of my pocket. For company flights, airline depends but I usually have discretion, as long as it's a major airline. Company pays for business class for any flight over 8 hours (which nearly all are)

(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply:
Among & between Asian/African countries (primarily South East and East Asia), +1 european or SE asian vacation and 1 USA


(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply:
AA lifetime gold, ~700k AA miles. Primary benefit is reserving exit row (I'm 6'8") when stuck in economy. I'm DL diamond for the rest of the year, but with the spend requirement combined with the fact I'm only on USA planes once per year and nobody outside the USA takes American Express, there's no way I'll have any status (other than lifetime silver) after this -- which is why I'm realigning alliances.

(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:
I used to be all about status (and still am to a certain degree) so I could get lounge access and upgrades for economy flights my company put me on, but since I became an expat flying business everywhere the real value for me is having company travel miles pay for my flights to the USA / vacation trip each year

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply:
Any

Have maintainable *G, now wondering what other FFP to join...
 

Hi everyone,

My question is one that spans all alliances/FFPs, so I've posted it over in the Information Desk forum, which is the right place for it according to the mods. This is just a quick note to link to it and hopefully get some eyeballs on it.

Flame-Prevention Disclaimer: I'm posting this note here only after discussion with the Info Desk mods. They confirmed that my original post is already in the correct forum, but because the Information Desk forum is not a very well-known forum yet, they suggested that I could link here to my original post, since cross-posting is against the forum rules (and it's annoying anyway :) ).

If any FFP gurus can take a moment to read my question I'd be super duper grateful! Here's the link, I'm pretty sure it'll open automatically in a new tab:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/infor...er-ffp-go.html

thanks for your time,

Ash.

(1) What is your home airport?
Reply: DOH, CPH (currently in the process of moving to DOH, for 2-3 years only)

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: not sure yet, probably around 20-25k

(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: Work and pleasure, can chose but Qatar Airways has the best flight times and least stopovers from DOH.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: DOH - Europe. Planned also some DOH - SE Asia trips

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: around 35k miles in Qatar Airways programme, some tiny 9k in SAS Flying Blue (won't use them anymore from this year on)


(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: award flights mostly. Most things aren't important as my husband will collect much less miles than I do, and flights aren't so long that I really need lounge access or upgrades. Though I must admit that Qatar Airways business class in a 787 is very nice indeed :)

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: no specific preferences.

(1) What is your home airport?
Reply: HKG

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
Reply: 50k intra Asia, 150k TPAC, 50k US/Canada

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Reply: Economy, Business if approved by client.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Business. Pleasure on vac/visit family.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often
Reply: 50k intra Asia, 150k TPAC, 50k US/Canada

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Reply: Can get AA EXP match/challenge from DL DM

(7) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Reply: upgrades on travel, priority services when flying the airline, better award access, free lounge access.

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: None

Other considerations
My Asian HQ is being relocated to HKG from MNL in 2014 and will focus on E Asia and China (TPE TYO ICN & PEK PVG) as well as SE Asia (SIN BKK MNL at the present time)
Consultancy business clients in LAX SFO SEA and YVR
I have parents, in-laws and offspring around YYZ.

Citizenship: Canadian, British subject with right of abode in UK and HK-SAR Chinese national.
Present status: Resident of HK.

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: FRA, STR, DUS
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
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: Pleasure, so I can chosse what I like
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Europe, Asia, USA
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: No status
(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: Maybe getting a small free flight or an upgrade.
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: No preference

I will only fly around twice a year only for holidays. So I wont have as much activity and maybe sometimes I won't fly with One World.

So far I think AA and BA are the best.
Both allow extending miles with minor purchases, so they don't expire as I wont earn enough miles to get something back within 1 or 2 years.

I think from what I could read AA is the best, because the miles are "worth" a bit more than the BA Avios.

Can anyone give me details on QF and IB?

Which one of these 4 would you consider?

QR OWNS DOH. You won't have much of a choice besides Privilege Club as a Doha resident. Of course, you could credit QR flights to any other oneworld program but this doesn't make any sense for economy fliers as earning rates for anything but full fare classes are abysmally bad - you'll typically get 25% of what Privilege Club awards you.

BA and IB's programs are practically identical. They use the same 'currency' and you can transfer points between accounts between both airlines as well. IB doesn't charge the outrageous YQ surcharges for award tickets BA does.

As you have noted yourself, your main concern as a not-really-frequent flyer is keeping your miles from expiring. BA/IB have the most generous expiration policies out there (check a few posts upthread, I've listed them all there. I think a lot of what's said there pertains to you as well).

QF miles expire after 18 months with no activity - I have no idea how their non-flying earning options are for European members.
While AA is indeed a solid program and I'm very happy with it, there's two things that I'd keep in mind: First, most of the "extending miles with minor purchases" options that AAdvantage offers are limited to US-based members. The AAdvantage shopping portal as well as the dining program are geared towards US residents and don't have many or no European partners. Miles gained through hotel stays and car rentals (all major international chains are partners) are your best options here.
Second, looking at AA's US competition and what they have done to their FFPs recently (devaluations galore) and what with AA and US merging their FFP in the next year or two, I'd be careful about starting out with them right now.

Your home airport listing suggests you live in Germany. The easiest way to earn non-flying miles in any FFP is with a co-branded airline credit card. BA offers one in Germany with up to 20k Avios sign-on bonus (link). AA has one on offer as well, but is way less generous.

You only get a limited percentage credited to a diffrent One world card?

So for example if I fly Economy S, which says 50% mileage on the Qatar website and I would gain 6000 qmiles.
If I now usa an AmericanAirlines card, which says I get 50% "baseline miles" on a qatar Economy S flight, then I would only get 3000 miles credited?

Sorry for the maybe stupid question. I am really new to the frequent flyer program business. If I would only get 50% of the 6000 miles it would be pretty useless for me as an economy traveler:(

Yes.
When you fly 6000 miles on a Qatar flight on an S fare and credit that flight to Privilege Club you'll be awarded 3000 qmiles.
AA actually earns the same 50% - you'll end up with 3000 AAdvantage miles for this Qatar flight.
When you credit the same flight to a BA account (which earns only 25% on S fares) you'll only receive 1500 Avios.

This is where the whole FFP selection thing gets interesting. You need to compare routes and fares (which airline has good options to wherever you want to go from your home airport, are their fares competitive?) check earning charts/partner earning charts and compare mileage expiration policies.

When you only fly once or twice a year it'll be a few years until you have enough miles in your account to do anything meaningful with them from just flying. Especially for less-than frequent fliers who seek to maximize their points and keep them from expiring, non-flying earning options are especially important. The 20,000 avios sign-up bonus of the BA credit card I was referring to above would give you as many points as you normally earn in over a year, and everyday purchases charged to it will not only add to your account but keep all your points from expiring.

And there's another thing: Are you a single traveller or do you fly as a family or with a companion? If yes, BA offers household accounts where you can pool miles from all members into one account (restrictions apply), and QR offers an even more generous family programme. Bad earn rates look way less bad when there's four people earning...

First of all thanks for the great information.

I checked out the BA CreditCard yesterday and it is perfect. I searched for a travel insurance up to 5000€ and it is included in the card and at 89€ after year one it is still cheaper than most travel insurances.
Plus the car hire excess insurance, which is interesting for me as I use rental cars several times a year. And you have 0% charge on payments in other currencies and my current credit card only offers free cash, but charges 1,75% on payments. So a perfect addition to my other credit card :)

I will checkout the family account as well as I usually travel with my girlfriend.

If we both take the card and pay all the travel expenses with it, we should end up with nearly 50.000 miles this year, which sounds a lot better than the 12.000 qmiles we would earn.

Thanks again for the great information. I will now have to get the BA credit card :D

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: PHL/YEG (can and do also fly from WAS/NYC and YYC)
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: Between 25-40k, all discount Y
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: discount Y
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Yes. Pleasure.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Most frequently, US domestic/transborder. I do 1-3 TPAC/TATL depending on cost.
(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP? (AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: A3*G, AC P25K (*S)
(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: #1, lounge access and priority boarding. #2, premium cabin redemptions. #3, upgrades
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: AA/US, maybe BA/CX for intl routes

(1) What is your home airport?
LHR

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
hard to say, probably 50-75K

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Economy. Business on creative routings or if paid for by client.

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
I choose carriers, travel dates and am flexible with travel buckets. Don't do much private travel nowadays

(5) Which routes do you fly most often
UK-Africa 80%, world wide 20%

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?
Just obtained QR gold (OWS), have 60k miles on QR (another 55 on EK)

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

(8) Preferred Airlines
QR/BA

Other considerations
Recently moved to London after 5 years expat life in the tropics. Considering changing to BAEC for the Avios option but BA is often 50% more expensive on my routes than QR or EK.

(1) What is your home airport?

BRU, RTM mainly
can fly out of : AMS, PAR, CGN, MAD, OPO

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?

50.000, economy, business if needed for status

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

economy, business if needed for status

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?

I choose carriers, travel dates and am flexible with travel buckets.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often

BRU - SCQ, 4 times a year
BRU - OPO
Bru - MAD, 4 times a year
Bru - DXB, 1 a year

BRU- Rest of europe

(6) Do you have FFP status of any kind in OW or other airline at present? What is it? Do you have any miles banked in a FFP?

BA GOLD , 95.000 Avios
LH SEN, 155.000 miles

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

Upgrades, Awards bookings

(8) Preferred Airlines

BA/AA

Other considerations

I have the mistake rate booked on IB from Paris to SYD. As BA Gold I will receive double Avios ( 100.000). Was wondering if it would be interesting to take an AA-challenge. But Only have LH SEN.
Would AA be better than BA, especially for awards flights

Which oneworld program is best from bahamas to l·london
 

I am going to travel this year at least four times to London from Nassau and return.

Which program is the best to get both miles and status?
AAdvantage, Exec club, Iberia plus?

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

What type of redemptions would you hope to get from your miles (i.e., what routes, what class of service)? Because of the substantial differences among oneworld FFPs, your intended redemptions might be the critical factor.

It would be equally important to know - what is class of service for the Nassau-UK flights ?

Welcome to the forum, or at least your first post after 3 years
Look here (where your question will get moved to) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onewo...help-here.html

Edit:
Post now moved from the AA forum, where was first posted
Please go to post 1 and answer the questions.
Then help can be offered (click the blue link)

QF vs AA? Australian based, largely Economy traveller
 

Hi there,

I've been a 'frequent flyer' for a couple of years now, and recently reading through some threads on both AFF and FT about the benefits of different frequent flyer programs (mainly QF vs AA) it got me wondering as to which might be better for me - or whether there is another better option entirely! From what I've read I believe will probably be best sticking with QF, but wanted to get the experts to sanity check this :)

For the last three years I've had a small to moderate amount of business related travel mixed in with my personal trips. I'm currently QFF Gold with about 2000 lifetime SCs, and I’m able to maintain Gold (just) year on year.

My yearly flights include the following:
- MEL-SYD-MEL once a month for work - cheapest economy flights available
- MEL-SYD-MEL three times a year for personal - cheapest economy flights available
- MEL-PER once a year for work - cheapest economy flights available
- MEL-TPA once a year for work - PE from MEL-LAX, and the cheapest economy flights available for internal US flights
- MEL-SIN once every two years for work – cheapest economy flights available
- MEL-various (either Europe or the US) – once every two years for personal – cheapest economy flights available

All work flights are with Qantas, the rest of them are up to my discretion – but all done through Qantas currently.

My hotel profile is as follows:
- Two nights a month in Sydney
- One night a year in Perth
- Five nights a year overseas

Up until recently I have used Accor hotels, but I am ready to dump them due to their crappy mid-range options in Sydney CBD. I think I’m going to go to SPG or HHonors, they seem to be the best options from what I’ve seen.

Other points earning:
- Credit card – I currently have a spend of around 50k/year, which I put through an ANZ FF Gold Visa. This earns at a rate of 1pt:$1 (I applied for this back in the day when this was standard and now I’m not letting it go!). At least half of this spend can’t be put through AMEX at all – things like my rent and some other bills.
- Woolworths Everyday Rewards – currently I do all my grocery shopping via this to funnel points in QFF. I guess somewhere around 5-7k points per year?
- Optus – My work & personal mobile are with optus and earn me around 2-3k QFF points per year.

All up I earn around 150k QFF points per year - from flights, hotel points I have funnelled in, and my other spending/earning.

In terms of what I value from a FF program:
- Having access to a lounge, particularly when I’m flying domestically. Currently I have Qantas Club access via my QFF Gold status
- Award flights. I’ve used some of my points for upgrades and short award flights in the past, but I’m currently at 300k QFF points, trying to save the necessary amount for two RTW OWEs in J. Long haul awards in F and J would be of interest to me in the future!
- Status is not something I care a great deal about. Being able to check-in and go through security using the business lines are nice, but not as high a priority as the above.
- Extra baggage allowance doesn’t matter to me, as I travel very light wherever I go.
- Upgrades are not that important to me, but I suppose would be nice if they were available!

There are a couple of things which lead me to believe I will probably be best served by staying with QFF. Firstly the fact that the majority of my flights – particularly domestic – are in deep deep economy. I understand that with the AAdvantage program, some of the deep economy booking classes are not eligible for earning? Particularly booking class E? I’m not sure what my current flights most often go into.. how do I check this? Secondly, my credit card spend adds around 50k points/year to QF, and as I said above at least half of it can’t be done via AMEX, and hence can’t be moved over to AA (via the David Jones Amex into SPG and then onwards to AAdvantage). Lastly, AA seems to require that you fly four AA sectors a year to retain status with them. I have read that they don’t currently enforce this, but is this something I can rely on? I don’t want to be bitten after devoting a substantial portion of my earning effort in their direction.

If anyone has insights for the above and my best options that would be great!

Thank you!

Best Oneworld for SIN based, non-so-frequent flyer
 

Hi all,

I'm based in SIN and I fly mostly SQ, but for an upcoming trip to Orlando my company has booked me on AA for the JFK-MCO leg.
My default option would be to credit the miles to my pre-existing QFF account, but that is on empty and I've read lots of good stuff about AAdvantage in general.
So my question is this, for someone who rarely travels on Oneworld and even then mostly in the AsiaPac/Australia region, would an AAdvantage account be significantly better than QFF?

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: Good award redemptions for SIN-based flights, alternatively low threshold for non-flight redemptions.
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: < 25000 miles and < 25 qualifying flights/yr on Oneworld
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Reply: Economy full-fare (except for pleasure, then cheapest economy)
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Yes, Economy.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
Reply: in Asia, Kangaroo, Transpacific in that order
(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: SIN
(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?
Reply: KF Silver. QFF Bronze (0 points probably expired)
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: SQ. On Oneworld = JAL and Qatar

JFK-MCO is not many miles, but still worth having an active OW freq flyer program

Hard to recomend QF when starting from zero. QF has YQ surcharges on awards where as AA does not, except on BA/IB. QF earn to burn is poor compared to AA. When the AA & US Airways ffp merge would expect some changes. Changes to FFP's hardly ever benefit freq flyers. BA is OK for short haul (Asia) awards. Alaska is a good FFP, with a wide range on partners, but not CX, QR or JL.http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...ePlan-partners

Be carefull of miles expiry as links in post 1

Help for Newbie choosing program
 

Questions

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Lower redemption rate and lower fees(costs) when booking redemption.


(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How 25k-50k

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Discount Economy & occasional business

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Both Business and Pleasure (business trips tends to be Emirates (EK)). Trying to decide between JL and QF since KE does not offer miles for the usual booking class for business trips.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often
PVG - PRG, PVG-United States, PVG-Europe, PVG-SE Asia

(6) What is your home airport?
PVG

(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?
NO

(8) Preferred Airlines
CX, QF, JL, AA, EK

Note: Usually fly B or T class on EK which does not acquire miles on KE. QF and JL both gives 50%. Occasional personal trips on MH, CX, AA.

From my understanding JL has hefty fuel charge for award booking. Is the situation with QF similar? Any advise is appreciated.

QF has very high award cash surcharges and high points needed (compared to AA). But you earn QF points on EK flight numbers, but not Status Credits

Also look at Alaska. EK, CX, QF are a AS partner's, but JL is not
http://www.alaskaair.com/content/mil...ePlan-partners

For those domestic QF flights, oneworld status other than QF will not get you into their lounges if I interpret the *does not include Qantas Domestic Business Lounges) wording on the OW website correctly.

Regarding switching to AA: As of August 2013, all published fares on QF earn mileage in AAdvantage, although at only 25% for the two cheapest Y booking classes, and 50% for the most common ones. See their earning chart here. And I don't know a way to find out the fare class on QF's website without either calling or using ITA and comparing with the prices found on the QF site. A real PITA.
AA currently does not enforce the four-segment minimum on AA metal rule indeed. But seeing they are in the midst of a merger and there's bound to be changes (=devaluations) to the program, I would not rely on that to continue beyond the 2015 FF year.

I would stay with QF as well.

OW status will get you into the normal Qantas club domestic frequent flyer lounges, but not the slightly better Qantas Domestic Business Lounges. If you have a business class ticket you have access to Qantas Domestic Business Lounges. QF domestic lounges are in general better than lounges in USA airports

http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airl...egory=qcLounge

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Maximum number of domestic award flights. Priority access is nice, too.
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Less than 10k (per family member).
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
Cheapest
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Most flights are on 1-class Eagle. Pleasure.
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
MSN-DFW
(6) What is your home airport?
MSN. MKE is about an hour 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?
No status. Once CC bonuses post, will have ~55k UA miles, 40k US miles, and 40k AA miles.
(8) Preferred Airlines
AA (Eagle) is the only direct flight from MSN to DFW. UA is an acceptable alternative sometimes.

We live in MSN, extended family is in DFW. Me, spouse, two kids. Most mile earn will occur via credit cards and I'm only interested in redeeming for award flights. AA is an obvious choice, but BA distance-based comes out ahead with CC spending (assuming award tickets are available).

Award availability is pretty much identical between AAdvantage and BAEC. AA is nicely generous with releasing award seats to partners.

In your case, I'd go with BAEC and create a household account, bundling flight activity and non-flying activity (cc spend for you and spouse) all in one account. That will build up a mileage balance much quicker than with individual AAdvantage accounts. Also, a MSN-DFW award ticket requires 25% less Avios than AA miles (7500 Avios compared to 12500 miles) which more than offsets the slightly better non-flying earning options and higher CC sign-on boni that AAdvantage offers.
edit: I'd also look into the US Airways program, specifically the affiliated cc as long as it is still available. The companion certificates this card comes with are ideal for your family travel redemptions.

Your US Airways miles will at some time in the future become AA miles. Keep looking on the AA forum.


But all that may(will?) change as the US Airways ffp merges into AA ffp

Do you & your spouse have seperate credit cards feeding into individual freq flyer mileage accounts?

Thanks. My understanding is that BA award seats mirror MileSAAver seats. The implication being that there's no way I could use Avios to buy AAnytime seats. Right? This is the big sticking point for me. I'd rather not blow miles on 25k domestic one-ways, but sometimes it's nice to have that flexibility.

I forgot to mention that I already signed us up for a household account. It would be nice to put my toddler's miles to use.

Right, I picked up the US Airways card with the expectation that I'd either use the miles or just let them sit until the ultimate merge.

Currently we both have individual Citi AA cards feeding separate accounts. I'm retiring mine and after spouse spends $3400 more to get additional 10k miles, we were planning to retire hers. That is, unless we get the 2x miles up to 1000/month retention offer when we call to cancel.

The BA Visa is on my radar and I have a brand new Amex PRG (50k MR bonus) that I could also use.

From what I have read, the US DM Barclays card will be converted to an AAdvantage card after the FFPs merge. At this point they will stop accepting new members but continue to serve their existing customers much like there's still a gazillion US Dividend Miles cards out there issued by BoA although that relationship has ended years ago.
The feature I was getting at with the current US card is the companion certificate, which is a very good deal for domestic family travel.

Exactly. AAnytime awards are AAdvantage exclusives and are not available on partner programs.

Thanks so much! I'll take a look at Alaskan.

Lower redemption rate and lower fees(costs) tends to steer people to AA for long haul and at times BA for short haul (but watch BA surcharges). AS is OK for redemptions based on my very limited knowledge

Lower redemption rate and lower fees(costs) tends to steer people to AA for long haul and at times BA for short haul (but watch BA surcharges). AS is OK for redemptions based on my very limited knowledge

But we have no one with good knowledge of LA JL CX QR RJ ffp's who posts here regularly.

Thanks!!

Hello, I am not exactly a Frequent Flyer, I am mostly a backpacker hoping to find ways to use miles as a travel hack, I have about 24k miles with TK Miles&Smiles from my last trip and I am looking to switch to OW now that JJ is switching and I also have a flight booked with QR for later this year. I am also considering doing some mileage runs to get some small trips in and upgrade status.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Getting the most redemption flights out miles and travel hacking
Reply:
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
Reply: <25k Economy
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: Economy/Cheapest
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: Pleasure, mostly I don't choose airlines
(5) Which routes do you fly most often
Reply: Domestic Brazil, Asia
(6) What is your home airport?
Reply: CNF near home, GRU for international
(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?
Reply: No.
(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: Not any in particular, I'd say domestic would be AD.

Basically I am considering using most out of OW with JJ now, I've considered using Lanpass over it as I am hoping to get international flights in redemption and I am a bit of a newbie to know which one is better and has less surcharges for redemption. I've seen many blogs recommending AA which is good for me because they fly to CNF.

AA is definitely good for 'cheapest economy' fliers such as you as their program earns 100% miles on all fares flown on AA, BA and LAN international flights. I'd say it's safe to expect the earn rates transfer to TAM as well after the merger is completed, but that's speculative at this point.
Add reasonably generous expiration policies and solid redemption values (hefty surcharges on BA metal flights though) to the advantages and it looks like a program to consider indeed.
However, the earn rates on LAN (and presumably, post-merger TAM) for domestic discount economy fares are dismal at 25%. So when the majority of your travel is domestic, think twice or credit those to another program.

In any case, I'd wait with mileage runs etc. until the LAN/TAM merger dust has settled, TAM actually is in OW and OW programs have updated their earning charts.