Hi all,

Current *A gold and thinking whether to switch to a oneworld program, given their strength in HKG. I will do flights from HKG-SIN (4-6x a year) in Y, one HKG-JFK in flight in PE, and two HKG- Europe trips in Y/PE a year at minimum.
I was thinking whether to keep my KF Gold status in *A or start anew with Alaska/CX AsiaMiles. The main issue would be the ridiculous pricing of CX ex-HKG for personal trips.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Travel upgrades, Priority luggage handling/boarding

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
25000-50000+ miles

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

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
A mix of work and pleasure, in total around 10 short-haul economy trips (20 flights) and 5 long-haul PEY trips on average

(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
HKG-SIN

(6) What is your home airport?
HKG

(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?
KF Gold

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
A mix of CX, SQ and LX

Hi there sierralima . Welcome to FlyerTalk and thank you for the question. I think the best destination for your question is the BA Forum. As you can imagine, there has been considerable angst and discussion about the recent changes to the BAEC. I see that you do a fair bit of TATL, so being able to stick t One World is probably a good idea IHMO. Many people have become quite excited about the Iberia programme as an alternative. I am going to stick to BA a I have Gold For Life; my 'fun' has always been trying to keep GGL, but that is now out of the window. I suggest you read the various posts on the BA Forum, then, if you have not come to a conclusion, post some questions there. All I would say is that you should do some research there first, as the conversation has been going on a long time and people seem to expect newcomers to do some spade work first. Good luck and feel free to come back here with any follow up.

Best program for eu/asia not-so-frequent family
 

Looking for some advice on where to put (by my standards) a decent chunk of points on an upcoming trip

Due to sky-high economy prices for our school holiday dates, we've booked the following instead of our usual cheap fares. (Wasn't too much more expensive than the cheapest reasonable economy option)
AMS-LHR-DOH-CGK on QR/BA in business lite (P) returning CGK-DOH-AMS on QR in mid-price economy (L) with 3 people should earn a fair amount of mileage.
The question is where to put it. Current contenders are obviously QRPC and BAEC, but I read here that alaska is also good for earn/redemption rates? Does that hold if you never go near the US? What about jetblue?

1) 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:
Not status (never gonna happen). Good eu/sea redemption options, both intra (economy) and inter these regions. (Once-every-few-years business splurge hopefully).
Expiry and ability to pool points is important, given the low earn rate. (Either spending the kid's points on a mid-haul business class trip for 2, or pooling to redeem one business long-haul flight so we can afford cash for the other two) Being able to earn avios on booking.com via BAEC/QRPC is appealing and may end up being a fair chunk of the earnings (we tend to avoid big chains and often use booking.com for holiday lets). Any difference on that aspect between programs?
We're NL based, and not big spenders/consumers, so credit card point earning is not really a factor
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
family of 3 one trip AMS-CGK, plus potentially a few local/regional flights there. On average less than one intra-EU trip per year. Almist always economy. Although we may look for a (very) good sale on business in the future.
Reply:
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: cheapest with reasonable times/routes
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Reply: yes, I can choose pleasure only
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
See 2. We tend to like ME/SEA carriers for the yearly long-haul/stopovers. LH/swiss often has good sales for the route too. Locally, we tend to go for whatever is cheap from AMS/CGK.
Reply:
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: AMS is 20 minutes by bus
(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?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: hehe, no. Given the low earnings on sales fares and the variety in carriers we use, I never really bothered.
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: see 5

Any suggestions?

I'm the kind of traveler who tends to book whatever's on sale. As that doesn't get you a lot of miles, I tend not to bother with FFP's.
However, with one relatively high-earning trip coming up on BA/QR, and possibly slightly more flying in the future (kid's getting a bit older), I figured it may be time to start paying attention. Status still seems unlikely to ever happen, but the idea of some free/cheap holidays is enticing. The trip is an AMS-LHR-DOH-CGK outbound on BA/QR in business lite (P) and a return CGK-DOH-AMS in Economy (L). Not usually our price range, but economy trip prices were sky-high for our school-holiday dates, so the upgrade to business on the overnight outbound wasn't too much more expensive (still a lot of money...). That should earn a decent chunk of miles for three people.

Obvious choices would be QRPC and BAEC (as they're the ones we'd be most likely to actually fly in the future, have family pooling, are interchangeable and can earn points via booking.com), but are Alaska/Finnair much better for earning/redemption even if you never fly them? Any other considerations?

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: Earn/redemption possibilities (based near AMS, and not big consumers, so not going to get much use out of credit card points, but we do have relatively frequent hotel/holiday let bookings on booking.com, which can apparently also earn avios? Any difference between BA/QR programs for that? We tend not to go for the big chains, so the separate Hotel loyalty schemes seem less appealing) For redemptions, we'd be looking at either short hops in europe or South-East Asia (economy?), or possibly 'pooling' points between me/partner/kid to get one/two mid or long-haul business class trips every few years and pay the rest in cash, so a good pooling/family scheme is a big plus.
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
(<25000, 25000-50000, >50000 miles - <25, 25-50, >50 flights?)
Reply: One long haul trip per year (AMS-CGK with possible stopovers and regional travel), possibly 1-2 short EU trips (UK less likely due to visa hassle). We tend to book whatever's cheapest with reasonable times form AMS.
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
(First, Business, Premium economy, Economy, cheapest)
Reply: cheapest (although we may look for a good deal on business class long-haul in the future)
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Pleasure only, so we can choose
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
(US Domestic, Transpacific, Kangaroo, in Asia etc)
Reply: see above. We often use LCC in asia and europe, but the 'normal' carriers do also come up
(6) What is your home airport?
(SFO, SCL, London LHR, HKG, Singapore SIN etc.)
Reply: AMS is a 20-minute bus ride 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?
(AA Executive Platinum, QF Gold, UA 1K, LAN Comodoro, etc)
Reply: Hehe, no.
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
Reply: For the long-haul trips, we've used LH/swiss occasionally, more for the good sale price than the experience. We do tend to like Emirates, Qatar, Singapore, Garuda if they have a good price. Cathay is ok.

Alaska for sure
just no points pooling but that shouldn’t matter to to much anyway…

the last i checked, qrpc is better for family pooling. avios are not actually pooled in baec; a balance is maintained for each member in the household account. meanwhile, all avios earned by family members are credited to the main member's account. the implication is you can then transfer as a whole to other avios ffp such as finnair for redemption because there maybe some differences in tax or award availability across programs. the downside though is avios remain in the main member's qrpc account even if someone is removed form the household account

you would also want to check how many miles you get for the flight before crediting. for example, baec will become spend-based from 1 apr 25, hence it is possible that you receive less avios when crediting ba flights to baec than qrpc

Are the rates really that much better? I'm worried about having just enough miles to do X, (e.g. A business class redemption for 1 person) but having them spread out over 3 accounts

Any way to check that already? Wheretocredit seems to use the current structure.
Also.QRPC has a signup bonus. Could I get that for each family member even if they're in a family account? If not, would it work to have separate qprc accounts *and* baec accounts in a household, redeem in qrpc, move everything to baec to have it in 'one pool'?

on the whole, alaska is definitely more valuable, but it really depends on the specific flight that you wish to redeem. you dont fly alot, so it will take some time to accumulate the necessary miles in each account, especially if you are thinking about biz class intl flights. furthermore, only selected hotels chains are partners with alaska, so you have to check if they are the ones you usually book with. so while the miles dont expire, there is a risk that program would have devalued by the time you have sufficient points

sorry i correct myself, this is already in effect. you can see the structure here Collecting Avios on flights | Executive Club | British Airways

yes you can get the bonus for each account

Ok, so the qatar flights would still be distance/class based when credited to baec? And if I have a ticket booked via qatar, and credit to baec, the BA marketed and operated ams-lhr leg would count vased on spending? How would they calculate the fare, since it's only one leg? How about the qr/ba codeshare (we have a qr flight number, but a ba-operated flight lhr-doh). A quick look would indicate alaska would definitely give more miles on the distance basis (125% vs 75% for ba/qr)

And for the sign-up bonuses, me and my wife would both sign up with the promo code, and then I add her as a family member? I gather the kid cannot get his own account and has to be added directly to the family group, right? Sorry for all the questions, there's so many variables here...

you may get better answer asking on the baec forum. i maybe wrong, but if your flight number has a ba code, then it is marketed by ba, and avios will be based on the price (probably the price they sold to qr? im not sure). if your flight number ha a qr code, then it is not marketed by ba despite being operated by ba. in this case, it will still be distance based. this is only true for baec and not for qrpc, so i dont think alaska is 125% to qrpc 75%.

you can read the t&cs (i did quick search but couldnt find the t&cs). but logically, they are giving you 5000 miles for signing up and flying with them, so i dont see why they would limit the bonus to 1 per household. in any case, you can always add your wife into the household after the fact. your kid need to be 18 to have his own account

Ok, looks like I'll go the QRPC route then. Thanks for the advice!

Wife and daughter will be flying on Cathay in business class from New Zealand to Europe return. They normally fly star lines and are unlikely to fly much one world again in the future. In other words come up I'm looking for a programme that will let them keep their miles for a long time without them expiring and that may let them redeem the points that they will earn on these flights for at least something so they don't go to waste.

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
miles mot expiring soon
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
At this point only this upcoming flight as mentioned above. This may happen again in the future but it's not certain.
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Business on longer hauls, Eco short haul
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Travel for leisure, so have full freedom
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
New Zealand to Asia and your
(6) What is your home airport?
AKL

I am not aware of any OW ffp that does not expiry of ff miles/avios/points due to inactivity. Expiry varies from 18 to 36 months. Eligible activity to stop expiry can vary between ffp’s. With only random OW random flights earning status is not a consideration.

Qantas ffp may be a option. While the QF ffp is not highly ranked all ffp’s are devaluing.
One very good feature of the QF ffp is the ability to transfer points, at no cost, to eligible family members. So with a few clicks you could have 1 account to look after and stop expiry. That could be your ffp with the 2 family members balances or one of the CX flyers. QF can charge $ to join the fpp, but may ways to join at nil cost. Fliar post in--> Qantas launches bid to snare Air NZ’s Gold members as it pushes hard into Aotearoa

QF classic awards can be high priced in points and cash co-payments. Also have higher priced “classic award plus”, which should be called classic award minus. But many ffp’s are now going to dynamic awards . Airlines worldwide are printing ff miles/avios/points by the gazillion. More are morphing to frequent spender programs.

In NZ JQ Jetstar domestic only flight earn QF points. In AU and trans Tasman only JQ fares with certain bundles earn QF points.

In NZ are few ways to earn QF points, from non flying activities. But more ways in Australia. One simple one is linking QF to BP AU and buy some petrol or store items if in Australia. Only need to do once every 18 months.
Link to QF post ---> QF expiry – non flying activities

QF also has non Oneworld airline ff partners (EK, AF/KLM, LA, MU and others).
Some partner flights to QF ffp are poor earners. Check the details.
QF link ---> https://www.qantas.com/au/en/frequen...ry-tables.html

AA miles expire after 24 months of inactivity. Hotel stays and car rentals can earn AAdvantage miles. More importantly, any redemption of AA miles resets the clock, as does a (free) cancellation of an award and the redeposit of the associated miles.

This might be too outside the box for you, but one idea might be to use round-the-world (RTW) tickets that could cover both your annual travel to Indonesia but also intra-Asia supplemental travel AND your annual intra-Europe trip. It would go like this.

(Note Oneworld's RTW products, mainly the Oneworld Explorer, are the main topic of discussion on this board, so research on your part needn't be too complicated.)

It looks like typical economy fares in mid-summer from AMS to CGK return can run in the €1,200 - €1,500+ range, although you might have access to cheaper fares. An economy class Oneworld LONE3 RTW ticket with travel beginning and ending in the Euro countries has a base price of around €2,100. That would get you up to 16 flights through 3 continents (Europe, Asia, North or South America) over 12 months from the first flight.

However, the same ticket, but with travel beginning and ending in Norway, carries a base price of €1,490. You could probably get from AMS to OSL for way less than the €500 or €600 you'd save on the base ticket. (Note kids under 12 get a 25% discount.)

With that ticket, you could fly to CGK via Doha or Helsinki + Hong Kong, or various other routes served by Oneworld airlines. Visit your people or places in Indonesia, then maybe do a side trip to Japan or Malaysia or wherever, then when it's time to head home, you'd cross the Pacific, maybe to Vancouver, Dallas or San Francisco, then to AMS. You'd still have many months' validity for the ticket, so you could use the ticket for a trip to, say, the UK or Spain, or back to Doha, before ending back in Norway before the 12th month has ended.

Of course, if you wanted to linger in North America, which includes Central America and the Caribbean, you could do that on the way back to Holland. Here's an imaginary map showing a possible "minimal" RTW route:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7a4e006242.png

And here's one that includes places like Vancouver BC, Los Angeles, Miami and Aruba.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2ad1b7baea.png

The point being, with a "master plan" you might be able to leverage considerably more travel out of your out-of-pocket Euros. Maybe worth some research and "what if" speculation.

Hello everyone,

I travel intercontinental business quite often for work and until now have been pretty consistent with SkyTeam - currently Flying Blue gold but will hit platinum by the summer. Used to use Miles & More but the combination of the lackluster Lufthansa business class and the restrictive new status system had me jump ship. I have a reasonable amount of flexibility with choosing my own flights but justifying the SkyTeam route can sometimes be a bit of a stretch - this, plus the fairly disappointing miles redemption rates, has me shopping around to see if any other programmes might make sense. I'm curious to see what you all suggest in terms of OW, thanks!

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
Redemption rates, status for priority services (seat selection, baggage etc). As I usually fly business anyway the lounge access is a little redundant but nice to have when travelling for leisure
(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
>50000 miles, 8-10 intercontinental return trips plus a couple of returns within Europe
(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
Business
(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
Yes, mostly for work
(5) Which routes and airlines do you fly most often?
From Europe mostly to North America (US, Canada, Mexico but also a trip every year or two to AU+NZ with a short stopover in East Asia
(6) What is your home airport?
Milan (LIN+MXP)
(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?
Flying Blue Gold (soon to be Platinum), also Frequent Traveller + some miles banked with Miles and More. Nothing on OW.
(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
No preference, Air France/KLM/Delta until now just for for sake of Flying Blue

This is super helpful, thank you so much!

Fliar , you might be interested in AA's redemption rates starting from New Zealand. Note the special rates for travel between New Zealand and Australia, as well as those for travel wholly within Australia. AA does not collect any carrier surcharges on awards flown on QF metal.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c9455711ee.png

And this seems like a pretty good deal for Business Class from AKL to PER:


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...432c798b88.png

Have AA status but flying JetBlue/alaska tix Qatar metal
 

I could use help thinking through the best options this year for status/mileage redemption option in the future. I currently am AA platinum pro, and often use AA miles domestically in US.

for work I will be flying several long distance international business trips to Asia either on Alaska/jet blue issued tix and Qatar metal. I learned last year that you can no longer earn AA miles/status on either of these tix.

Qatar does not seem to have good domestic redemptions and would not be my long term preference to have status on, but seems better than getting less status on JetBlue and Alaska.

however if I get Qatar one world status this year would I be locked back into earning Qatar miles if I wanted to use my status next year but fly American?

are there any other creative solutions to maximize status but also domestic redemptions.

I would double-check this. I think you can still earn AA miles and receive status benefits on QR-operated flights -- regardless of who issues the ticket -- as long as your AAdvantage number is in the reservation record. However, if the flights are booked with JetBlue codeshare flight numbers, rather than with AS or QR codes, then that's a different story.

From aa.com:

"You can earn AAdvantage® miles when you fly on Alaska Airlines marketed and operated flights and Alaska Airlines codeshare flights operated by Horizon Air or other oneworld® carriers." (Emphasis added.)

I find redeeming AS miles on AA domestically to be a good use of AS miles. Starting this year, you earn EQMs for flying award tickets booked through AS, making it easier to achieve/maintain status.

If you are going to be flying a lot of AA domestic, and booking through Alaska's website, go with AS status.

On AA, as a OWE, you are able to select Comfort Class seats on AA when booking cash or mileage tickets as well.

unfortunately you can’t, fought this for about 6 months last year as I thought so too. It only works for “eligible routes” which was domestic and some Caribbean ones if I remember correctly.

Hmmm. Is AA then being deceptive by claiming that you can earn miles on AS-coded flights operated by oneworld carriers other than AA? Except for a handful of BA Fifth Freedom Caribbean routes, it seems that no other oneworld carriers' flights would qualify.

Might be worth a DOT complaint against AA for "unfair and deceptive practices," to see what AA has to say (and whether AA will modify its language about earning on AS-coded flights).

I can look into this, I kept asking them to change their website last year as I found it very deceptive….

im sure they will argue that it is not deceptive because they stated eligible routes on their website. the problem is i cant find any info on what is an eligible route

Do we have any further information on when the AS takeover of HA will be effective for oneworld mileage accrual purposes?

If the only eligible routes sold with AA codeshares are operated by AA (or AA and BA), then it is arguably deceptive to mention "oneworld carriers," rather than just to specify AA or AA and BA. It's even more deceptive if AA does not define "eligible routes" in a place readily accessible by the traveler.

No. Look in the AS forum. https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...eage-plan-442/
And the OW web site and OW thread--> https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...merged-40.html
From comments in the AS HA threads when AS took over Virgin USA took over a year to merge the ffp's

Pretty cool idea, we do have some friends in the states we could stopover with... Even if we do tend to have access to much cheaper RT to CGKfares (I tend to budget around 8-900 p/p)

Hey everyone! I recently moved to Singapore and expect to be undertaking a bit of travel with work. I’d love to get OWE status if possible and exploring options for which FFP to use to try and get there. Any advice for Asia based travellers would be greatly appreciated!

(1) What is most important to you in a FFP?
OWE status, followed by good award redemption rates

(2) How many miles do you usually fly each year & in what class? How many flights/sectors?
It wildly varies, but when paying cash for flights, usually 1 return business flight long haul (I.e. SIN - LHR) and 2 return business flights short haul (I.e. SIN - HKG)

(3) What types of fares do you usually buy?
I mostly redeem avios for award flights, otherwise go for the cheapest possible options in business class when paying cash

(4) Can you choose your airlines and/or class of service? Do you travel for work and/or pleasure?
I can be flexible, and travel for both work and pleasure an even amount

(5) Which routes do you fly most often?
N/A

(6) What is your home airport?
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?
Royal Jordanian Gold Sparrow (OW Sapphire)

(8) Preferred Airlines? Most common Airlines flown on?
I most often fly either QR or CX (though mostly on award flights)

Are you flying econ or biz for work?

Why not continue with Royal Jordanian (who do not use avois)?
Where do get the avios from? (BA QR IB EI AY ffp's)
What do hope OW Emerald will do for you, over OW Sapphire?

Sorry i should have mentioned, with Royal Jordanian I only got there with a status match. To earn OWE with them I'd be starting from scratch, same as any other FFP.

I get avios primarily through CC spend and occasionally purchasing in sales.

I'd like to aim for OWE for first class lounge access. I expect to be flying OW from SIN, HKG, SYD, DOH which all have great first class lounges.

Based on your paid flying patterns

"It wildly varies, but when paying cash for flights, usually 1 return business flight long haul (I.e. SIN - LHR) and 2 return business flights short haul (I.e. SIN - HKG)"

why would you expect to attain anything beyond oneworld Ruby?

I recognise this alone wouldn't even get me OWS, though ill be taking other (as yet unplanned) flights for both business and pleasure over the coming year. Not knowing qhat they are yet, i haven't included...but do expect to be able to achieve OWE through a fair amount of flying.

Actually, if you were willing to connect in DOH in each direction on your SIN-LHR roundtrip, and credited those flights and your two SIN-HKG roundtrips to Iberia, you would be achingly close to attaining oneworld Sapphire status. But it might be easier to attain OWE status via a different program.

how many of these unplanned flights will be award flights? you may still not be able to achieve OWE because of that. you also need to consider that *A is stronger in asia, and SQ is also with *A, so they maybe a better fit if you wish to take advantage of the relocation to SG and visit asia countries. im assuming you arent from asia originally. OW do have cx and jl, but it will be a non-direct flight outside of hk and japan

If you can handle the constant delays, don't forget about MH. I've used them quite a bit in the last couple of years and find them to be quite decent. I do live in Japan so that's an advantage, but find OW to be just fine in Asia. Aside from maybe needing a connection where *A can get there nonstop, I rarely see any better fares on *A in Asia than OW. One issue though is that MH economy fares mostly don't credit outside of Enrich. But if you're flying business class, then no issues.

it's not about the fares, but the convenience. flights within asia can be quite short, so doesnt make sense to add a lot to the travel time by taking a round about route and a layover. also, flights with a layover is unlikely to have the best timing

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