This year I already have trips planned to LAX, DXB, TLV, (each in WT+) and 2 to PRG. If I go with BA I have a good chance of reaching 600 TP's and Silver, while if I go with American (or another miles-based FF program) I'm only looking at AA Gold. It seems like BA is the clear choice but I wanted to double-check and I'm not sure how the other OW programs work. The standard Q's and A's below:

(1) home airport - LHR
(2) miles flown each year & in what class? - 20-40k, combination of discount economy and WT+.
(3) types of fares bought - either a discount economy (earning reduced tier pts) or a WT+ fare (not sure of the letters for either).
(4) choice of airlines/cabins. work and/or pleasure? - combination of work and pleasure
(5) routes flown most often - LHR-PRG (4-6 times per year), LHR-LAX (1-2 times), and LHR-ATL (1 time max). Maybe 1-2 other trips to US or elsewhere (DXB & TLV recently)
(6) current FFP status - BA Blue (Bronze soon), AA lowest.
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? - lounge access, early seat selection (when travelling w/ family)
(8) Preferred Airlines - none.

thanks!

(1) home airport - GRU - São Paulo
(2) miles flown each year & in what class? - 250k all in C
(3) types of fares bought - Only fly business, unless it is unavailable. Book the cheapest J class fare available.
(4) choice of airlines/cabins. work and/or pleasure? I own My business so I can choose, whether for business or pleasure. I would say 80 per cent of My travel is for business and 20 per cent for leisure.
(5) routes flown most often - GRU - XXX - HKG/PVG and GRU-CDG.
(6) current FFP status - LH *G, JJ *G and FB silver
(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? Good rates, since already get most of the other Perks for flying J anyway.
(8) Preferred Airlines - SQ LX CX TK

Since you mainly want lounge access, I would definitely go with BA here.

My fares
 

(1) What is your home airport? (SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: CPH (Copenhagen)

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
Reply: <25

(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 - can choose airlines.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: Intra-Europe and Intercontinental and 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: Eurobonus Basic


(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: upgrade on travels, Priority service, Lounges

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: None

Flying to PHX and/or LAX, then MCO and MCO-CPH home. + Trip to Berlin. next year.

You are going to be hard pressed to get any sort of status flying under 25k per year. Even if you do get status, it will probably be lowest tier, which won't give lounge access.

If you want upgrades and are willing to pay for WT+, BA allows for very cheap upgrades to CW (note, you may need to book CPH-LHR separate from LHR-United States, as BA upgrades must be for the entire itinerary, and the CPH-LHR leg is only upgradeable if its a full fare ticket). If you are unwilling to pay for WT+, I would probably go with AA, as their miles are generally the most valuable.

I am not sure about the 25k thing. I have 2 trips to the States + a trip to Berlin next year.

I am new here, and I tried looking in the glossary but I don't know what CW and WT+ are. Thanks for the quick response dcAA

I know I am not a FF flier, I doubt I will ever get any status, all I am looking for is the best way to slowly accumulate miles, with the thought of eventually getting some use from them. I do like the QF A380,but, am just a budget traveller.

(1) home airport - LAX

(2) miles flown each year & in what class? - <25k economy

(3) types of fares bought - cheapest economy.

(4) choice of airlines/cabins. work and/or pleasure? - usually pleasure - my choice, infrequently for work

(5) routes flown most often - LAX- SYD, annually at most, one domestic US flight per year

(6) current FFP status - QF - lowest, AA-lowest, United - lowest

(7) What is most important to you in a FFP? good award redemption rates, better award access

(8) Preferred Airlines - Qantas - but, an flexible

WT+ = World Traveler Plus = premium economy on BA.

CW = Club World = business class on BA.

Your mileage is right about 25,000. Unless you add some more flying, you're looking at being a lower level elite regardless of who you fly. BA does status on tier points, and if you pay for WT+, you may be close to BA Silver = OW Saphire and Lounge access (two TATL round trips ex-CPH in WT+ should net you over 400 tier points, with less than 200 more needed for BA Silver).

Help anyone?

For those who asked about perks with relatively low flying.

If 25k is bottom tier for One World, maybe you wanna consider Star Alliance, Aegean can get you Gold at 20k per year and it is for 3yrs and I heard if you just keep it active rather than getting 20k every turnaround. Another is Asiana but you do need 40k for the 2yrs every 2yrs. Others are generally 25k for Silver and 50k for Gold. 1 or 2 can be v high ie., 100k for Gold. Gold will get you lounge access if you want that.

If you want lounge access and rewards. Maybe Asiana but you need to keep up with the every 2yr thingy. Because if you do go for the cheap flights, Aegean might only give 0.70 pt per mile, and if you go too cheap some of the flights might give you NIL. This depends on the airline you are flying with as well - as they determine who cannot get points and what can and at what ratio.

Not sure about upgrades. I heard the USA might be easier with that, other part of the world might be harder or near non existent. I heard that AirNZ can be done so .. but tier structure they use for their programme is quite diff to the rest of the world. Put it this way, if you are not a business traveler forget it. You need maybe 3x return USA Asia to just get Silver on economy class.

Also note that BA. I tried to look it up once. I am from NZ and I could not join. Maybe they restrict it only UK or only EU or maybe they not allow some distant areas like NZ.

It seems like the prices on *A are 1.5-2 times of other alliances. Maybe the seatings are more comfortable and the service is better, but for a budget traveler the price might put you off.

Interesting. If you already have status with JJ (*G, right?) it probably would make sense to see how the Lan/Tam merger ends up with regard to alliance. If LATAM stays with Oneworld, then presumably you'll have your status matched - either to Sapphire or Emerald levels (Silver or Comodoro respectively) in which case you'd probably want to stay there.

Otherwise, I think it's hard to beat AA in terms of redemption rates - IF you fly in business class, where flights on most Oneworld members will earn 100% redemption mileage bonuses in addition to usual class-of-service bonuses. It really adds up.

Judging from your described routes and preference for cheap J fares, you really sound like a candidate for Oneworld RTW products - maybe a couple at a time - one eastbound and one westbound. The Oneworld Explorer has unlimited mileage unlike the Star RTW products, and prices are generally better than on Star (often MUCH better) so the combination - low price per flown mile and no mileage cap (but like Star a 16-segment overall cap) might be just the ticket. Certainly it bears some scrutiny on your part - a little homework on this board will be time well spent. Combined with elite status, RTW products can be major mileage cows, and they're nowhere nearly as "inflexible" as many people think.

So short answer, maybe join AA, but wait to see how LATAM shapes up before making a push for Oneworld elite status.

Which one: * or OW?
 

(1) new home - LHR
(2) 2012 mileage - 100K
(3) Economy fare
(4) Work travel, can choose airline
(5) 2012 expected R/T destinations: AMS (6x), YVR(4x), YYZ(4x), IAD(3x), RTM(3x), ZHR(3x), HEL(2x), HKG(1x), LAS(1x) -- some domestic travel once I'm in Canada, USA, NL, and FI
(6) current status: UA Gold (37,9 on UA), BA Bronze (13,7)
(7) MOST IMPORTANT: upgrades on travel and free lounge access

I realise I've made the mistake of not consolidating my air miles in the past - ready to be loyal to one airline, but not sure which. Thinking BA since I'm flying out of LHR...? Would it be worth shifting from * to OW?

So grateful for this forum! Thanks in advance

I'm another potential AC refugee. I decided against switching last year but I'm reconsidering it again now.

(1) What is your home airport?
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class?
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or, class of service?. Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
(5) Which routes do you fly most often

I fly about 30-40k miles from DUB to NYC, (work) SFO, (work) and YUL (vacation) each year.

I'm pondering a vacation trip to AUS sometime in the next year though which might be instead of YUL...

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

On AC I was paying for M fares which are about as expensive as WTP+ or equivalent. For my personal travel I book the cheapest fares usually.

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

I just lost AC*G :(

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

Top priority is totally upgrades. After that lounges (that have showers after red-eyes). Don't really care about the rest.

What I worked out previously was that on BA if I could maintain BA Silver (which I'm not really clear on with the new rules) I could buy WTP+ on all my business flights and upgrade to CW with the miles I earn as fast as I earn them. My personal travel would be in the back of the bus.

What I don't know is how any of the other OW programs stack up. Does AA have any similar benefits? AA flies direct to DUB so it would be tempting to fly them sometimes, at least for the daytime flight.

If I do manage to put together a vacation to AUS obviously BA, CX, and QF are all tempting. Do any of them have any way to get into premium economy with the miles I earn on my business travel?

(8) Preferred Airlines

AFAIK the OW routes to DUB are either AA through ORD or BA through LHR. Are there other options I'm not thinking of?

My post isn't so much a request for information or advice, rather, I'd like to share my route to elite status.

Vital Stats:
Currently resident in YYZ, formerly EIN/MST and before then BDA.
I have been an AA member since 1993 and a BAEC member from 2007.
leisure flyer till 2010. Business and leisure since then. Tickets booked 'on the cheap'
Major routes YYZ-LHR; YYZ-RDU; YYZ-AMS; AMS-LON
BA Membership Year begins/ends: May

2 Scenarios

My flights can be seen on ba97.com and below is an overview of what I would be credited to BA or AA's program for my oneworld flying
BA
AA
Conclusion: For my travel pattern: BA is the better choice bringing me up to oneworld Sapphire until May 2013, whereas all the flying combined on AA wouldn't get me close to Ruby, even if the points didn't reset. I must add that I wouldn't be sapphire on BA if I didn't have a European Address. In essence though, I'd only be 100 points away from the 600 tier point threshold for sapphire.

Besides the obvious benefit of reaching a higher status tier, BA Silver also allows me to use AA's lounges domestically. A perk not extended to AA members of equivalent tier.

The drawback to BA's programme is the higher cost of reward travel. However, to get the most out of my miles I intend on using them for World Traveller Plus (Eremium Economy) to Club World (Business) Upgrades.