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.