posted in error

Hey!

I will be entering a university in the UK this October and will fly a lot from now on. Which is why I'm weighing all the possible FFPs.

Some say the FFP of AA is good while others recommend BA's or CX's.

I know the basic characteristics of each. Such as no fuel surcharges for AAdvantage, zone based system of BAEC and how it's good to use avios to upgrade or redeem short-haul flights and so on.

Right now I'm thinking about joining AAdvantage or BAEC but it would be great to get some advice from skilled flyers like you guys.

Of course, if you believe that other kinds of FFPs are better, please tell me.

Thank you so much for your time and effort.


1) What is your home airport?

Reply: LHR for 3 or 4 years. Then, I'll move to the states. Probably in the eastern area like Boston but might end up in California.

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

Reply: Around 40k miles. Mostly in premium economy.

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

Reply: Premium economy. Sometimes in economy or business.

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

Reply: Yes, I can. Um.... I'm a Korean student studying in the UK. Almost all of my flights are for visiting Korea during the vacations. So I suppose it's for "pleasure".

(5) Which routes do you fly most often?

Reply: Mostly between LHR and ICN (Usually in non-direct flights)

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

Reply: No

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

Reply: Lounge access and priority service. Availability of lifetime status

(8) Preferred Airlines

Reply : Not really

AA and go for The Platinum Challange^

Moving this to the correct thread - the sticky one.

Gardyloo
Oneworld moderator

I'm trying my luck here as well - after the latest round of enhancements to the Lufthansa Miles&More Program I think it's about time to abandon Lufthansa and look for another airline to fly in 2014. As requested, here are the formal answers:

1) What is your home airport?

CGN and DUS - could also reasonably use FRA, BRU or AMS for long-hauls, but these two are my main ports of departure.

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

Including Lufthansa's 25% status-bonus (and considering the 50% only fare I got on some longhauls this year) my current tally stands at approximately 105000K as of today. These miles were collected on 92 Segments so far, almost all in Economy-class.

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

Lowest available Economy.

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

Choice of airlines is soley mine, class of service is Economy only.

(5) Which routes do you fly most often?

Multi-weekly domestic Germany, plus 2-6 TATL per year. Add a few intra-Europe flights each year to that mix...

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

No OW-status so far, once had AA Gold which I got on a simple West-Coast-Roundtrip when there was a double status miles promotion...

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

Lounge access and using miles for family-vacation, preferably in Business Class or above. For mileage tickets no YQ would be a definite plus...but not a requirement.

(8) Preferred Airlines

Would prefer not to use AB or IB on long-haul flights, apart from that I am open to all OW airlines.


Any suggestion? I would not like to use AirBerlin (even if most flights will be with them) and currently wonder whether I should go with AA or BA. I would like to get a status-match by my future Oneworld airline so I would not need to start at the low-end of the food-chain...any suggestions considering my profile?

Greetings - Dirk

I have mileage pretty much everywhere and thinking of chosing one frequent flyer program for oneworld that suits me the best in terms of good award redemption, priority services (e.g., additional baggage check-in, priority boarding, lounge access although I already have priority pass from AMEX but their lounges are quite crappy).

(1) What is your home airport?

Singapore (SIN) in general, but Hong Kong (HKG) for 2 years at the moment due to work

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

<25k

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)

Economy

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

Work (I can choose the airline I like) and pleasure (usually i'll pick the cheapest option)

(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)

Hong Kong - Singapore, Singapore - Perth (on a frequent basis to visit my sister), Hong Kong - Philippines, within the asia pacific region (e.g., thailand, indonesia) but will fly to US (California) once a year for work and to Europe (western Europe) once a year for vacation.

(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)

Qantas, Singapore krisflyer, Emirates - 20k miles , Qatar - 14k miles, Delta - 30k miles, UA - 4k 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.)

Priority services, free lounge access, good award redemption

(8) Preferred Airlines

Emirates, Singapore airline, Qantas, ANA

Thanks!!

jonalwy Welcome to the forum

Of the airlines you list in (6) & (8) only Qantas QF is OneWorld. QR Qatar will join OneWorld on 31 Oct 2013.
Priority services & free lounge access only come with status. Difficult to get flying less than 25K miles
"Good award redemption" eliminates QF (and BA to a point):- high cash YQ fuel surcharges
For mileage collection and low co pay award fees AA is good for many people.

However at this time, in my view, better to get enough miles in one program to get an award or miles upgrade, and then abandon that FFP: you have too many FFP for less than 25K flying miles per year. With small account balances you are at risk of losing the miles due to no activity. Best to stick with 1 OneWorld, 1 StarAlliance airline and/or 1 Skyteam. You can get miles credited to an airline FFP while flying another (partner) airline, subject to rules of your program. Espically the fare class/bucket

Thank you too. I have been updated with his flight details, which are basically as follows:

QF operated by EK
Germany to Oz via DXB on the outbound leg and via BKK and DXB on the return. Apparently at least one segment (BKK-DXB?) in Business.

Does this, or the fact that EK is the operating airline, change the conclusion that AA would be best for crediting?

Thanks again.

If crediting QF flights to AA, it is the flight number you purchased that controls the transaction. Note most of AA's OW partners require OW metal, however, QF flights do not.

That does not change the fact that QF is not very generous in posting to AA for the discount economy fare classes. Y+, J and F classes are not an issue.

Happy wandering

Fred

We really started collecting miles in January for BA as we knew we were going to be emigrating, we collected them through UK AMEX MR, BAPP, Tesco and ended up with a redemption flight from BHD-SIN in First using a BAPP 241 and 105,000 Avios. We then paid for a Qantas flight from SIN to PER which is now our base.

Looking to earn though flight but also credit cards, we will have a high household income

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

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? (<25K, 25k-50k, >50k)
Reply: Unknown yet but will be flying back to the UK at least once per year, internal Australian flights for long weekends away, up into Asia for holidays.

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy ? ( First, Business, Economy etc.)
Reply: Will be a combination of Economy and Business

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

(5) Which routes do you fly most often (US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: See Q2

(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: no real status on any airline to talk of, still have just over 70,000 Avios and 20,000 UK AMEX MR, I also have some Qatar miles from a trip from MAN-BKK

(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: mainly looking for upgrades/redemptions for the return trip to the UK

(8) Preferred Airlines
Reply: BA, possibly Emirates ( I know not oneworld but handy as can fly direct to either Dublin or Glasgow, short travel times to parents home from there), Qatar, any really

FromTheRail
Welcome to Aussie
Is Perth permanent or just for a few years ?

AA has lowish miles needed for redemptions compared to QF / BA, and very little in cash co pay (YQ fuel surcharge). But check cash co pay carefully
You can get miles credited to an airline FFP while flying another (partner) airline, subject to rules of your program. Same with redemptions. Can use partner airlines

For upgrades the general rule is you can only upgrade a flight marketed (flight number) and operated (metal) by the airline of your freq flyer programme (no codeshares). All subject to the t&c's of your FFP and your paid ticket. Low cost tickets are often not eligable for upgrades. However as is the way with FFP's there are some (expensive) upgrade exceptions with AA/BA/IB with higher priced economy fares.

QF upgrades are not confirmed until soon before the flight (a lottery).
How QR will do miles upgrades when it joins OneWorld later this month is a mystery to me

Welcome to PER FromTheRail

Given that AA no longer has a "soft landing" each person really does need to think about the available FF programs carefully. Also from PER it is important that pricing exSEAsia be considered as it possible to save substantial sums. Seats from PER to SIN-KUL-HKG (perhaps in Y) are less important than the price of premium seats from there to Europe.

AA still does have the best earn/burn ratio. And a trip to Europe from PER (even on two separate tickets) will likely qualify (using Y+ or J longhaul) for AA Gold. Will you have enough additional flying to reach PLT? Downside is reduced levels of credits from QF to AA. Upside is AA award tickets internal to Oz/NZ are huge bargains considering PER starts.

CX treats their members very well and Silver members get lounge access where CX lounges are found. 24K in J or 30K miles in Y are needed. Consider carefully where CX fares to Europe are purchased though.

There haven't been enough reports (IMO) from the MH members to know whether Enrich is useful for redeeming flights. Seems that regional flights are now mostly on 738s if you have a preference (or not) for widebodies. And MH airline charges vary greatly depending on the originating airport.

The deciding factor for you is likely to be where to and how often you fly into SE Asia and whether you fly QF domestically on the cheapest Y fares.

Happy wandering

Fred

FromTheRail
Is you get AA status, will you do enough flights to maintain AA status (without a challenge) ?
AA currently does not enforce the 4 AA flights to get/maintain status rule. QF & BA do enforce the 4 flight rule
CX miles earning is poor on low cost fares to all FFP's

We have come over on a 457 visa but plan to stay, currently looking into PR then onto citizenship.

I've already thought of the short hop over to SEA the get a nicer seat to Europe, we actually flew Y from SIN-PER after our First experience which was a bit of a shock to the system!!

I've been looking for a while for a new way to earn and spend miles but am currently lost and nothing is sticking out as a winner so far.

We would probably be looking at 2-3 trips up into SEA per year, and the same around AUS/NZ

Thank you!