what ist the best OW FF program to join? I am located in Germany, Europe and I am not member of any of the OW airlines - so sure I am missing something

What would be best program for me to join?

I chose - out of a mood - Finnair Plus. It's somewhat "exotic" and yet fully usable on all OW airlines. I have to admit however that I didn't carefully evaluate all programs prior to chosing one as I don't do much travel on OW.
What I like is that I've got a "real" card and not that paper thing LH gave me as starter kit.

It all depends on your flight pattern like what class you fly and where you fly to. Since you are in Germany then you can choose between British Airways Executive Club, Finnair Plus, American Airlines AAdvantage to name a few.

I personally like AAdvantage since it has a lot of partners and has a zillion promotions to earn more miles, it also has a lot of codeshare partners like Sabena, Swissair, LOT Polish, TAP Portugal in Europe plus all the oneworld carriers.

BA has also a number of partners, so it might be an idea to visit their website or have a look under BA on this board.

This topic is really way too extensive to cover here, so it might be a good idea to do some research into different programs that may fit your needs. A good source for this info is a chart prepared by one of our fellow FT-ers: http://members.home.net/deercroft/oneworldall99.doc
Welcome to Oneworld!

[This message has been edited by Spider (edited 12-29-2000).]

Be sure to compare your ticket purchase patterns with the reward pattern of the programs you're considering. For example, of the two I was realistically able to consider, AA is more generous to passengers on discount economy tickets (which I use when possible) than BA. On BA I would have no status on this point, whereas my 100,000+ miles earned me AA top tier. Someone who generally flies in paid first or business class might prefer BA instead.

If you do much trans-Atlantic flying and are considering BA and/or AA, keep in mind that you do not get any credit in those programs for flying the other on those routes. This does not apply if you are enrolled in any other OW program or flying on any other OW airline.

Not that I want to support the competition, but from a practical point of view since you're based in in Germany, have you considered Lufthansa and Star Alliance? If a choice of non-stops to North America matter to you, that would (sadly) be the way to go.

Spider,
thanks for the chart. I like the AA feature of ever lasting miles. Is it true that AA does not honor flight with DI?

Efrem,
I do support the competition now by flying OW - I am already top-tier at LH

The point is: There are cases when I fly BA, DI, SR and others (mostly inner european flights), and I don't want to miss these miles.

I think best choice should be between AAdvantage (ever lasting miles) and Finnair Plus (all booking classes, partners DI, real card )

For the latest info I would highly recommend that you check AA website under "programs & services" and from there go to "alliances".

BTW, it is also worth mentioning that you can very quickly gain status on AA via challenges. Gold Challenge gives you Gold status for flying 5,000 Q-points and Platinum Challenge gives you Platinum for flying 10,000 Q-points in 3 months time.

I THOUGHT DI WAS STILL GOOD AS BA HASN'T SOLD IT YET, BUT AIR LIBERTE (IJ?) ISN'T AS IT IS NOW OWNED BY SR.

sorry, didn't mean to yell!!

[This message has been edited by lonman (edited 01-04-2001).]

I am also living in Germany and I am member of Finnair Plus. I also have the BA Executive Club Card (that used to be my first choice), but I hate the way they deal with normal economy fares. I'm quite happy with Finnair Plus. They have good reward flights within Europe (for 40000 kms, in Dec I even flew to Lapland and back for 30000 kms, normal cost at least 850 DM), but you can forget the long haul flights (USA 120 000, Far East 150 000). It is also quite easy to get the silver status (60 000 kms in the tracking period), which allows you to go to all the BA lounges in Germany, whenever flying with Finnair or Deutsche BA Flexi Ticket. The only disadvantage is that BA and Deutsche BA still won't give you the points for low booking classes in economy. But for me, that is not a big problem. I just avoid flying BA, and if I fly Deutsche BA, I normally have the Flexi Ticket (BK Class C) anyway. Another good thing about Finnair Plus is that you get kms (but not status points) also from Swissair, Crossair and Sabena.

this is also true with aa. although i think its miles, not kms.

British Airways executive Club will give you miles for all the flights from 1. Feb. The miles for most discounted flights will count only 50 per cent, though. Finnair and LanChile flights work the same way, but there ist no change with other OW carries. Another good news is that your miles never expire.

British Airways executive Club will give you miles for all the flights from 1. Feb. The miles for most discounted flights will count only 50 per cent, though. Finnair and LanChile flights work the same way, but there ist no change with other OW carries. Another good news is that your miles never expire.