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Deciding on a Oneworld Frequent Flyer Program? Help is here.

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Old Jan 19, 2014 | 2:48 pm
  #571  
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Originally Posted by salamandergirl
(1) What is your home airport?
Reply: DOH, CPH (currently in the process of moving to DOH, for 2-3 years only)
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.
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Old Jan 19, 2014 | 3:32 pm
  #572  
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Originally Posted by Freddy3792
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?
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.
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Old Jan 19, 2014 | 3:34 pm
  #573  
 
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Originally Posted by bhomburg
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.
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
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Old Jan 20, 2014 | 2:41 am
  #574  
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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...
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Old Jan 20, 2014 | 3:41 am
  #575  
 
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Originally Posted by bhomburg
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
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Old Jan 20, 2014 | 10:09 am
  #576  
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(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
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Old Jan 22, 2014 | 10:27 am
  #577  
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(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.
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Old Jan 23, 2014 | 10:57 am
  #578  
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(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
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Old Jan 26, 2014 | 3:13 pm
  #579  
 
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Which oneworld program is best from bahamas to llondon

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?
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Old Jan 26, 2014 | 3:34 pm
  #580  
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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.
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Old Jan 26, 2014 | 6:04 pm
  #581  
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It would be equally important to know - what is class of service for the Nassau-UK flights ?
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Old Jan 26, 2014 | 6:11 pm
  #582  
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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)

Last edited by Mwenenzi; Jan 26, 2014 at 11:45 pm
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Old Jan 29, 2014 | 10:08 pm
  #583  
 
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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 Im 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 Im going to go to SPG or HHonors, they seem to be the best options from what Ive 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 Im not letting it go!). At least half of this spend cant 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 Im flying domestically. Currently I have Qantas Club access via my QFF Gold status
- Award flights. Ive used some of my points for upgrades and short award flights in the past, but Im 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 doesnt 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? Im 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 cant be done via AMEX, and hence cant 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 dont currently enforce this, but is this something I can rely on? I dont 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!
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Old Feb 2, 2014 | 9:48 pm
  #584  
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Posts: 18
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
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Old Feb 2, 2014 | 11:32 pm
  #585  
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Originally Posted by geraldtan
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.
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

Last edited by Mwenenzi; Feb 3, 2014 at 2:08 am Reason: spelling
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